From George Mason University, shifting the message. Note that this is the same university that was shocked at the outcome of their poll on TV weathercasters. Look for this message in the media soon. Confusing weather and climate maybe? People don’t suffer from climate change in a single day, but local weather changes. Cold and flu “season” for example.
When Climate Change Becomes a Health Issue, Are People More Likely To Listen?
New study suggests re-framing the issue helps people better understand and relate to climate problem
FAIRFAX, Va.—Framing climate change as a public health problem seems to make the issue more relevant, significant and understandable to members of the public—even some who don’t generally believe climate change is happening, according to preliminary research by George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication (4C).
The center recently conducted an exploratory study in the United States of people’s reactions to a public health-framed short essay on climate change. They found that on the whole, people who read the essay reacted positively to the information.
Previous research conducted by Mason investigators and others, using people’s beliefs, behaviors and policy preferences about global warming as assessed in a national survey, identified six distinct segments of Americans, termed Global Warming’s Six Americas.
In the current research, 4C director Edward Maibach interviewed approximately one dozen people in each of the Six Americas after they read the brief essay on the human health implications of global warming. As expected, he found that members of the audience segments who already believe strongly that climate change is happening had a strong positive response to the new information, while people who are less sure if climate change is happening also found value in the information. Nearly half of the comments made by members of the “Disengaged” segment, for example, indicated that the essay reflected their personal point of view, was informative or thought-provoking or offered valuable prescriptive information on how to take action relative to climate change. Moreover, about 40 percent of those people in the “Doubtful” segment had similar positive reactions to the essay.
“Re-defining climate change in public health terms should help people make connection to already familiar problems such as asthma, allergies and infectious diseases, while shifting the visualization of the issue away from remote Arctic regions and distant peoples and animals,” says Maibach. “The public health perspective offers a vision of a better, healthier future—not just a vision of an environmental disaster averted.”
The research, which was published in the latest issue of the BioMed Central Public Health journal, also provides clues about specific public health messages that might not be helpful (such as eating less meat) and points to examples or associations that might trigger counter-arguments and negative reactions.
“Many leading experts have suggested that a positive vision for the future, rather than a dire one, is precisely what has been missing from the public dialogue on climate change thus far,” says Maibach. “We believe this survey is one step in shaping a way to talk about climate change that will reach all segments of the public—not just those who already are making behavioral changes.”
A copy of the full study can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/qc/1471-2458/10/299.
Throughout history it has been shown that ALL animal life (including humans) survives and THRIVES when it is warm, and we die of famine and disease when it is cold.
That is the way it always has been, and that is the way it always will be. Warmth = prosperity, cold = famine and death.
So….. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10679088
“If we confuse things more and more, people may give up to thinking and finally swallow all of our messages.”
I recently blogged about George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication HERE. They claim to be researchers, but their bios could easily be mistaken for the sort one reads on a Greenpeace website.
Here’s a snippet from director Edward Maibach’s bio:
Let’s see . . . when people take cruises and go on vacations they go to they go to places where it’s warm and comfortable. When many of us retire, we go to Florida and Arizona.
People with asthma and other respiratory problems often move to warm, dry climates — like the desert Southwest.
If a degree or two of warming is so bad for our health, why do those of us move to areas that are ten to twenty degrees warmer and thrive?
I have worked in weather from -15 degrees F to +115 degrees F without ill effects and certainly prefer my climate on the warm side.
Naturally-occurring climate change is indeed a health issue: overall, a warmer climate is always healthier than a cooler one. The mythological hydra of manmade warming/ climate change on the other hand is of course ever-dangerous and always threatening with all manner of disasters. But now, seeing that frightening people based on a myth hasn’t worked, they want to try using lesser, more-believable, closer-to-home “disasters” based on that same myth. Yeah, that’ll work.
WTF is “Six Americas”?
