Remember this post before the heady days of Climategate?
And then what happens? Another online poll that might go horribly wrong
Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibition
Ben Webster, Environment Editor
The Science Museum is revising the contents of its new climate science gallery to reflect the wave of scepticism that has engulfed the issue in recent months.
The decision by the 100-year-old London museum reveals how deeply scientific institutions have been shaken by the public’s reaction to revelations of malpractice by climate scientists.
The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.
Even the title of the £4 million gallery has been changed to reflect the museum’s more circumspect approach. The museum had intended to call it the Climate Change Gallery, but has decided to change this to Climate Science Gallery to avoid being accused of presuming that emissions would change the temperature.
Last October the museum launched a temporary exhibition called “Prove It! All the evidence you need to believe in climate change”. The museum said at the time that the exhibition had been designed to demonstrate “through scientific evidence that climate change is real and requires an urgent solution”.
Chris Rapley, the museum’s director, told The Times that it was taking a different approach after observing how the climate debate had been affected by leaked e-mails and overstatements of the dangers of global warming. He said: “We have come to realise, given the way this subject has become so polarised over the past three to four months, that we need to be respectful and welcoming of all views on it.”
Professor Rapley, a climate scientist and former director of the British Antarctic Survey research centre, said that the museum needed to remain neutral in order to be trusted: “The Science Museum will not state a position on whether or not climate change is real, driven by humans or threatening.”
…
Professor Rapley declined to give his own views on climate change, saying that they were not relevant. However, in 2007 he said: “The more greenhouse gases we add, the warmer we’ll be. It’s not rocket science.”
======================
Oh but it is. Note the continued existence of NASA GISS, which would be but a footnote if they didn’t apply “rocket science” and some stagecraft to it back in 1988.
And it is a big abut face compared to when we last heard from Professor Rapley via this WUWT post:
Science Museum Prove It! poll now closed – surprising results
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.”
======================
Read the complete story here at the Times: Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibition
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The raw data is available graphically, thank you David, at http://proveit.isgreat.org/
“The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.”
“legitimate doubts”
I’m thinking being a “legitimate doubter” is much better than “denier” or even “skeptic”.
Thank you, Anthony! All I can say is “WOW!”
I think the past season’s snow, from Scotland to Devon, had a lot to do with the recent skepticism of the Brits…This picture still blows me away:
http://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/000927.shtml
Museum visits to the global warming exhibit were down this winter because of all the cold and snow.
They must have been absolutely overwhelmed with negative responses.
It is so un AGW of them to change the company line even a little bit.
Still their exhibit probably belongs with the alchemists for all its credibility.
I missed the original data adjustment post, but wow!
Good to see a leading institution at least paying lip service to all views rather than peddling the MSM one.
Score one for reason and common sense! A Science Museun, or a school for that matter, should be a place for education – not a place for terrorizing children with overstated politically motivated pseudoscience. Let the grown-ups debate that stuff, leave the kids alone!
Are these the final numbers for the ProveIt survey? The numbers alone must have given any non-fanatic pause for thought.
I sent the Science Museum my two cents worth some months ago. I am pleased they listened.
Worth bringing up again…
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/further_questions_about_the_prov
Congratulations and heartfelt thank yous to Mr. Watts, Mr. McIntyre, and the other auditors for all your years of effort, and to all the others who write and question with open, inquisitive minds!
Hopefully instead of directing monies toward the senseless purchasing of carbon credits that will only enrich those who have established the carbon exchanges, we will direct our efforts toward what is worthwhile and achievable: cleansing the waterways, especially the oceans of plastic and the rivers of Asia of toxins; preserving biodiversity to ensure scientists have the opportunity to study the genes Nature has been assembling for billions of years; and to preserving habitat so future generations can marvel at the greatness of planet Earth.
Time to move beyond a concern for carbon dioxide and time to establish an eco-sensible approach to environmental husbandry.
Three cheers, “Huzzah!” The myth is fading and will soon be nothing more than a nearly forgotten frightful fairy tale.
I’m all for The Lorax, I understand acid rain and the ozone hole, no-one is for another Love Canal, and I also understand that carbon dioxide poses no threat; the issues are separate and the greenies should stop packaging them together.
Huzzah!
“…we need to be respectful and welcoming of all views on [global warming].”
No kidding.
And here I am, still worrying about being forced to take psychotropic medication to treat my climate denial disorder. (See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/23/brains-brains/
“Chris Rapley, the museum’s director, told The Times that it was taking a different approach after observing how the climate debate had been affected by leaked e-mails and overstatements of the dangers of global warming. He said: “We have come to realise, given the way this subject has become so polarised over the past three to four months, that we need to be respectful and welcoming of all views on it.”
Leaked e-mails, not hacked, released or stolen? Interesting change in attitude there.
