You know you must be having an impact when protesters show up and counter meetings are being scheduled. I use the word “denialism” because the flyer I was shown from CSIRO contained that word several times, but does not appear in their official PR.
Steve Mosher had some commentary on it a few days ago here
From The Age and ABC via Australian Climate Madness I find that while I’m doing my tour in Australia, CSIRO organized a meeting that is designed to combat the sort of inconvenient discussions I’m having. Fortunately, I’ve been given the whole slide show and can share it here. For example, see how CSIRO views “sceptics”:
Here’s the view of “engaged” people:
Simon of ACM writes:
Note that they’re not meeting to hang their heads in shame and discuss the shonky science, fudged data, blocking of FOI requests or intimidation of sceptical climate journals, which is all par for the course. No, this is all about communication – it’s just that they’re not getting their message across properly, obviously. The science is just fine, the public are just too stupid to understand:
REPRESENTATIVES of scientific organisations including the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology will meet today to discuss better communication of the science behind man-made climate change, in the wake of crumbling political and public consensus on global warming.
The conference in Sydney, organised by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), is part of a long-term bid to develop a ”national communication charter” for major scientific organisations and universities to better spruik the evidence of climate change.
The conference will hear an address from Australia’s chief scientist, Penny Sackett Representatives of the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Academy of Science and Department of Climate Change, among others, will attend.
More here at ACM.
Here’s the slides shows in two parts:
DSE Analysis of the climate change debate Melbourne June 2010 (Part 1)
DSE Analysis of the climate change debate Melbourne June 2010 (Part 2)
I was shocked to see that the sceptics were listed as having as high a knowledge as the engaged people. Then I noticed the quotation marks, thus making it “knowledge”.
I guess the quotation marks do make the chart more accurate…except not in the intended way. Whereas I’m sure they meant for the quotes to indicate that sceptics only think they know a lot, in my experience, sceptics tend to know the issues far better than the “engaged” crowd.
-Scott
to discuss better communication of the science behind man-made climate change, in the wake of crumbling political and public consensus on global warming.
communication should read brainwashing as if people are incapable of weighing things out for themselves and
crumbling political and public concensus should be replaced with shattered political and public concensus.
Concensus as in everybody’s doing it.
Does this mean I am excommunicated from the GoreGaians?
Doing a matrix?
High knowledge on the sceptics part is shown by their demand to get info under FOI requests. Low knowledge on the part of the warmists means they have to cook the books and hide the data.
Blocking with great stubborness and impunity tells us they need to hide the facts.
Here’s where Penny gets her science … Mr Gore …
“When An Inconvenient Truth opened in 2006 it was generally supposed we had a window of two or three decades to deal with climate change. Last year that shrank to a decade. Last month Australia’s chief scientist, Penny Sackett, told a Canberra gathering that we have six years to radically lower emissions, or face calamitous, unstoppable global warming. ”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/poor-prognosis-for-our-planet-20090411-a3jx.html
Now I have GoreGaian Chants running through my brain…..ack!
35% Engaged?
Any political movement with 35% active engagement in modern society sweeps all before it. It takes about 35% of eligible voters to win a modern election. Any political party with a engaged constituency of 35% of the population would be unbeatable, especially if the other side was only 5%.
I don’t see how any thinking person could look at that slide and not know they are making it all up. So what else are they in denial about?
Reminds me of the psychobabble that passes for knowledge in sociological studies.
The facts are that spending billions$ on CC will not alter the climate at all, but it will probably soon double the cost of energy for business and ordinary Aussies.
The developed world has been flatlining their per capita energy use for at least 30 years while the increase from the developing world has been increasing sharply.
Out to at least 2030 the substantial increase in co2 will be from the developing world so anything we do will be a waste of time and money, we should be spending our money on adaptation not this spurious nonsense of trying to change the climate by introducing taxes on carbon.
Powerpoint does not transform opinion into fact, regardless of how pretty it is.
Dr A Burns,you cite a newspaper article in support of a contention that Australia’s chief scientist gets her science from Al Gore. Whether you are being literal or even facetious, your quoted sentences provide no support for your contention. The first sentences belong to the journalist. The third sentence is the journalist paraphrasing of the Chief Scientist. She makes no reference to Al Gore;the journalist is responsible for positioning the Gore reference before her statement.The fact that Gore’s position and the Chief Scientists position are mutually consistent is no evidence that she got her science from Al Gore. Of course you know where they’ get their science’,so I’m puzzled as to why you bothered.
CSRIO = (C)limate-mongers (S)earching for (R)elevancy with an (I)nformed (O)rganization
It’s hard to be relevant without the fear-mongering and phoney science that everyone has caught onto. How will they be noticed now that everyone knows the bully tactics they use were just that? Manipulation tactics.
