Today (1 December 2009) Professor Chris Rapley CBE, Director of the Science Museum and Professor of Climate Science at UCL said:
“More work needs to be done to convince people of the reality of human-induced climate change and of the urgency with which we must agree an international solution. Public organisations, like the Science Museum, have a responsibility to lay out the evidence and open up public discussion.”
He added:
“Over the past month the Science Museum has provided a channel for people to engage with the scientific evidence for climate change through a temporary exhibit and accompanying website called ‘Prove It!’. There is currently plenty of debate around climate change research and I believe it is important for the Science Museum to provide a means for people to engage with the issues. Prove It! has created a space for visitors, to the Museum and website, to consider the scientific evidence, come to their own conclusions and express their opinion. The indications from Prove It! are consistent with a recent Pew Centre survey and a 2007 Ipsos Mori poll: a large proportion of people do not believe in the reality of man-made climate change.
Furthermore, Professor Rapley said:
“The Science Museum is uniquely placed to engage with people about climate change, facilitating discussion and decision making based on evidence. I look forward to launching a new dedicated climate change gallery next June as the culmination of our Centenary year.”
The statement was made to coincide with the revealing of the results of a poll carried out by the Science Museum to tie in with the Prove It! project. The poll suggested that a significant number of people are not convinced by the evidence for man-made climate change so do not support strong action by the UK government at the forthcoming Copenhagen conference.
Prove It! remains open until January 2010 and is free to visit.
For further information please contact Andrew Marcus, Science Museum Press Office, on 020 7942 4357 / andrew.marcus@sciencemuseum.org.uk
“The indications from Prove It! are consistent with a recent Pew Centre survey and a 2007 Ipsos Mori poll: a large proportion of people do not believe in the reality of man-made climate change.”
This is more shysterism from pollsters. They can make this claim because of the way they word questions. If you had a discussion with the same people polled, and you asked “Do you believe that deforestation at the base of Kilamanjaro, which has significantly altered the humidity/winds, etc around the mountain have had an impact on the climate there?” Most people would say sure. If you asked them if they thought the 4-5deg change in temperature inside most major cities compared to surround, unpopulated areas was caused by man, again…sure.
What most people AREN’T sold on is C02’s role in any of this.
JimB
This may not mean much to non-UK residents, but those who remember the Liberty & Livelihood countryside march should know where it comes from:
“…7612 counted out,” and I was one of them!
Icarus (04:13:11) :
indeed but Angstrom put his theories to the test by putting as much c02 as could be found in dehumidified air, doubling and halving the amount then measuring the radiation – which didn’t change on doubling or halving, so leading him to conclude that c02 was not to be considered too have an atmospheric warming effect. He then put water vapout into the experiment and concluded that vapour was over 99% of the *greenhouse* effect.
This experiment is can easily be replicated
Icarus (04:13:11),
Please don’t link to Spencer Weart. His biased opinion might fly on a BBC show, but not here.
Weart only cited Arrhenius’ 1896 paper, which used a very high sensitivity number, leading Arrhenius to conclude that reducing atmospheric CO2 by 50% would cause a 4 – 5° drop in temperature [today’s alarmist contingent turns Arrhenius’ scenario around, and disregarding the log effect, concludes that doubling of CO2 would cause a 4 – 5° rise in temperature; of course that nonsense is currently being falsified by the planet itself].
Spencer Weart neglects to mention the fact that on thinking about his 1896 paper for ten years, Arrhenius recanted it in a new paper in 1906. His new sensitivity number was only slightly higher than Prof Lindzen’s.
To leave out the second half of the story means either Weart is not very educated, or he’s pushing an agenda. In either case, I’m glad you had the opportunity to learn something here.
Chris Wright (03:24:21) : “I’ll be voting UKIP, which also happens to be the most sceptical UK party on climate change.” Are you sure? Have you not seen the speeches by Nick Griffin (BNP) in the European Parliament? You might not like some of the policies of the BNP, but I don’t think it gets more anti-AGW than their climate change position. As Griffin sits on the Environment Committee he gets to go to Copenhagen to represent the European Parliament – and he will be taking a very strong line against this climate change caper. Griffin says
“The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology.”
“But the heretics will have a voice in Copenhagen and the truth will out. Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao.”
See here for his recent speech in the European Parliament:
Anthony,
Several of the comments here reflect uncertainty about the course of the poll. I think a better post-poll image for the top of your post would be the graphic WUWT reader Dave produced using my automatically collected data. Both are available at http://wermenh.com/proveitraw.html , the graph’s first home is at proveit.isgreat.org/ . (I’m having trouble posting, I left the http prefix off.
Dave has added a gold winners cup, very cute.