“Professor Rapley declined to give his own views on climate change, saying that they were not relevant. However, in 2007 he said: “The more greenhouse gases we add, the warmer we’ll be. It’s not rocket science.”
Then why do we need to pay rocket scientist money to these “climatologists”? I want my taxes back if it’s that simple.
That’s a good thing you did for the UK, Anthony.
But there’s another poll – a more important one – one that counts – that is underway here, closer to home.
We can put California to a straight up or down vote on AB 32 if the suspend AB 32 ballot initiative gets 400K registered voter signatures in the next two weeks.
How about helping your neighbors out a little, buddy?
Hopefully this change will trigger reviews of other climate exhibits in public facilities. The Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s “Feeling the Heat” exhibit, at the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, California, has a major posting near the entrance which states:
“EVIDENCE IS EVERYWHERE: The most visible impact of global warming is the world’s ice. Most of the world’s ancient glaciers are swiftly shrinking and may be gone within decades. Arctic ice is declining at a rapid pace. At the other end of the globe, ancient ice sheets on the Antarctic peninsula are disintegrating. While these changes have serious local consequences, they will be felt globally too.”
If anyone has any spare global warming, please send it Colorado.
”””’ Anthony: First line in your post, you said, ‘Remember this post before the heady days of Climategate?’ ”””””
Anthony,
Actually, I do remember those heady days before Climategate. Hopeful is the spirit I remember.
I still remain hopeful.
And Anthony, I sincerely, hope that you remain hopeful too.
Best wishes.
John
climategate is hotting up, and there’s a desperation by the CO2 Bubble crowd, so let’s spread info far and wide ASAP:
someone posted this on a previous thread:
Aloha Analytics: Details of Climate Bill in U.S. Senate Trickle Out
Sen. Lieberman explained…the first draft of the planned bill, to be written during Congress’s two-week recess that begins on March 29. Sen. Kerry reinforced the group’s accelerated timetable, saying, “we have some really key meetings in the next few days . . . we have a lot of work to do in the next 48 hours.”…
http://alohaanalytics.blogspot.com/2010/03/details-of-climate-bill-trickle-out.html
24 March: WSJ: Europe’s Cap-and-Trade Lesson
Market-based environmentalism, or a boondoggle?
Having at last fixed America’s health-care system once and for all—or maybe not—Congressional Democrats are promising to apply themselves to the task of imposing legislative curbs on carbon. So it’s a good time to see how a prototype cap-and-trade scheme, the European Union’s Emission Trading System, is faring. So far, not so good…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704896104575139673240771564.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
papertiger (20:12:25) said:
Sigh, I am not a citizen, and thus not a registered voter, so I can’t sign. Still, I know people who will likely sign.
Some one has to be commissioned by WUWT with a wad of donated carbon credits at .10p a ton, 3x send-a-mate-a-pint tokens, and 2x get-out-of-jail cards, to hot foot it down there…..and report, w/photos, what exactly is the carnival grade candy-flossed dross they are trying to sell to the poor innocents and (mostly) the kids. Any takers………
Funds could be raised by doing a Nashville style 24hr ‘share-a-thong!’
Patchy Morals could be our first customer
We are about to be snowed under when the whitehouse gets it’s rear end in gear to deal with ‘the climate’. Even the crew at WUWT won’t be able to shovel fast enough from all the BS. 2010 is going to the battle of the planet
Good except for one thing: the name change!
I rather liked “Prove It!” — I thought it was quite apt, and reflected my sentiments about the subject quite well. It would have condensed well the thoughts of the majority side in their ill-conceived poll.
“Climate Science Gallery” is so ho-hum. Right, let’s all go and spend the afternoon learning about convective heat transfer and cloud cover. Remember kids: high cloud, low albedo, low cloud high IR absorption. Yay! If they must go there, how about “ClimateGate Gallery”. I’d love to see that on display, with regular updates on bad science and bad behavior from around the world. They want provocative? There’s provocative, and relevant! Science education in action!
Ric Werme deserves a lot of credit for his monitoring of this poll. Credit also goes to a Lurker/hacker calling himself “Lihard” who was the first to hack the poll to show its absurdity. After giving the rest of us the opportunity to beat up on him and declare our moral superiority, he “repented” and made a parallel monitor to Ric’s. The poll was hacked two or three times afterwards and “revised” by the museum twice. It was a farce, even by on-line standards, but the skeptics “won”.
Expect the Empire to strike back.
[REPLY – With all due respect, hacking the poll was a terrible thing, regardless of whether it was to “demonstrate absurdity”. It made us look bad, plain and simple. And winning means nothing unless it’s played straight. Nothing! Victories built on cheating are built on sand. As the hockey team is learning — the hard way. ~ Evan]
Maybe the EPA can learn something from this.