Sigh, malaria wasn’t enough. What the……?, a study on how to best propagandize CAGW? I know logic and critical thinking are no longer taught in our structures of “higher” learning, but apparently ethics is no longer taught, either. I can see it now. Headline—– CO2 SHOWN TO BE AS HARMFUL AS SECOND HAND SMOKE!!! ——- coming soon to an alarmist periodical near you!
Re-framing global warming/climate change into a health issue is like North Korea calling themselves the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea. They are neither democratic, a republic or for the people.
The authors have the following affiliations: Center for Climate Change Communication, Department of Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
2 School of Communication, American University, Washington, DC, USA
3 Department of Statistics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
—-
I didn’t notice ANY formal involvement of one of the nation’s Schools of Public Health, so the public health value of this thing is dubious at best.
Most of the SPH in the USA are totally bought-into the AGW story, so it probably wouldn’t have altered the outcome, but I’m surprised they didn’t bring in at least one researcher with a PH credential.
Bad science, meh! I could easily write a questionnaire that implicated, say, ghosts with global warming, and get the same result. (sorry I mentioned that, they’ll try that next!)
The story line to AGW is unbelievable and it’s this. There is only one temperature on earth in which humans can survive, a deviation from this temperature upwards by 1C will give rise to immense disasters because of the positive feedback effects. There isn’t one single benefit to the human race coming out of this 1C rise in temperature.
Who in their right mind could believe this guff?
George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication
So, climate change communication is somehow different from other forms of communication and needs its own separate center to research both the fundamentals and the nuances of this separate form of communication. What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is one more head on the hydra of corruption in science. Applied marketing research sponsored by a university. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
Climate change now linked to bp-
Oil Spill may cause irreparable damage
to the Gulf Stream global climate
thermoregulation activity.
Gulf Loop Current Now Breaking Down
http://femalefaust.blogspot.com/2010/07/gulf-oil-disaster-is-loop-current.html
Be sure to download the pdf before bp or
bama elves hack it.
It was -17F during the winter, and now is 97F.
114 degrees of change, and somehow we manage to survive, raise children and live productive lives.
The climate may be warming as Earth continues to recover slowly from the privations of the little ice age, but that has nothing to do increasing levels of CO2. A new paper by ex-Nasa physicist Ferenc Miskolczi published by Britain’s respected “Energy & Environment” concludes that the IPPC’s computer programs that ascribe a “positive feedback” function that multiplies atmospheric water vapor’s effect on the greenhouse effect from increasing levels of CO2 are simply incorrect. I am pasting below the abstract and conclusion from the lengthy, complex paper. I will provide a link to the in a subsequent posting.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THE STABLE STATIONARY VALUE OF THE EARTH’S
GLOBAL AVERAGE ATMOSPHERIC PLANCK-WEIGHTED
GREENHOUSE-GAS OPTICAL THICKNESS
Ferenc M. Miskolczi
3 Holston Lane, Hampton VA 23664, USA
ABSTRACT
By the line-by-line method, a computer program is used to analyze Earth
atmospheric radiosonde data from hundreds of weather balloon observations. In
terms of a quasi-all-sky protocol, fundamental infrared atmospheric radiative flux
components are calculated: at the top boundary, the outgoing long wave radiation,
the surface transmitted radiation, and the upward atmospheric emittance; at the
bottom boundary, the downward atmospheric emittance. The partition of
the outgoing long wave radiation into upward atmospheric emittance and surface
transmitted radiation components is based on the accurate computation of the true
greenhouse-gas optical thickness for the radiosonde data. New relationships
among the flux components have been found and are used to construct a quasi-allsky
model of the earth’s atmospheric energy transfer process. In the 1948-2008
time period the global average annual mean true greenhouse-gas optical thickness
is found to be time-stationary. Simulated radiative no-feedback effects of
measured actual CO2 change over the 61 years were calculated and found to be of
magnitude easily detectable by the empirical data and analytical methods used.
