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
Hay, stop thinking that AGW is a total farce guys, this Australian “science” magazine says we’re all mentally ill: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3168/id-rather-not-know-psychology-climate-denial?page=0%2C1
Its snowing outside in North Texas as I type this.
Big snow event set for Thursday/Friday as well.
Why isn’t Mr Mann making any statements? He definitely must have something to say?
I would like to here his excuses.
On the gallery, the count-me-in people have won. WUWT may want to organize sensible people’s visits to the science museums, too. 😉
I think that the out people have always been ahead by a big amount – like those 5000 votes now – but they were twisting the numbers, trying to encourage new voters to join the majority or almost majority of the concerned ones.
It didn’t work this time so they just decided to publish the genuine numbers at the end (in an almost invisible font color).
“More work needs to be done to convince people” – that CO2 presents no threat to the planet…
Icarus,
“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.”
And Lord Kelvin predicted that there is nothing new to be learnt from physics – only more and more precise methods.
Come on Icarus, you can do better than that.
Look at this. It takes the Russian Media in Britain to report what the BBC and SKY won’t.
http://playpolitical.typepad.com/uk_conservative/2009/12/peter-lilley-accuses-climate-change-scientists-of-unconscious-conspiracy.html
At Engineering school we used to joke about the equivocations of the Law students with the phrase “I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of that FACT.”
Good on Old Rapley for putting a new spin on the joke with: “a large proportion of people do not believe in the REALITY of man-made climate change.”
If the good folks of England Scotland & Wales have some problems with their perceptions of REALITY, I modestly propose (h/t to J. Swift) that the monies now spent on the Science Museum should be redirected to providing the people of Britain with, in the old saw, “testicles, spectacles, wallet & watch”
Especially the testicles bit.
OT
Is there any possibility of releasing ‘Hide the Decline’ as part of a full blown CD or DVD music ‘rejectionist’ compilation? I’m certain it would top the charts all around the world! I’d love to see the BBC forced to feature it in its Sunday chart countdown programme.
Icarus – in any case even Arrhenius, were he around today, might concede that science had advanced somewhat in the last century, the efforts of messrs Jones/Mann et al notwithstanding?
I took a look at the page entitled
How do we know humans are responsible?
==========================
To see what evidence was presented.
Here it is … Drum Roll… Da Da
“The climate change we are experiencing cannot be explained by natural causes. It is only when we allow for increases in temperature caused by human greenhouse gas emissions that the current warming can be explained.”
Yes that is it. Surely there is more!!!
Link is here
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/proveit/evidence/science/human_activity.aspx
Bishop Hill has an interesting report related to Prof. Christopher Rapley and Prof. Phil Jones
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/27/the-royal-society-and-global-warming.html
The Royal Society maintains an ‘informal group’ of scientists called the Climate Change Advisory Network, to provide them with ‘advice on climate related issues’. Rapley and Jones sit on this committee among others. This fact alone most definitely disqualifies the Royal Society from independently reporting on the CRU AGW alleged fraudulencies.
The deeper you dig, the stinkier this gets…
Stacey (01:45:30) :
Please, Please don’t spin this with the highlight pen:-
Including the gallery votes:-
Total Counted in approx 6000
Total Counted out approx 8300.
It does not need spinning?
Obviously the gallery would be visited by countless school children group visits to the museum.
The experiment shows very clearly how propaganda and brainwashing is highly effective on the young minds. That is where the thought police have an opportunity to get in early and set the opinions of the future generations.
3408 (mostly school age frightened children with thoughts or drowning pets) voted “count me in” versus 626 who voted out….a landslide victory for AGW propaganda. Now if ONLY the museum can get these children to take a stand and attack their parents and grand parents then the “convincing” will have been done.
In Germany in the 30’s, the youth camps proved extremely effective at getting the message across, very soon the country was stepping in time to the tune of a new belief system.
Just before Copenhagen count in will “conveniently” surpass count out. Just wait and see.
that site is a joke, “we’ve studied the evidence and climate change is human induced and requires urgent action”. i just gave em’ a bit of “evidence”, let’s see how they like evidence that doesn’t mesh with their “Humans are bad” theory on global climate change. hahaha climate change… that term still makes me shake my head, of course it changes, always has, always will, with or without us.
Robinson,
Let me ask you this. If Cameron was to hold a referendum on the EU constitution, which when he originally agreed, he said he would campaign for a NO vote, what do you think he would then do if he got his NO, vote? The treaty has now been ratified. It cannot be un-ratified by a veto from any member state. He would be in an impossible situation, which would make a mockery of the whole exercise.
If you think Britain should leave the EU, then by all means campaign for UKIP. But consider this. If Britain did leave the EU, the tariffs that would be erected against this country would be swift, brutal and crippling, for such is the spiteful mindset of these bureaucrats.
Are you an inny or an outty! I’m an outty!