“They also revealed discussion about NASA’s data being less reliable than — and indeed reliant upon — the non-existent Climategate temperature history from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU).”
http://tinyurl.com/ycf7fjm
To hear the latest refrain from those poor, poor, beseiged climate scientists, all they need to do is to better their communication skills.
Right.
Here’s a really shocking suggestion. Forget your communication skills and work on your science skills — start by going back to the drawing board and starting from square one.
Thanks to Climategate, all has been quiet on the Canadian front. I haven’t heard a media-supported alarmist peep from Suzuki in months.
Allen (21:26:36) : SHHHHH !!!! Don’t jinx it !!
I am loathe to believe we have heard the last from the Suzukies and Gores of the world. It is nice to see the pressure of having to maintain the AGW stance is being lifted off the average person. Brother, can you paradigm? Thought I’d bring out that little gem for old time sake.
Climategate was our Battle of Moscow. But there are undoubtedly Stalingrads and Kursks ahead. And those can go either way.
Obama will wait until summer to start with the climate again. It was remarkably stupid politics to get caught in a snowstorm in Copenhagen.
Look for hearings during hot days in Washington (if they have any this summer.)
It was not Anthony! It was my kids throwing snowballs at the exhibition signs for two months 😉
Congratulations, Anthony. I agree that WUWT was the key for the museum to get somewhat more realistic and human.
Robert E. Phelan (21:08:27) :
[REPLY – With all due respect, hacking the poll was a terrible thing, regardless of whether it was to “demonstrate absurdity”. It made us look bad, plain and simple. And winning means nothing unless it’s played straight. Nothing! Victories built on cheating are built on sand. As the hockey team is learning — the hard way. ~ Evan]
Evan, you know I am not praising the hacking. You and I are very much agreed on that. If your e-mail to the museum announcing the compromise was first, mine was no more than say, forty-third? Lihard did, however, come to a kind of repentance and found a more ethical way to demonstrate concern. Hopefully, it will be a lesson through life and passed on. I’d like to think that you and I were a road to Dasmascus moment for a bright and sincere soul.
[REPLY – Yes, of course. We are, that. I don’t know if my email was the first, though I did contact them. I do think we can win this one, but I also think we have to be very careful. Sometimes fighting fire with fire is less effective than fighting it with water. (I concede this goes against the grain and many disagree with me.) ~ Evan]
Steve Goddard (22:35:00) :
“Look for hearings during hot days in Washington (if they have any this summer.)”
Maybe Boxer or Jackson will faint for the cameras.
Anyone read The Economist’s “story” on AGW this week? What a bunch of back-filling a very weak and failing justification. And BTW, AGW is no longer a hypothesis, it is a ‘theory’. Garbage in, garbage out.
This is a very bad thing, and has the earmark of being a step within a larger plan.
The climate appears to be getting warmer; neither the Hudson not the Thames regularly freezes these days as they did in the 1700s. LIA recovery, natural variation, etc. doesn’t matter, it’s warmer now than it had been. Meanwhile every living thing affects the environment it lives in; elephant herds are known to denude large swaths of land. You can scarcely go to a beach and not find some evidence of humanity. Surely we must be able to have some effect on the air? We affect everything else.
The point is that there’s a vast difference between acknowledgement of what ought to be obvious and the screeching that cars or electricity is evil. It’s one thing to back off the screeching. It’s quite another to offer to go steady with the opposite side. Something is very wrong. Cheer not.
What I fear is happening is that this will be used as evidence for governments to turn the spin machine up to 11 and/or as the excuse to bypass the common man entirely so as to implement policy changes that will make what’s been proposed to date look like a Sunday stroll.
(And just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to get me.)
If climate science isn’t “rocket science” then why the heavy involvement of the National Aeronautics and Space administration and the Jet Propulsion :Laboratory? Apparently, he meant that it wasn’t rocket science in that it is unfalsifiable, unverifiable and fundamentally unscientific.
“The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.”
They lie.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/wineCO2/
“CO2 emissions from human activities are the main reason the Earth’s climate is warming. Many governments are now trying to reduce CO2 emissions by burning less fossil fuel. “
I took part in the Poll and at the comment form asked for the museum to tell me where the evidence for AGW was to be found. I specifically asked them not to refer me to the IPCC reports as the evidence was not to be found there.
Of course the response from Rapley included lnks to the IPCC reports and the standard argument from ignorance “these records show that the temperature change recorded can only be explained when human greenhouse gas emissions are taken into account”. The response did not address all my comments.
I communicated further with them, but received no subsequent response.
My conclusion was that they were just repeating the usual story that they get from some official “response briefing” and are incapable of going beyond that.
======================
Quote of the year!
