Guest post by Thomas Fuller
It should be clear to all who are following climate issues that the establishment is flailing a bit in regards to how they should be dealing with a pesky public.
Ever since Climategate, Copenhagen, and a cold winter in western media capitals, their old techniques have been increasingly ineffective. Whereas before it was enough to combine a ‘sexy’ symbol, such as a polar bear or a Himalayan glacier, with a press release of a new paper showing how models predict doom for whatever symbol they used, now people seem to want things like data, whatever that is.
But there really isn’t enough data to make a definitive case for the type of climate change the establishment needs to command immediate and decisive action. (And it is my personal opinion that that is precisely the way it works–deciding the appropriate action and then searching for supporting information, of whatever quality they can drum up.)
Since then, we have seen some rather dubious attempts to play the media game differently, starting with an attack on Andrew Montford’s book ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion, where a blog aptly named Scholars and Rogues tried to mathematically prove that nobody needed to read the book, and then the sad coda to a great career for the late Stephen Schneider, where they hammered out a libelous paper purporting to show that establishment scientists were far more qualified (and better looking as well) than skeptics, which they did by looking only in English language publications, getting names and jobs wrong, and miscounting published papers.
That didn’t work. So they began also to run advertisements, such as jet planes crashing into skyscrapers, and the more recent explosion of skeptical children and soccer stars.
None of it is working right now. They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority. Criticism of the major skeptical figures hasn’t worked in the past–Lindzen, Spencer, Christy and others do not appear to have been damaged by accusations of tobacco use and being religious, and the screaming about conservative rich people giving liberal amounts of money to conservative think tanks is too obviously hypocritical when balanced against the amounts of money available to the establishment position. And it certainly hasn’t worked against new critics, such as Steve McIntyre or our host here.
The 10:10 video ‘No Pressure’ is a new symbol–not one that the Establishment will cherish. It’s a symbol of failure to communicate. They sent a message all right, just as the WWF, Stephen Schneider and Scholars and Rogues sent messages.
But they’re not listening–and so in the end they cannot communicate.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
When was the last time that the facts were made up to suit the policy? Oh yeah – that went well.
“They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority.”
It’s far worse than a communication failure, the science behind the failed CAGW conjecture is just plain wrong! Too many of the population of this tiny planet now realise that the evidence they use to try and prove their case has no substance, despite the massive PR campaign in the MSM. The inconvenient truth is that CAGW, designed to unite the world through a common call to action, has become a divisive issue with pro’s and con’s now dug into the trenches of of conflict
The ‘twelve just men’ of public opinion have examined the evidence and prophecies but have found it to be lacking and the case for CAGW has been thrown out of court:-
Climategate and the multitude of IPCCgates have shown how the data has been massaged and distorted to fit the conjecture (Hockey stick graph).
How FOI requests were refused to stop data verification.
How data was badly managed and lost or destroyed.
How the peer review process was subverted to suppress contradictory evidence.
How the MSM colluded with the IPCC cabal of cargo cult scientists to suppress opposing views.
How the ever growing and significant influence of our cities ‘heat island’ effect has been poorly managed in the global mean temperature data series.
The role of deterministic chaos in the creation of natural climate change has been ignored.
The computer GCM’s have failed in their predictions.
The forecast ‘equatorial tropical tropospheric hot-spot’ has failed to appear.
(The list goes on…..)
Failed prophecies include…..
Polar bears are thriving.
Global sea ice levels are ‘normal’.
No statistically significant warming for 15y.
Hurricanes have failed to increase in number and strength.
Snow has failed to become a rare occurrence – in fact rather more in the last few years.
No sudden increase has been seen in sea level rising.
No mass starvation – in fact world nutrition is improving.
No massive droughts – rainfall has been greater in the last few years.
The ghost of CAGW still continues to wander the earth, with the screams of the true believers in the cargo cult science of CAGW getting shriller and shriller, but our sun has had the final word in bringing down the curtain on this mythical crisis.