The image clearly shows three or four surges in polling, including the WUWT surge, mid course adjustments, to date unexplained, and a short suspension in vote counting after the last surges started.
Speaking of surges, hit counts for my proveit.html page were:
Nov 28: 58
Nov 29: 1146
Nov 30: 955
Dec 01: 223
For that source, the day is 0000-2400 MST (UTC-0700)
-Ric Werme
Google who owns YouTube has shutdown the most linked video “Hide The Decline” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk
If you click on it you will get an error message.
SHAME on you Google !
Whilst there are other copies, most web sites link to this one.
The counter on it has stopped at about 300,000
On the odd counts people are noting:
These are all covered at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/uk-prove-it-poll-still-taking-votes/ . I sent a request to Andrew Marcus asking for clarification, but haven’t received a reply this London AM. When I get something I’ll paraphrase the response here and update my proveit pages.
Once people know it is OK to recognize that the Emperor has no clothes, it all comes together pretty quickly.
Will,
Google has been co-opted at its executive level by Gore. He is a highly paid executive adviser.
I am certain he is working even now through his back channel access to many co-opted board rooms, to find ways to push back against climate gate.
The look on his face at the book signing gone bad was not amused. How dare the proles resist the (self)anointed one?
“Public organisations, like the Science Museum, have a responsibility to lay out the evidence and open up public discussion.”
Let me give you the benefit of my experience at trying to have an open and objective discussion on this subject …
Me: “I think the case for MMGW has not been made because [enter reasonable concern]”
Reply: “THEN YOU ARE AN IGNORANT FOOL AND A DENIER. NEVER FORGET TOBACCO. WHO IS FUNDING YOU TO LIE? YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO HAVE AN OPINION!”
So, if there is a communication problem here, you know where to start.
I wanted to send my question about the poll totals to both Mr. Marcus and Prof. Rapley.
I wasn’t able to find an official Museum Email address for Prof. Rapley, but did follow web threads about him.
I’m not sure how much time he spends at UCL, but his still has a web presense (and Email), see http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_phd/chris.html which says:
I was surprised to see what a warmist he has become, I now think some of the exhortations at the Museum come directly from his bidding. Other links:
http://www.iop.org/activity/careers/workinglife/profiles/page_33382.html
A 2008 interview with the Institute of Physics which sheds a little light on his transition from physicist to communicator.
http://www.culture24.org.uk/science+%2526+nature/medicine/art56114
Another interview, sigh:
“Hide the Decline” link works for now.
Will (04:54:32) :
It works for me. There is an update from M4GW just 10 minutes ago:
I used the JibJab eCard generator to put Michael Mann’s head into these animations. JibJab wanted the disclaimer put on here because people were contacting them thinking this whole thing was their creation.
My guess is that you got caught up in that update and lept to an erroneous conclusion.
Yes, but for a variety of other reasons, voting in a far-right party, although a poke in the eye for the establishment, cannot reasonably be done with a clear conscience.
This is part of the problem of representation voters have to contend with in a first-past-the-post system like the UK’s. A vote for UKIP is a vote against the Conservatives and a vote for the BNP is a vote against Labour. What I mean is the kind of person likely to vote for UKIP is the kind of person who would have voted Conservative if he didn’t object strongly to some aspect of their policy. For the BNP, mostly white working class men do the voting, hence it’s a vote away from Labour.
As I wrote to my MP, I’m greatly interested in the policies of UKIP given the Conservative party line on “global warming”; it’s likely I will be actively campaigning for them at the next general election.
Let’s not get too carried away, the warmista BlitzKreig carries on regardless of trivial detail such as Science or Truth!
After hours on non reporting on the Australian vote the flagship BBC News channel, BBC 24, finally broke the Australian ETS vote story shortly before Prime Ministers Questions in Parliament.
Such belated reporting clearly indicates that this type of AGW event is red-flagged and too important for simple News Editors to handle!
This story clearly needed the Big Guns at the BBC to manufacture a spin that would “hide the decline” in acceptance of the consensus orthodoxy.
The result of this spinning was to introduce the phrase “Climate Sceptics And Deniers”
Gutter Press. Despicable control freaks, you disgust me!
After this piece that would disgrace the tabloids, we were transported to Westminster.
Its irrelevance to practical politics was demonstrated from the start by behaviour that would be unnaceptable in the St Trinians school canteen.
Once the speaker had wrested control from our elected hooligans, the questions resumed. On ClimateGate what did we get? Nothing. On Oz ETS? Nothing. On Carbonhaven?
I counted three feeble questions that served only to allow our Dear Leader to pick up the script.
The Science is not in doubt (he’s right there but 180 degrees out)
Low Carbon economy (millions of unemployed)
£100 billion by 2020 to help the developing world to fight Climate Change. (and earning the thanks of despotic regimes) Blah, blah, blah.