The data negate increase in CO2 in the atmosphere as a hypothetical cause for the
apparently observed global warming. A hypothesis of significant positive
feedback by water vapor effect on atmospheric infrared absorption is also negated
by the observed measurements. Apparently major revision of the physics
underlying the greenhouse effect is needed.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
CONCLUSIONS
The greenhouse effect is here monitored without the superfluous complications of
AOGCM climate models. The present method shows directly whether the global
average infrared absorption properties of the atmosphere are changing or not. In
general, if there has been global warming due to any cause, its possible correlation with
infrared absorption properties of the atmosphere will be directly apparent from accurate observations assessed by calculations of the absorption properties. The present results show an apparent warming associated with no apparent change in the absorption properties. Change in absorption properties cannot have been the cause of the warming.
The results show that the theoretical CO2-induced virtual increase in true greenhousegas optical thickness greatly exceeds the actual empirically measured change over the 61-year dataset. The fact that the virtual change is about four times the actual change is strong empirical evidence that there is a very strong dynamic compensation that stabilizes the atmospheric energy transport process against a potential perturbation by CO2 change. This means that the empirically estimated virtual feedback of water vapor effect on the greenhouse-gas optical thickness is not significantly positive contradicting the IPCC doctrine of it being strongly positive. It is clear from these data that the increase in surface temperature shown in Fig. 9 cannot in the least be accounted for by any effect of CO2 on greenhouse gas optical thickness, with or without positive feedback by water vapor. Merely empirical evidence does not necessarily justify predictions of the future: for them, in addition to empirical evidence, some logical warrant of generality is needed. Such a warrant of generality is usually called a physical theory. In order to predict the future, we need a principled physical theory to explain our empirical observations. The present paper has restricted its attention to the empirical observational testing of the quasi-all-sky model, and has avoided theoretical analysis. These empirical results could well be challenged by a comparable empirical method.
The BBC are running an article about shrinking glaciers in the Himalayas, complete with ‘before and after’ pictures. Any comments?
Is it just me?…or is this really an article about how people REACT to an article?
Doesn’t say anything about the validity of the issue all, just how people react to an article ABOUT the issue?
They’re sure taking the long way around the barn on this one.
JimB
I always seem to in better health when it’s warm than when it’s cold. The public can see through this nonsense.
Climate Change IS a health issue.
We expect to have about +/- 30 days of global food surplus just before the start of the Northern Hemisphere harvest this year (2010).
The coming global cooling will have a marked affect on that value (hint: It will not make the number bigger).
Unless the warmists drop their lies and tell the farmers to start moving into shorter season crops we will see global urban starvation on a level never seen before.
It is a health issue, just not the ones they are lying about.
Millions and millions may die from starvation in the June-August of 2011 or 2012 as a direct result of these lies.
I have to say that I agree with the message. The more I hear from the AGW crowd, the sicker I feel. Besides, is it not quite clear to everyone that this issue is causing epidemic levels of mental illness?
Henry chance says:
July 19, 2010 at 8:18 am
They can’t do that anymore… all the whitewash is being used for Climategate “investigations”…
Every time I read something like this I’m more convinced that I’m right. This has little to do with Science and a LOT to do with agendas and politics. I agree with Shub – let them talk, they’re doing a better job of discrediting themselves than “we” ever could.
“Boss? (*koff* *koff*) I think I’ve got a touch of the Global Warming. I won’t be in today.”
If I copied the address correctly, a pdf version of Dr. Miskolczi’s interesting paper that debunks IPPC’s pet theory of water-vapor’s positive feedback as described in my previous post can be found at:
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B74u5vgGLaWoNDFjODAwMWMtNmNmYS00NDhmLWI3NjItMTE0NGMwNWMxYjQ2&hl=en
Reframing = marketing = creative lying. Mama taught me long ago not to believe everything you hear and always to consider the source.
So is my Alma Matter suggesting that heat is more dangerous than cold? Their donation requests have a date with my shredder. I will then put them in the postage paid return envelope with a printout of this news story and my addition of “Idiotic press releases have a negative affect on alumni donations”.