Ostrichgate?
Is the Ostrichgate a still bigger scandal than the Climategate?
Normally when there is a juicy scandal, the Mainstream media are on the spot like sharks after blood. The media blackout is a sign of heavy ideological involvement on their part (if it was not obvious).
The minimalist observation is that we have no serious journalism in the media.
A more serious claim is the identification of the media with the Marxists, which are desperate for a looming disaster as an excuse for expanding govenrment involvement.
At first sight one would expect a collective sigh of relief when it becomes clear that we are not to perish in a hellish nightmare after all. But not so.
Are there any non-Marxist psychiatrists or psychologists anymore to examine the journalistic head out there?
Check your firewall; I JUST did a Google search and the TOP hit was the Youtube video … I clicked on the link and it’s PLAYING on my PC now.
301, 391 hits BTW.
.
.
.
This man is not a scientist and should not be “Professor of Climate Science” at any institution, even a mental one, nor a kindergarden.
He is advocating a set of facts for which he not only has no proof, but which his job should be to investigate. He is part of the problem, the Team.
I have just sent the following mail to the good Professor Rapley :
=================================================
The statement that had been issued following the “prove it” action is misleading and most importantly it misrepresents the position of many people having participated on this action me included .
Indeed I have also voted “Count me out” .
As I am a scientist (active in quantum mechanics) I also have my scientific reasons to “count me out” and am convinced that many others do so too .
Therefore the right statement that thruthfully translates this position is that “A large proportion of people do not believe the THEORY of man made climate change .”
While there is and will always trivially be a climate change , there are sofar no compelling experimental or theoretical reasons for a human origin of climate changes in general and during the 20th century in particular . There is most definitely no evidence for a CATASTROPHIC man-made climate change .
To be frank most of the statements in the “Evidence” section like f.ex
“Roads and railways might need to be designed with materials that can withstand extreme heat and downpours.”
are sofar from any science that one can only count oneself out .
I am not informed that we use in Singapour special materials to withstand extreme heat and downpours that constitute the local climate – it is standard building technology that is also used in places with cold weather and no precipitations .
This is only an example , most statements are of similar nature – unfounded speculations , assumptions and no experimental evidence .
If I wanted to inform you about this misrepresentation it is because the way you formulated the report implies that a large majority of people refuses the reality .
In clinical terms it means that a large majority of people are crazy because the reality is there for every sane person to see even without advanced scientific education .
I would like to assure you that no “count me out” person , me included , is crazy .
Yours sincerely
It’s snowing here in Texas this morning. I’ve not seen snow in this area in December in a long time, and I’ve been here for over 30 years. Perhaps I should send this news to the folks at the Science Museum. They are actually the ones who need educating, anyway!
Steve in SC (05:27:56) :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???
——————
A Front Bencher is a a government MP who has a senior position eg Minister for Transport. Back Benchers have no such position. In theory the latter can be more independent, but those who aspire to the Front Bench are unlikely to rock the boat – others can be brow-beaten or blackmailed by the Whips (seriously!) into voting the “right” way.
Shadow Front and Back Benchers are the equivalents in the “opposition” parties.
All the above are so named because they sit on the front or back benches of their side of the House of Commons.
At the moment we have a particularly corrupt, brain-dead, gutless bunch of conformists in parliament with little to chose between the two main parties.
To outside sceptics it might seem like a good thing that the leader of the BNP – a minor party – is a sceptic. Strategically though it isn’t. The BNP are widely regarded as politically beyond the pale. Griffin’s scepticism, especially as he is the only leader of a political party here who isn’t a warmist, will be used to portray sceptics as aligned with fascists. Believe me, in the UK that can only hurt
“Plato Says (04:02:04) :
I used to love the Science Museum and was desperately disappointed by the complete dumbing down when I went there again last year.
It was crammed with ‘interactive displays’ designed for 8yr olds – the Prove It! campaign is just another depressing manifestation of its slide towards the scientific equivalent of daytime TV.”
I quite agree, that’s why I asked my question at the beginning of this thread. I doubt if they will be tearing out any “interactive displays” to make room for the new gallery, so what will have to go?
This general dumbing down of museums to cater for what out-of-touch adults imagine is what eight-to-ten year olds are supposed to want is happening everywhere. The worst of all is the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris.
When I think how much I used to love mooching around museums as a boy in the late Forties an early Fifties, I am dismayed by what they have now become. The museum in England where I have recently seen kids at their happiest is the Pitt-Rivers at Oxford – a good old-fashioned junk-yard-museum – very politically incorrect too.
” Michael R (05:35:12) :………………………………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…………….”
I’d join you if they also showed conclusively it was going to be something bad, where the adverse affects would be felt and what the impact would be and timing and costs needed for specific adaptations. Not some high cost, lowest common denominator, general, one solution fits all approach at the expense of human progress.