I got an email from 10 Downing street yesterday (no, I’m not that important, merely a mass email to the e-petition demanding a proper enquiry into the CRU issue). That shows that the UK politicians still heartily think climate science demonstrates global warming.
Time will tell, I guess……….
I.e., “rocket science” (understanding complex feedbacks on the earth’s thermostat) is needed to understand the climate, as Willis explained here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/27/the-unbearable-complexity-of-climate-2/
Rhys,
I got one of those as well.
I think it took a lot of guts for the London Science Museum administrators to change it’s approach to climate science and to publicly announce it.
Can you imagine the flak they will get from the AWG drones? Also I suspect they will be much frowned upon by their political masters and I hope this in no way harms future funding for the museum.
Now if we could just get The Royal Society, National Academy of Science to actually be about science and not kindergarden propaganda, we can say real progress has been made.
I read this last night in the Times from over here (UK) and saw it at this site this morning. It looks like I will be making a donation next time at the Science Museum! Any victory over post-normal science (or post-science science) must be a good thing (Dark Ages are no fun unless you can afford the carbon credits), thinking also about the irony of the Wik. definition…
Because of this, advocates of post-normal science suggest that there must be an “extended peer community” consisting of all those affected by an issue who are prepared to enter into dialogue on it. They bring their “extended facts”, that will include local knowledge and materials not originally intended for publication such as leaked official information. There is a political case for this extension of the franchise of science; but Funtowicz and Ravetz also argue that this extension is necessary for assuring the quality of the process and of the product.
Looks like the post-normalist commisars took it for granted that that the kulak extended peer community would just tow the party line. Little did they know the e-p-c would include the likes of w-u-w-t. I wonder if this has been edited since Climategate (“such as leaked official information”!).
pat (23:23:08) : “Anyone read The Economist’s “story” on AGW this week?”
Yes, Pat, I read it. I very rarely buy it since cancelling my subscription in protest at their support for another “good idea” – the plan to invade Iraq.
Dunno if they ever printed a retraction along the lines of “well, it seemed like a good idea at the time”. But here they are again…
The wonderful FOI Act helped. Here is my last response from the Museum:
25 January 2010
Dear Mr Post
Thank you for your email dated 14 January 2010, which was addressed to my
colleague, Victoria Carroll, requesting an internal review of the response
(dated 14 January 2010) to your request (dated 15 December 2009) which was
made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“Act”).
I am the Corporate Information and Enquiries Manager for NMSI and I have
carried out a thorough review of this matter (“Review”) in accordance with
the guidance set out in part IV Secretary of State for Constitutional
Affairs’ Code of Practice on the discharge of public authorities’
functions under Part I of the Act (“Code of Practice”).
I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with the response which was provided
to you and I trust that this email will provide you with the appropriate
information to bring this matter to a close. Wherever possible we
endeavour to provide full and frank replies to requests for information
under the Act and recognise the importance of doing so in order to comply
with our obligations and to provide full access to our collection and
collection information to its owners, the public.
Upon reviewing all of the correspondence relating to your enquiry I feel
that, whilst we have not deliberately attempted to withhold any
information from you, we have not fully responded to some of the questions
contained in your email of 15 December 2009. Accordingly, please find
below our revised responses:
1. Can you please explain the nature of the database synchronisation
issue which occurred on Thursday 12 November when approximately
1500 votes were added to the ‘in’ vote?
The count for Prove It collected data from several different
databases, reflecting web counts and counts from several different
terminals in the Prove It gallery. Due to a technical error, caused
by a database configuration setting mistakenly being moved onto the
live webserver as part of wider content publishing, this count was
briefly configured to harvest data from a test database rather than
the correct databases. In fixing this error we had to resynchronise
the master count to all of the correct databases to reflect the
total overall number of votes cast.
2. Is there any connection between the approximately 1500 votes
added to the ‘in’ vote on 12 November and the 1474 subtracted from the
‘in’ vote after poll closure on 1 December?
As it is not possible to trace each individual “count me in” or “count
me out” vote through the resynchronisation process we are unable to
provide you with a conclusive answer to this question without
speculating. We do feel, however, that in making these adjustments we
endeavoured to accurately reflect the votes cast in the face of
technical difficulties in order to ensure that the public were not
mislead as to the outcome.
3. Does the Museum accept that the running ‘in’ vote score was
falsely inflated from 12 November until poll closure?
We accept that there were periods of time when the running totals of
both the `in’ and `out’ votes were inflated by the inclusion of
duplicate votes. However, this was not through any attempt on the
part of the Science Museum to misrepresent the votes cast. Once the
poll was closed the database was thoroughly scrutinised and all
duplicate votes were identified. These were removed from the final
totals in order to more fairly represent the voting. You will note
that both before and after the duplicates were removed there were a
greater number of votes cast in the `out’ category.