And don’t get me started on the opposition parties.
The war is nowhere near won.
John Moss (01:33:03) :
Hmmm, something odd here.
I looked at this a couple of days ago and it was 6k count me in and 8k count me out.
Given the numbers now you might conclude that the museum thinks a lot more ‘inners’ were cheating than ‘outers’.
The Climate change industry is very keen to show the consequences of Global warming but not so about the consequences of their proposed solutions.
The public have to be shown what a 20-80% reduction in carbon use would actualy mean to the guy on the street: No car, no holidays abroad, a very restricted diet, job losses, higher taxes and no cheap goods in the shop, in fact not many goods in the shop at all.
Sounds like the USSR?
You bet.
In other news, an additional exhibit to complement the global warming display is being developed by the museum to provide the public with evidence for the existence of the Luminiferous Ether:
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Ether.html
A new “Prove It!” web site will also be launched to allow the public to voice their opinion on the ether.
“I’ve seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they’re serious about the luminiferous ether!”
A bit OT here, but could someone please inform the uninitiated (non brits, namely me) what the difference between front benchers and back benchers is???
” Icarus (04:13:11) :
Brian Johnson uk (02:31:56):
All Global Warming predictions are based on totally inaccurate Computer Models.
That’s not true. I’m quite sure that people in the 19th Century didn’t have computer models and that is when the greenhouse effect was discovered. Arrhenius predicted that doubling or halving CO2 would bring something like a 4°C rise or fall of surface temperature, and that was around 1900.
Here, have a read of this:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
”
What the poster you just tried to rebut said, and is correct, is that global warming is created in simulations only. If you read the history of CO2 and indeed it is contained in that post you linked, the hypothesis that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect was as a result of laboratory tests in using perfect conditions to measure a direct effect.
In other words, the hypothesis was created that a similar situation may happen in the atmosphere. The atmosphere however is not even remotely the same situation as real world, and as the first poster said, there is still – to date – no direct evidence that CO2 actually increases temperature in a real world situation. If you believe there are then you are smarter than the likes of Prof Jones and Manna and Briffa and the other scientists that are under investigation.
Why? Because even these scientists, and the basis of the IPCC report, relies on two things to prove CO2 causes warming – that the warming experienced over the last century was not natural or explainable by natural forcings and that the only “unquantified” ingredient (in other words when all other known factors are eliminated) the variable left must be CO2.
To make AGW’s case even worse is that even the top climate scientists agree that a doubling or tripling of Atmospheric CO2 will actually have little effect on climate. What causes the problem is how sensitive the CO2 is to other natural factors. In other words will CO2 increase/decrease cloud cover. Will it cause a feedback loop in temperature absorbption. Will tipping points be reached where the warming take on a life of its own etc etc.
The models that predict catastrophic climate change rely on guesses of levels of forcings.
Ultimately and put simply, the case for AGW relies solely on the models and in the hopes that the models can predict and account for the temperature changes. The very fact that there is this website is testiment to the fact that there are no direct evidence results showing what effect CO2 has. If there were I can garuntee you that this site would be far less popular. In fact, if the scientists could show conslusively that we are causing man made climate change then I will be the first person to jump on the band wagen and lobby senators to implement changes to combat it. Unfortunately, much as some scientists feel it is “incontrovertable”, no scientists has yet to determine the exact effect of increased CO2 on the atmosphere and when you consider that the CO2 levels in the past have been 10 times higher and there not been catastrophic warming – I am more inclined to err on the side of it not having a huge effect until someone can show otherwise.
John Hulbert
It is possible that Mr Delingpole’s highlighting of the poll on his blog helped to boost the vote – nevertheless, it was more anti than pro before Climategate and he stuck his oar in.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018299/climategate-science-museums-green-propaganda-backfires/
Ric Werme (05:14:53)
Try this link. It leads all the way back to the UEA cabal and Al Gore. A sort of Prove It! smoking gun. Impartiality was never going to be a factor.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/People/Honorary+Staff/Christopher+Rapley
Steve in SC
Frontbencher is someone in the Cabinet or the Shadow Cabinet, a backbencher is a common or garden Member of Parliament.
Since 2000, temperatures have not risen at all. Most people intuitively understand that a rise of zero degrees per decade is not consistent with a rise of five degrees per century. England had a very cold winter last year after several cold summers. Brainwashing only goes so far.
@William Hickman
” Will (04:54:32) :
Google who owns YouTube has shutdown the most linked video “Hide The Decline” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk
If you click on it you will get an error message.”
That link works fine for me at least.
REPLY: Works for me too. 302,000 views so far. – Anthony