If all the scientists who have determined that most of the recent warming is due to GHG increases are wrong (that would be the great majority of them), then what is the primary cause? ENSO? Solar variability? Cosmic rays? Have the people at WUWT decided on that yet. Having read posts from this site for awhile I am unsure what you would consider to be the primary driver of recent climate change. As it stands, I will have to follow the more coherent message, that CO2 is a GHG and that our practice of emitting it is increasing its concentration in the atmosphere, which in turn is trapping heat and causing the troposphere to warm while the stratosphere cools.
Perhaps communication about climate science would flow better if there was less hubris and more humility on the part of the communicators.
Remember this?
“Science is a very human form of knowledge; we are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward, for what is to be hoped. Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. All information is uncertain, we have to treat it with humility.
“There is no absolute knowledge, and those who claim it, whether scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. There are two parts to the human dilemma — one is that the belief that the end justifies the means; the other is the betrayal of the human spirit, the assertion of dogma that closes the mind.
“Science is a tribute to what we can know, although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
But why would you suppose there is any cause at all?
Weather is chaotic, close to random within its limits.
There is no cause for a roulette wheel turning up 30 reds in a streak, it is just random variation, and no reason to suppose that a warm or cool weather pattern lasting a decade or two or even a century has any cause either.
People often confuse cause with mechanism, for instance the mechanism of a series of cold decades might be colder ocean temperatures but they are not the cause.
What causes those cold ocean temperatures is another matter, it might be that there is one, perhaps the sun or other things, on the other hand it might just be the usual random fluctuations in the climate system.
We simply cannot tell: and have no way of doing so at the moment.
Kindest Regards
If you wish to practice a religion, and you choose to have faith in the Global Warming – Climate Change – Climate Disruption religion; that is your right and your privilege. If, however, you have the least interest in the rigors and discipline of science and the scientific method, demonstrating your faith in such a belief system has nothing to do with science beyond the pseeudo-scientific trappings and masquerades. At the present state of so-called climate science, the discipline being practiced by the IPCC and its supporters are tantamount to astrology and mysticism, insofar as they employ the symbols of science without complying with the fundamental requirements of the scientific method.
To demonstrate otherwise, you can begin by showing evidence that there really is such a thing as a Greenhouse Gas, other than the misnomer. You can then proceed to demonstrate how carbon dioxide can function as a GHG in the atmosphere. Then you can take the next step and demonstrate how carbon dioxide has the capability of increasing the mean temperature of the Earth proportional to its occurrence in atmospheric concentrations at the same rates of temperature change experienced by the Earth in all past geological periods as is being claimed at the present time.
You can aslo proceed to demonstrate how it is possible for a computational model that presently exists can possibly forecast or hindcast climactic events within less than 1C error rate as a substitute for empirical evidence from Nature.
If you ge this far, we can then proceed to the other problems which serve as obstacles to satisfying the requirements of the scientific method and its application to the Anthropogenic Global Warming, Climate Change, and Climate Disruption hypothesis.
Re begood2creation, the same thing, or not that caused the warming last time it happened. We haven’t denied the role of humans in creating a warmer planet, there is just scant evidence that it is co2, and there seems no evidence that it is increasing, tipping, flooding, melting, rising, dying, starving, sweating as had been promised for 20 years. We think it’s foolish to tell the world that soon were all going to die and in the same breath say that windmills are the answer, that the problem is so bad we must control every aspect of your life but not bad enough to build a nuclear power plant. Were old enough to have seen and heard this crap shoveled up before and we won’t accept it blindly and neither should you.
They came up with the “we need to communicate better” meme not long after Copenhagen and the bitter NH winter.
I don’t buy it one bit. What they really mean is “we couldn’t convince them with our dodgy science, so we must convince them with dodgy language.”
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Science was never about ‘what else could it be’, but one thing you can be certain of: This is the 4th panic over climate in 130 years, consisting of 2 Ice Age scares and 2 Global Warming scares. The lastest episode just happens to be the worst one as far as imaginations go. HypoWarmia.