4. Can you please tell me what steps the Museum is taking to
re-establish its reputation for competence in these matters?
We accept that errors occurred in the technical management of the
vote collection in respect of the Prove It poll, however, we do
feel that, in this matter, we acted competently and with the desire
to ensure that the opinions that were expressed were represented
fairly, and to ensure that the public were not mislead by quickly
identifying technical issues and working to correct them at the
earliest available opportunity. The Prove It poll, like all web
polls, could not represent a statistically representative sample of
public opinion, as all web audiences are to a degree
self-selecting. As with all of our exhibitions, we have taken on
board the difficulties which we faced with this exhibition in the
gathering of votes as part of the Prove It poll and will learn from
these experiences in future exhibitions in order to ensure a high
standard for our visitors. In addition, the Science Museum is
committed to continuing to engage the public with the science of
climate change. For this reason we are planning a major new climate
change gallery to launch later this year. There will also be an
associated website, outreach activities and events delivered over a
three year programme.
I trust that my Review has been acceptable to you and that this
information will be useful to you in completing your research.
Kind regards
Emma Yates
Corporate Information and Enquiries Manager
NMSI
Thanks to Ric Werme for his running poll count. For information FOI requests may be submitted to any public body in the UK using the Whatdotheyknow website at:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
Here are the original answers to my questions to the Science Museum about the Prove It poll submitted via Whatdotheyknow:
Carroll Victoria
11 December 2009
Dear Mr Post
Thank you for your enquiries. Below are answers to the questions raised in
your emails of 23.11.09 and 03.12.09.
In response to your email of 23.11.09:
· When the Museum decided to run the poll?
The Science Museum decided to develop an exhibit and website about the UN
Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in July 2009. The aims of the
project were to raise awareness of the Copenhagen conference, to enable
visitors to explore the evidence for climate change and the significance
of Copenhagen; and to provide a platform for visitors to express their
views.
During the development of the project it was agreed that one component of
the experience would be an opportunity for visitors to decide what they
felt Copenhagen should deliver and then express their views to the UK
government ahead of the Conference. The final format of this component –
which invited visitors to be `counted in’ or `counted out’ to the
statement: “I’ve seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove
they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective,
fair deal at Copenhagen,” was agreed 6th October 2009.
· Who was responsible for providing the `evidence’?
All of the content for PROVE IT! was researched and written by the Science
Museum’s Exhibitions team, in consultation with experts from Oxford
University, the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, London School of Economics,
Overseas Development Institute, National Oceanography Centre, Open
University, Imperial College and University of York.
· When it was that it was realised that the pollsters had failed
to implement the email confirmation security measure?
The email validation measure was implemented, but when moved into the live
environment suffered a conflict with our wider email security systems. We
got the first indications of this on Thursday 22nd October but its full
implications only became apparent on Monday 26th. As a result of this we
removed a number of duplicate votes from both the “count me in” and “count
me out” totals from our database retrospectively.
· Why on 12 November 2009, between 10.00 and 12.00 UTC,
approximately 1500 votes were deducted from the `out’ score?
· Why on 12 November 2009 between 14.00 and 16.00 UTC,
approximately 1500 votes were added to the `in’ vote and approximately
2000 votes were added to the `out’ vote?
A database synchronisation issue occurred on Thursday 12 November. This
was spotted by the Science Museum’s web team and the problem was rectified
on the same day.
· What instructions were given to Museum staff regarding the
poll?
No instructions specifically regarding the poll were given to Museum
staff. As for all new exhibitions, a briefing sheet was issued to
customer-facing staff. The sections relating to the poll read as follows:
“The action stations on gallery invite visitors to decide whether or not
they would like to support the statement: “I want the government to prove
they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective,
fair deal at Copenhagen”. We will pass on the results of the poll to the
government before the conference. The aim of the poll is to encourage
visitors to reflect on the content and decide where they stand, and to
enable them to make their view count.
The web site offers users the opportunity to participate in this poll, to
explore the content in depth, and also to send messages to friends and
family via email, Twitter and Facebook about climate change.”
· What information the Museum circulated to schools and other
educational institutions about the poll?
PROVE IT! was included twice in the e-newsletter which the Museum sends to
schools on a monthly basis.
10 October text
“Explore the evidence that human activity is behind climate change and
share your views. This small new exhibition is suitable for secondary and
post-16 students.”
II November text
“Visit PROVE IT! our exciting new exhibition and website, to find out more
about climate change. Why it’s happening. Why time is running out. What
the world is planning to do about it. ”
· When the Museum intends to complete the poll?
The poll closed on the morning of 1 December 2009
· What use the Museum intends to make of the poll?
The results were announced to the Department of Energy and Climate Change
on 1 December 2009.
· How much the poll has cost?
