In case you don’t know the line above, lookup “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. Here’s a YouTube clip of one of the most famous lines ever borrowed for parody use in movies.
I’ve always said that if you can’t laugh at yourself and situations, then what is the point of life? After the PNAS blacklist fiasco, I compared the episode to the East German Stasi and the lists of citizens they made to track personal associations. I also quipped: “Will we have to wear yellow badges to climate science conferences?”. That’s a reference to the Yellow badges imposed on the Jewish population of WWII, to separate them from the rest of the populace. It is a sad footnote of history but not unlike the PNAS paper’s attempt to separate skeptics from the rest of the scientific community.
Lucia decided I had invoked Godwins Law, and being the optimist, I suggested this yellow badge for skeptics, since our friends on the other side of the argument always seem to be such sourpusses:
That seems to be a hit, so much in fact that lot’s of people have designed variations. Lots of examples below. So, I’m going to have a contest. We’ll look, we’ll vote. Then I’ll get some made up. Just leave links to your badge images (Tinypic, Picassa, Imageshack, etc) in comments, then I’ll gather them up for a voting page. Keep it clean, be upbeat and funny. Words combined with images are OK too. Just keep some connection to the Yellow smiley badge obvious.
Here’s some examples by cartoonist Josh:
From Cartoons by Josh
Following a request by Anthony at WUWT and discusion at The Blackboard
about there being some climate skeptic yellow badges I thought an Anthony badge and a Lucia badge would be fun – see above.
And so no one feels left out below is a Warmista badge, and, because I couldn’t resist, a Monckton badge.
The third one started off as the Pielke clan badge as they collectively cover a lot of opinions but actually it could be all of us! And, yes, other groups use rainbow badges – so really useful for all kinds of marches you find yourself on 😉
And a thank you badge for Atomic Hairdryer.
Also one for another articulate poster, Raven
(and hoping he/she will get in touch so I can do an ‘inhabitants’ cartoon)
And Bishop Hill of course.
Nice work Norby! The one with the polar bear (smile-skeptic-2.jpg) gets my vote.
How about a poll on the top candidates?
Well, is blunt and not climate, so as for yellow badges:
I really like Cal Mike’s description of a badge including hockey stick as a (wry?) smile. The badge needs to have elements of climate alarmism or rebuttal, as does the one with the flames for mouth but the eyes and nose need to be climate specific. I like Gail Combs’ ear muff idea which can be interpreted as climate cooling or to reduce hearing of alarmist hot air. Hey, a committee design? Sorry, couldn’t resist – it would be more rational committee than average, though some would say that is a contradiction. Finger pointing at sun is a good idea if it works out graphically – how about sun in a halo position? I like the Alfred E. Neuman idea but it is too obscure though changing mouth to hockey stick and putting sun above might help. Putting the words What Me Worry? on the badge would help but it must stay simple – the challenge is to get good simple graphical elements that climate alarmists would recognize. (The best badge would communicate to lay voters but that may be difficult to design.)
So the criteria:
– positive for humans (yellow/smile)
– unique
– identifiable as for climate debate, at least to alarmists, thus I suggest;
o broken hockey stick smile (a real hockey stick not detailed graph)
o outer edge looks like classic sun edge symbol (jagged), so whole face looks like sun
o a cloud as hair
o penetrating eyes, if that is artistically possible (arched eyebrow is a good suggestion, the Prince of Powerpoint face is good)
o thermometer nose (temp going down or up? no, blue one half yellow the other)
😉
The badge/button idea was a lot of fun but appears to have faded into memory.
If no one objects, I’ll go ahead and produce some of the versions I designed.
REPLY: Oh I haven’t forgotten, I plan to run a poll on it to choose favorite designs…just wanted to get Russell report under my belt first – Anthony
Thanks for the reply Anthony.
Late entry from Stoaty, who after a bit of email chat has reworked my idea of turning a question mark to a sceptical smile.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/tonguesmiley.jpg
I noticed that the recycling symbol has a six sided patter that fits nicely into the center hexagon of the yellow star of David. Add a circle with yellow slash over the recycling symbol and make that colored orange like the sun. Now the points of the star look like sun rays. Add six more lighter yellow points in between the points on the star of david and you have my design. The star of david is still distinguishable and you have the shameful symbol of someone who, horribly, is against recycling.
I’ve only got paint so it is hard for me to make this.