The price for the resistance of domination is vigilance.
Fortunately, that price is exacted in truth and compensated by reality.
Is CSIRO a scientific organization or a bunch of third rate product managers playing with PowerPoint?
If they had a scientific argument they might want to try communicating that.
“to discuss better communication of the science behind man-made climate change”
They’ve been trying that for 15-20 years. They haven’t done too hot with it.
They might want to try something novel. Like openly producing the science, and getting it right.
Curiousgeorge says:
June 19, 2010 at 5:34 pm
In the U. S. Army we call them PowerPoint Rangers, also known as chairborne commandos. Vital sidekicks to Colonels and Generals, despised by those who actually get things done. It’s no different here.
These scientists are very much suffering from the GOD syndrome and expect everyone to take their word that the science has not been tampered with.
Instead of using science as a defence, they attack characters and use their own “PEERS” as character references along with the published books that their “PEERS” approved of.
I’d employ Cathy to become my spin doctor anytime.
CATHY FOLEY: I think the scientific community has been putting it out in a way, which they are scientists. They put out the information, which is the facts as they understand it. Scientists are focusing on that and trying to make sure that they put things across in a way which isn’t alarmist…..
That is hilarious!!
So us skeptics have high knowledge, but don’t do things that we know won’t change anything for the “right” reason so we’re not “engaged”. Seems Mr. Watts falls into both of those categories, but lacks the self-aggrandizing emotion to make it legitimate to those pushing agw.
@ur momisugly Scott Junne 19, 2010 at 5:08 pm:
In case no one here knows it, I am about 90-95% Liberal/Progressive. I thought GW Bush was a complete moron and an embarrassment. But on the issue of CAGW, folks, the Liberal/Progressives are basically as stupid as GW Bush was/is. Scott’s point here is preaching to the choir here, but I am telling all of you that I have not engaged ONE person face-to-face or on a Liberal/Progressive web site in a blog thread who can discuss ANY of this intelligently. The closest they come is to point me to Real Climate. They cannot argue or discuss the points themselves. When I bring up facts, whether to do with climate directly, or to do with Climategate, they just simply have nothing to contribute. When I ask how many scientific papers they’ve actually read, so far the cumulative count is zero.
But they are all convinced. Even without themselves even looking into it thoroughly.
WHY? Because they implicitly trust anyone having to do with academia, unless someone – anyone – has accused a particular academician of being in tight with any industry whatsoever. The trust for scientists borders on religion, as many here argue.
I’ve heard too many nasty stories myself, about scientists over the years fudging data, or coming up with really stupid ideas, or scientists finding out their paradigm didn’t include some new discovery – making it necessary to throw most of it all out and pretty much start over again. With the horror stories in science’s past, I personally just have to look into their claims to see if I agree.
They don’t give a damn if I agree.
But I do.
So if I care, I start informing myself, at the most basic level I can: scientific papers. Out of any 100 Liberal/Progressives, I don’t think 2 will have informed themselves with anything but MSM articles. That is my best guess.
So I would take those quotation marks off Knowledge of the Issues. I would put most Liberal/Progressives in the lower right corner, under Concerned But Uninformed. Absolutely.
When my son was a preschooler, if we didn’t buy his “argument”, he figured we must not have understood him, so he’d repeat it. (ad infinitum . . . ) Louder.
It sounds like these adherents to the altar of AGW haven’t matured much beyond the preschoolers ability to state their case.
Just ’cause we ain’t buyin’, don’t mean we didn’t understand their ‘argument’ in the first case.
Once Toto yanked the curtain open and Dorothy saw the Wizard was actually just a man, the Wizard of Oz had the sense to realize the jig was up and quit trying to con Dorothy. These “Scientists” must have missed out on the lesson taught by this children’s story.
“When the jig is up cut the bull, to continue just convinces everyone you really ARE nothing but con artists”
CSIRO : a group of scientific skeptism denialists.
@ur momisugly Walter M. Clark says:
June 19, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Re: Powerpoint rangers. I’ve heard that is the case. Thankfully, I retired prior to the advent of Powerpoint, so I never had one of those “sidekick” people.
It is always the instinct of the committed eco-socialist, when things are going badly, to convene a struggle meeting to devise better forms of agit-prop.
Unfortunately, this requires accepting the rigid dogmatic stance that all ‘denialists’ are deviants from the true orthodoxy who must be subdued, rather than a section of the population who disagree about an open question.
The result is a waste of time, which does not help move the debate forward, because ‘there is no debate’.
I’m not intimidated with the “Denier” label. I deny the existence of the Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, The Great Pumpkin, and Rudolph the Reindeer too. I’m just like that. No imagination.