It is not possible to say exactly how much the poll component of PROVE IT!
cost, since it was developed as an integral part of a larger website and
exhibition. The following is therefore an estimate:
Total spend on website: £10,000 (including staff time)
Components of website included:
· Poll
· Deep content, including evidence for climate change and
information about Copenhagen
· Make your own message to send by email, Twitter, Facebook
· About prove it, including send a comment
Estimated spend on poll component of website: £3000 (including staff
time)
Total spend on new media development on gallery: £15,000
This included:
· New interactive interface for deep content station projections
· Voting stations, with additional `find out more’ and `comment’
sections
Estimated spend on development of voting station software: £5000
This does not include the hardware (computers and screens) since they were
bought for use in a future exhibition.
Total estimated spend on poll: £8000.
In answer to your further questions submitted 03.12.09:
· The precise time and date that the poll closed?
Tuesday 1 December at approximately 10.45.
· The `in’ and `out’ counts at that moment on the website?
The in and out counts which were displayed on the public site were noted
at approximate time of closure (10.45am) as 7532 in, 8989 out. These
figures included both web votes and gallery votes. Once the poll was
closed the database was scrutinised and some duplicate votes were
identified. These were removed from the totals.
· The `in’ and `out’ counts at that moment from the exhibition?
The in and out counts from the exhibition were included in the above
totals.
· The precise adjustments that were made to the website scores
after the closure of the poll?
· The reason for the adjustments?
· The precise adjustments that were made to the exhibition scores
after the closure of the poll?
· The reason for the adjustments?
Once the poll was closed the database was scrutinised and some duplicate
votes were identified. These were removed from the totals. The final
results once further duplicates had been removed from the database were:
Gallery
Counted in = 3408
Counted out = 626
Web
Counted in = 2650
Counted out = 7612
Total
Counted in = 6058
Counted out = 8238
· To whom, if anyone, the Museum submitted the final scores and
what was the response or were the responses?
The results were forwarded to the Department of Energy and Climate Change
(DECC). No comment on the results was received. For a response to the
results I suggest you contact DECC directly.
Kind regards
Dr Vicky Carroll
Copenhagen Project Leader
Science Museum
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2DD
I’m no scientist, but as a person I have a feel for “propaganda”.
For years they have acted like people who were hiding something.
Now they are acting like people who are trying to hide that they ever hid anything.
[snippity snippity topic too inflammatory, and you know why. ~ ctm]
““The more greenhouse gases we add, the warmer we’ll be. It’s not rocket science.””
Great, lets fill our attics with CO2 and tell the Russians where to stick their natural gas.
The Government’s response
The Government believes that all these allegations should be investigated transparently.
An independent review is currently examining the scientific conduct of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and is due to report its findings later in the spring. More information on the review can be found at: http://www.cce-review.org/. The University of East Anglia also recently announced that there will be a separate review to examine the CRU’s key scientific publications. The findings of both these reviews will be made public.
The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology is also investigating the matter. On 1 March the Select Committee heard evidence from a wide range of contributors, including Professor Jones, who has temporarily stepped down from his post as Director of CRU.
CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government statistics.
Our confidence that the Earth is warming is taken from multiple sources of evidence and not only the HadCRUT temperature record, which CRU scientists contribute to. The same warming trend is seen in two independent analyses carried out in the United States, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These analyses draw on the same pool of temperature data as HadCRUT, but use different methodologies to produce analyses of temperature change through time. Further evidence of this warming is found in data from instruments on satellites, and in trends of declining arctic sea ice and rising sea levels.
Science is giving us an increasingly clear picture of the risks we face from climate change. With more research, we can better understand those risks, and how to manage them. That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.
They could have kept the Climate Change title of their exhibit. Earth climate has changed and will continue changing untile the earth disappear.
The questions being : can humanity adapt ? How ?
Lizzy (03:08:37) :
A bit of a Freudian slip there, I think:
“That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.”
Surely the funding is supposed to be provided for climate change research? Having just finished Andrew Montford’s excellent ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’, I can well understand why the government might now wish to fund research into the so-called climate change science!
Great Job everyone !!!!!
Another small step !!
I visited the Prove It! website and looked through all their “evidence” for human induced global warming.
There wasn’t any.
With the British tradition for balanced and unpolitical science in tatters – thanks to the Met Office, The Royal Society and the Science Museum – it actually made me feel quite ashamed. This climbdown is a step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go to restore credibility to science in Britain.
“Professor Rapley declined to give his own views on climate change, saying that they were not relevant. However, in 2007 he said: “The more greenhouse gases we add, the warmer we’ll be. It’s not rocket science.”
I wonder if they have also removed the working model of a perpetual motion machine from the exhibition?
I know in another forum that Michael Zimmerman has commented that there has been a real failure of investigative journalism, I guess, to keep the science honest.