The post talks about playing the media game. Guess what; the mass media game doesn’t work, regardless how well you play it, because the mass media isn’t trusted. The Gallup poll at http://www.gallup.com/poll/143267/Distrust-Media-Edges-Record-High.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics is discussed in an article that begins…
> Distrust in U.S. Media Edges Up to Record High
> Perceptions of liberal bias still far outnumber perceptions
> of conservative bias
> by Lymari Morales
> WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the fourth straight year, the majority
> of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media
> to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who
> now say this is a record high by one percentage point.
a jones,
Thanks for your reply . It is possible that it could be natural variability, I suppose, but I think it unlikely. I guess I could rephrase the question to be, “What is the most likely reason for the warming of the past few decades?” The IPCC answer you know well, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” What is the WUWT answer to this question?
D. Patterson,
Perhaps you could tone down the rhetoric, please. To clarify, are you suggesting that there are no gases that exert a positive radiative forcing?
@David Davidovics October 3, 2010 at 8:53 pm (…)
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Thanks for reminding me of that. Hadn’t read it for a long time
And now just to cheer you all up, a bit of relatively good news:
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/1577-jean-michel-belouve-french-academy-of-science-allows-science-debate.html
bgood2creation read D. Patterson says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:45 pm, a couple of times, one of them fancy coiled light emitters may then turn on if its not to cold.
@bgood2creation:
One simple reason: H2O is the main greenhouse gas.
Further:
– Climate models have build in a positive feedback from clouds. Should be negative
– Cosmic rays and the sun influence cloud formation on earth and therefore climate.
– CO2-levels follow warming. CO2 doesnt cause warming.
Theoretical a doubling of CO2 levels from 350 could have a warming effect of 1.2C. Only with positive feedback from clouds does the IPCC come to much higher warming.
Since feedback is negative, the warming effect will be nihil.
The CAGW warming ‘science’ is based on wrong assumptions and ignores other mechanisms.
CO2 is plantfood, not a pollutant.
“The 10:10 video ‘No Pressure’ is a new symbol–not one that the Establishment will cherish. It’s a symbol of failure to communicate.”
The video went viral as planned. The biggest carriers of viral video are children. This could in fact be part of a strategy outlined here by Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
People who think that a run of numbers somehow indicates an underlying cause which they imagine they understand are the delight of bookmakers and casinos.
You may think that there has been recent warming and that therefore it has some meaning and some cause. But it could just be nothing more than random variation.
People tend to see patterns in such things when there is actually none: why I do not know, it is something to do with the way our minds work or perhaps have evolved to work: which is what makes bookmakers and casinos rich.
As our instruments show periods of decades of sudden warming or cooling are nothing unusual: why they happen is another matter but we cannot even ascribe a mechanism for them let alone a cause.
If you want to see how this has happened in the past try Lubos Motl here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/warming-trends-in-england-from-1659.html
He has various other analyses of the CET but you will have to search his site.
But I repeat it is a great mistake to assume you can see a pattern in what is essentially a random series of numbers.
After all did not Dr Jones [no relation] of CRU himself admit in an interview with the BBC that he could could not tell the difference between the latest sudden warming and that of the 1930’s or the 1880’s: each followed by a sharp period of cooling of course.
What he then said was that he believed there was a difference even though the evidence shows there was none. Belief is one thing. Science is another.
Kindest Regards
DirkH says:
October 4, 2010 at 12:41 am
“The video went viral as planned. The biggest carriers of viral video are children. ”
IOW, it could be a campaign aimed at a new target demographic, and not be a failure after all. If it succeeds in instilling an irrational fear of nonconformance with the wishes of Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri and the UNIPCC in children, they have succeeded.
10:10global.org was in this case just a front organisation that can be dropped now, just like Franny Armstrong and Richard Curtis; and the campaign will be continued through a different front organisation next time.
Come establishment heads throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your dads and your moms are beyond your command
Your ersatz road is rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the way if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
“If all the scientists who have determined that most of the recent warming is due to GHG increases are wrong (that would be the great majority of them), then what is the primary cause? ENSO? Solar variability? Cosmic rays? Have the people at WUWT decided on that yet.”
