Over at Bishop Hill’s blog, he posted this graph below which is an output from a special Google Labs search query. It lists the percentage of books that are about nuclear war and climate change.
Fittingly, the climate change graph (blue) is a hockey stick.
Bishop hill came up with what I consider to be a stunningly great caption, and this is well worthy of submitting to graphjam if somebody wants to do that. He called it:
“Conservation of worry”
…which is really one of the best labels I’ve read in a long time.
You can run this query yourself.
Here’s the link.
Taking that a step further, let’s add “global warming” to the mix.
It seems that term is falling out of favor compared with “climate change”, but we knew that.
Unfortunately it seems this query only covers data up to 2008. It will be interesting to see if there’s a recent decline after that given Climategate. Adding that word to the mix yields no hits, so it apparently is not in the database. Ditto for “climate disruption”.
But there is another word trend that seems to mirror “global warming” but may have peaked:
We live in interesting times.
Feel free to share.
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The most trusted BBC TV Newsreader Anchorman of 20 years confirms out and out BBC News Coverage bias towards global warming religion.
http://www.savethebritishfilmindustry.com/2011/01/as-20-year-tv-news-anchorman-peter-sissons-confirms-marxist-bbc-bias-against-britain-why-does-the-bbc-subsidise-the-guardian-to-the-tune-of-100-a-year-per-genuine-guardian-purchaser/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349506/Left-wing-bias-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Anthony,
Climate science only follows the temperatures to generate a pattern to project a prediction. In doing so, they watched the ocean heat pattern shift yet just recorded the temperatures. No, evaporation or precipitation considerations, just temperatures.
Now that the ocean heat is in the Arctic, the evaporation doors are wide open and the weather patterns have changed bringing down colder Arctic air.
Climate science is their own worse enemy and their credibility is crumbling due to the ocean heat shift.
I wonder who wrote about nuclear war around 1808.
Science Fiction writer? 😀
I love it!
Talk about “Conservation of worry”, try sticking in [climate change,nuclear war,communism,fascism,second coming]. Intersesting.
Steinar Midtskogen says:
January 22, 2011 at 5:00 am
That’s the red with the yellow blended.
Was it Kipling who wrote a story forecasting nuclear weapons in the late 18th century? I remember reading it in an SF Anthology too many years ago.
OT. autonomous Mind is carrying a story that the BBS has refused an FOI request on the number of complaints about Climate Change on the grounds that climate change is, “Journalism, Art or Literature.” – but we already knew that, didn’t we?
BBS=BBC
Now if we could just find a way to turn all this “Doomsday is Upon Us” paranoia into energy we’d be able to solve the energy crisi and the CO2 emmissions/AGW problem in one go!
In 1800’s word ‘nuclear’ had a different meaning to the today’s, at that time the nucleus (centre) of raging war was France under Napoleon.
Napoleon took nucleus of an army he landed on the French coast and with which he marched upon Paris, …
Common sense in decline!
Other word trends that mirror climate change are autism and pizza. If only I were as good as Briffa and Mann, I could prove causation by the mere fact that I can’t think of anything else plausible.
Thanks for the kind words Anthony. The person who sent me this called it “Size of worry wart a conserved quantity”, so the idea wasn’t all mine.
@Stuart-Brown: Very good article on BBC. If there are any real historians or journalists remaining, they would do well to look into 1988-89 when the Soviet power gave up on Russia and moved to Britain and US. It was dramatically obvious in BBC World Service, and equally obvious in the workings of EPA and in the switch from President Reagan to Rezident Bush Senior.
Nuclear WINTER
Climate HOLOCAUST
Same poo different label
[We intend to tighten up the show around here. Taunting will not get you far. Continue and you end up in spam filter permanently. ~ ctm]
You want alarming?
Cross-posted from Bish
If you are in the business of writing, the future looks pretty good for those who choose “climate change” for their subject. The readers will still have to sort fact from fiction. The future isn’t as bright for those who choose “global warming”. Readers have discovered too much fiction when they are seeking facts. I predict “climate disruption” will have a short run because the fiction is so easy to recognize.
What is the source of the small blip around 1900 ?
Well, Charles, I think my question much less of a taunt than people calling a scientist I respect a ‘evil old git’. But, perhaps your standard differ.
Steinar Midtskogen says: “I wonder who wrote about nuclear war around 1808”
Not exactly writing about it IN 1808, as mentioning 1808 in terms of nuclear war, and hollow earth theory, and other assorted mayhem. Caution, this web site will burn your eyeballs, because of lots of capitals. And I found this doing a search, so please don’t accuse me of actually following this particular creed . . .
http://positron.truman.edu/~edis/writings/tae/truth.html
steveta_uk says:
January 22, 2011 at 5:49 am
You want alarming?
OT I know…sorry…
After having my recent bout with Prostate Cancer at 54 and all these male baby boomers, that graph is going to go through the roof.
Thanks for the OT space.
“…there is another word trend…”
Wait, what’s that word in yellow?
Come on Anthony, I use your site to help counter what my kids are taught in school. Up until the “Shrinkage” post I never worried about anything. Now I have to check first. Is this a new trend? Or have I missed this kind of stuff until now?
Try adding “terrorism” too for another far more popular scare. “Rapture” was an interesting one too. Interest seems to have dropped since 1800 only to resurge this century.
A much sharper “hockey stick” and very major looming challenge is “peak oil”.
There are corresponding strong increases in: alternative fuel, renewable fuel, transport fuel, vs peak oil
See Robert L. Hirsch’s presentation, The Impending World Energy Mess
And Jeffrey Brown on Peak Oil Versus Peak Net Exports–Which Should We Be More Concerned About?
Now add ‘2012’ and ‘Y2K’. Hmmm. Is it me or do we have some weird, deep seated need to find something to crap ourselves about every few years?