I wonder, I’m really curious about this, whether anyone will ever tell the story of how and why climate change became what it did as a movement?
“Michael has also warned of the dangers posed by the anti-modernist attitudes that characterize some versions of environmentalism.”
PS. Apologies to the moderators, I had no idea that topic was inappropriate. Will respect, naturally.
I sure would like someone would add some more greenhouse gases so we could warm our butts up in Florida. The damage from the cold, the dead fish, the dead manatees has been off the charts extreme.
More please, quick.
They depended on the government grant money to carry the day, accept this bribe and produce the results we want, when it is a fact now that people with no skin in the game, no grants to be bribed with, have exposed the hoax and it’s lies. Great job people, you deserve the world’s thanks.
I went through the Prove it! web pages quite carefully. Despite the name, they didn’t present a single piece of evidence to prove that the warming was caused by carbon dioxide. Quite extraordinary.
Still, this latest news is very encouraging. If they really have responded positively to recent events then they deserve some credit.
Chris
johnnythelowery (20:48:54) :
We are about to be snowed under when the whitehouse gets it’s rear end in gear to deal with ‘the climate’. Even the crew at WUWT won’t be able to shovel fast enough from all the BS. 2010 is going to the battle of the planet
Maybe, maybe not. The economy has to be first with trillions in debt and getting deeper, where’s the companies and industries to create jobs?
In any case. Science as a whole has not done it’s job properly and over half the science we know is incorrect. Religion for survival suppressed science. Politics only wants what’s good for the economic engine and couldn’t care if science is correct or not. So the garbage science has been reviewed and accepted as the law of the land and lord help anyone who does not fit with their mindset.
If you were to get rid of ALL science and started over with just the simple basics and started from there, the whole outcome would be different.
And why is that? Your mind would not be clouded with societies acceptance and see many things missing or head scratchers, until you came up with the perameters that fit perfectly.
The thing is because our planet is very complex, the task is huge as everything is interconnected to work as a whole.
Separating gases from mass as two working classes with different perameters of actions when heat and compression are involved.
Mass changes with movement. Mass can compress and hold energy.
Gases compressed and rotated can have a gravitational and magnetic field Sun, our core).
An example; Baseball player hitting with a bat.
The muscle torque he extends into his swing, changes the mass in the bat to build up energy extending towards the tip of the bat. The faster the swing and more torque exerted, the more compressed energy is achieved. If he misses the ball and the bat goes flying, it travels the distance till the energy is used and gravity pulls.
If he hits the ball, there is energy transfer that changes the balls density to one side taking some torque and energy from the bat.
So, johnnythelowery, we just have to be MUCH smarter than them at having the correct science!
Prof. Rapley: “The more greenhouse gases we add, the warmer we’ll be. It’s not rocket science.”
======================
Anthony Watts: “Oh but it is.”
======================
Quote of the year!
Well done Anthony, although as some wit remarked “even rocket science isn’t rocket science any more”
Well done the Science Museum too, (a great place to take your offspring when in town).
Phillip Bratby (00:10:08) :
“Of course the response from Rapley included lnks to the IPCC reports and the standard argument from ignorance “these records show that the temperature change recorded can only be explained when human greenhouse gas emissions are taken into account”. ”
I keep getting (naively?) baffled at how the alarmist case boils down to the above – which, if pushed, they end up conceding – and not even realizing it’s a concession. Isn’t it basic scientific thinking that argument from ignorance isn’t really an argument for anything except, indeed, one’s own ignorance?
Car mechanic: “that noise can only be a hole in the exhaust because I can’t explain it in any other way”.
Doctor: “your cough must be throat cancer because that’s the only way I can explain it”.
Etc.
Robert E. Phelan (21:08:27) : (And Mike Post)
> Ric Werme deserves a lot of credit for his monitoring of this poll.
Thanks. I regret not letting myself get sucked in earlier before some
of the early shenanigans.
I also monitored the recently reported number10 poll, but I don’t think I ever looked at the data. At least that polling system doesn’t seem as controversial. They’ve had more time to work out the various polling hacks.
Random answer: How quickly does a post at WUWT get attention? From my web page hit report (in CDT time, UTC-0500):
proveit 24/Mar/2010
05:54:10 proveitraw host86-171-9-29.range86-171.btcentralplus.com:
Unknown
09:04:43 proveitraw ACaen-152-1-88-142.w83-115.abo.wanadoo.fr: science museum prove it results
http://www.google.com.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=science+museum+prove+it+results&start=0&sa=N
start: 0
20:24:32 proveitraw modemcable026.97-201-24.mc.videotron.ca:
Unknown
20:25:10 proveitraw pool-72-66-104-80.washdc.fios.verizon.net:
Unknown
20:25:56 proveitraw pool-72-66-104-80.washdc.fios.verizon.net:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/02/data-adjustments-in-the-uk-science-museum-prove-it-poll/
20:25:58 proveitraw 99-65-178-246.lightspeed.sntcca.sbcglobal.net:
Unknown
20:27:24 proveitraw pool-71-166-48-45.bltmmd.fios.verizon.net:
Unknown
20:28:36 proveitraw 16.238.97-84.rev.gaoland.net:
Unknown
20:29:38 proveitraw pool-71-117-255-59.ptldor.fios.verizon.net:
Unknown
20:29:57 proveitraw 66.183.78.44:
Unknown
Answer – instantly!