The most succinct response to your question is in Thomas Fuller’s article:
“None of it is working right now. They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority.”
I’ll give my commentary of that. The key word is uncertainty.
Real scientists have the intestinal fortitude to live with uncertainty. In my academic background, analytical chemistry, we attempt to be upfront about the uncertainty in whatever it is that we’re measuring. We have discussions about how we should define uncertainty, and how to directly and indirectly convey uncertainty to nonspecialists who read our articles. I even have a publication in the top journal in my field on that very topic. If anyone is interested, I’ll post a link.
On the other hand, followers of secular religions, like CAGW, feel very uncomfortable without a prefab worldview, which explains everything that’s important to them. And that fundamental insecurity is a huge hurdle to overcome in one’s intellectual development.
So, what’s the 800-pound gorilla of recent climate change? I freely admit that do not know. And you don’t either.
However I do know that there’s no–as in zero, zip, nada, and zilch–evidence that Larry Effect gases, like CO2 are the *primary* culprit. For example, the twenty-odd GCMs used by the IPCC all predict a mid-tropospheric hot spot in Earth’s equatorial regions, and radiosonde data show that that hot spot does not exist. CAGW is a thoroughly falsified hypothesis that is unworthy of being called a theory.
Even the Easter Bunny climate change hypothesis would be a better explanation. At least, that one has not been falsified yet!
Moreover it’s not necessary for the Anthony, the guest-posters, and commentators at WUWT to formulate a consensus opinion on climate change. We’re a diverse group of free-thinking individuals, who view the world from a variety of different perspectives. We’re not an academic mafia. However for the bah-humbugs (like me), skeptics, and lukewarmers among us, a common thread in our postings can be expressed as the famous line from an old Tom Cruise movie whose name I forget: “Show me the money!” We do not need the illusion of certitude to give meaning to our lives.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
This, plus a small contribution from CO2 emissions.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
Daniel Hannan, in his Daily Telegraph blog, quotes the EU President Herman van Rompuy suggesting the following means of overcoming the failure to communicate a necessity for sanctions on people thus:
‘Whenever possible, decision-making rules on sanctions should be more automatic and based on a reverse majority rule, implying a Commission proposal is adopted unless rejected by the Council.’
If the Global Warmists would only adopt this procedure, they could do as they wished.
Oh, wait a minute…
The simple fact is that indicators such as the google news count for “global warming” have been on a steady decline since 2007.
YES 2007!!!
This decline in public interest is not as result of jokenhagen, climategate or the last cold winter. The public and Main Stream Media have been going off this subject for years. The most likely reasons are:-
1. Boredom with the story – how many times will people care to read about the prospective death of this or that furry animal?
2. The lack of predicted catastrophes – you can hype up one or two natural disasters and make people believe “something is happening”, but unless you can continually increase the hype year on year … decade on decade so that the public see for themselves increasing effects … they start to ignore the hype.
3. The lack of warming in the 21st century has undermined the credibility and urgency of the “imminent disaster “.
4. “It’s not affecting me”. Even if people believe in global warming, a decade is long enough for most people to assess whether they personally are experiencing any change for the worse or better. They don’t need expensive scientific equipment, satellites, a degree in mathematics to realise that they are clearing the same path from the same snow they remember their dads/grandparents doing. They can remember how hot summers used to be and they snow that the latest “heat wave” isn’t particularly unusual.
5. I like a bit of Autumn/fall sunshine. You can’t help people liking warmer weather. Even ardent believers will forget eventually themselves and enjoy the heat and moan about the cold.
This isn’t a failure to communicate, it is a failure for the mass ranks of professional communication to over ride the common sense of the populace and mainstream media.
Indeed, sorry to say this, but the success of wattsupwiththat is not so much a driver of the fall of the global warming scam, but is a symptom of its collapse!
Just slightly off topic : the inevitable 10:10 parodies….
http://anallseeingeye.blogspot.com/2010/10/1010-muslim-spoof.html
Message from the top: It’s OK to terrorise children for the cause.