Now, as long as this doesn’t overflow the small bandwidth at my ISP I’ll be all set. These hits may be just people looking at the results WUWT page, and not the current story. Fortunately they weren’t limiting usage back then….
BTW, the better (I think) (and smaller) page is the summary at http://wermenh.com/proveit.html . I guess I should update the timeline on both. It’s pretty remarkable to me that the Museum made such a turnaround. I wonder if it reflects a change in thinking on Chris Rapley’s part in addition to the public pressure.
I am another who got an email from Downing Street yesterday about the UK poll on not using CRU data (it was the typical brush-off as shown in earlier comments).
However, one mildly encouraging thing happened in my Dartmoor village yesterday. A local society had put on a talk by Dartmoor National Park about responding to climate change, i.e. coping with all the predicted warming – and the speaker started by noting that a year ago when he asked for an informal poll on belief in global warming almost everyone believed, but now there were often doubters. In our case I was delighted to see that the believers were fairly heavily outnumbered by the doubters.
There is also a (relatively polite) climate change argument going on in our local parish magazine. Next month I am expecting to see my brief article on how you can’t believe computer models on issues where many of the basic systems are not well undersood (I feel very strongly about this because I was a computer scientist for many years!) and how none of the predicted catastrophes ever happen.
All very small stuff, but `every little helps’ as they say.
First the “Science Museum”, next please the Greenwich National Maritime Museum. When last year I visited the Hockey Stick graph was pride of place before thousands of school children and “Climate Change ” was referenced in numerous exibits ( along with tendentious stuff about slavery, and Ocean Liners with toffs on board)
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/about/partnerships-and-initiatives/cliwoc/more-about-the-project
“For climatologists this (1750–1850 period) is an important period. It marks the closing decades of the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’; a time when European weather was cooler, wetter and stormier than it is today. It marks also a period when climatic change cannot be seen as a possible consequence of world-wide industrialization and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere……………… All of these observations help scientists to reconstruct the nature of day-to-day weather, and longer term climate and climatic change at sea at those periods.”
How everyone sucking on the teat of the public purse toes the line AGW to ensure funding.
“We have come to realise, given the way this subject has become so polarised over the past three to four months, that we need to be respectful and welcoming of all views on it.”
Frankly, this bothers me even more. If we’re wrong, but numerous, don’t kiss our fat fannies, show us how we’re wrong.
The man has no scientific principles. He blows with the winds of public opinion.
It’s like he’s just hiding his head while he tries to find a better way to lie to us. It’s gross.
Don’t show my view respect, show me science. Reality doesn’t change with opinion.
Sheeze.
Professor Rapley said that the gallery, which is to open in November before the climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, would refrain from scaring visitors with apocalyptic predictions of rising sea levels and would be honest about the conflicting views on the scale of possible changes to the climate.
NOVEMBER ! They are rushing to be fair minded.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7073272.ece
Rocket Science and Junket Science are related as they both involve travel?
Anthony, I’m holding a thick wad of recycled Hungarian carbon credits….may I put them in the tip jar? They must be worth about a pence each, maybe….
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2259761/recycled-carbon-credit-scandal
Mismanagement of scientific information, consensus action and brute force PR techniques are the things to which we are skeptical. Legitimate doubter is less offensive than skeptic.
Let us hereby dub ourselves crichtonists, after the last M. Crichton. We wish for the distribution of quality information throught the proper scientific control of the method. If you don’t understand the reference, please go read his essays, then come back.
Crichtonists unite.
”””’Stacey (09:05:08) : Rocket Science and Junket Science are related as they both involve travel?””””
Stacey,
Thanks for the smile you put on my face even before I had my breakfast coffee!
10 smile points to you.
John
The Science Museum behaves like a science museum – and not another tentacle of the global warming cabal.
PaperTiger:
You haven’t a prayer of stopping the greenie-weenie movement in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia (PRoK). After searching for a high-tech job in SoCal for six-months, I gave-up and moved my family to Virginia. Allow me to suggest that you get out while you still can. Consider the following: after the PRoK econazi’s re-elect Very Scary Gerry Brown, you’ll be saddled with new and higher taxes that will make escape all but impossible.