This entry below is unashamedly pinched from Bishop Hill, who I don’t think will mind, since at the bottom I’m giving a link to him where a raging and somewhat related debate is going on right now.
He writes:
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More scratching of heads among the chattering classes as they try to work out why nobody believes their global warming propaganda – next week they are all jetting off to Norway for a chat about what to do:
We cordially invite you to the seminar Carbonundrums: From Science to Headlines as well as to the ensuing debate New Realities, New Narratives in Climate Reporting, on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 at Litteraturhuset. We will address important questions such as: How is the press reporting on climate change? What can we learn from Climategate? How should we communicate scientific uncertainty? What determines how people perceive climate change?
Panellists include Fiona Fox, Bob Ward, Roger Harrabin, Fred Pearce, Naomi Oreskes and Rasmus Benestad. That’s one very large carbon footprint!
The whole thing will be webcast here.
(H/T Billy)
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Funny how this comes on the heels of the Lisbon conference, which seems to be driving AGW proponents like Joe Romm absolutely batshit crazy. Bish has quite the discussion on it here.
Carbon is for me not for thee.
They really need to invite Mother Nature and ask her to look at the model projections and start performing according to script.
Don’t be standing around Cowboys stadium with all that ice and snow on the roof. When all that snow and ice comes sliding off, it will put you in the hospital or kill you.
It’s a laugh riot watching the the CNN news anchors, especially the women anchors, trying to laugh off the weather news in Dallas.
They act like it’s a joke or something. The joke is on them and the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing due to their impenetrable belief system in man-made global warming they have been pushing their entire carriers is on display in living color.
Yep, they ignore the 800lb. gorilla in the room-that the northern hemisphere is covered with snow and the human population still has eyesight, though I’m sure the powers that be are working on that little detail.
Norway in February. Heh heh. These Warmists crack me up.
Thanks so much for this important news and this wonderful opportunity to comment.
1. First of all, can some sceptic attend this conference as an observer? We need someone who can soak up a lot of information, process it intelligently, and report here. Willis Eschenbach would be excellent. There are others.
2. Second of all, here is a response to the quotation, taken one assertion at a time:
“We will address important questions such as: How is the press reporting on climate change?” They continue to be slavishly and hysterically pro-AGW though they are forced to report that all so-called “predictions” from Warmista are false and some dangerously so.
3. “What can we learn from Climategate?” That no one will believe Warmista until the main perpetrators of deception, especially Mann and Jones, are punished for creating a conspiracy to shape their so-called scientific results to serve political ends. That all the raw data collected by Jones, Hansen, whomever, now and in the future, must be publicly shared and that all “smoothing” of the data must be justified in a manner that satisfies sceptics and professional statisticians.
4. “How should we communicate scientific uncertainty? This is the most important point. Warmista must admit that they have not one reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis which can be used to explain and predict something, whether we call it “climate,” “weather,” or “whatever.” That is the proper communication of uncertainty that Warmista are duty bound as scientists to make now. In short, Warmista must admit that their so-called “science” has nothing to say about the future impact of CO2 on Earth’s temperature. Specifically, Warmista can neither explain nor predict the forcings that they believe will increase the impact of manmade CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. As the Warmista admit, only these forcings can cause dangerous temperature increases. Roy Spencer’s book “The Great Global Warming Blunder” should be the starting point for discussions of these matters. Warmista have statistical hypotheses aplenty and just as many novel statistical techniques, but not one reasonably confirmed physical hypothesis and not one statistical technique that meets the approval of professional statisticians.
5. What determines how people perceive climate change? The primary determinant is the media drumbeat that AGW will cause global doom this century. The media love this drumbeat just as they loved reports on violent death in Vietnam, especially of innocents, massacres and skeletal prisoners in camps in Bosnia, 9/11, Israeli combat in Gaza or the West Bank, and anything that will increase pulse rates among their audience. Genuine scientists would abhor this media practice and do everything in their power to separate themselves from the drumbeat of doom. Aside from this fact, there are the numerous occasions, especially ClimateGate, in which pro-AGW scientists have engaged in conspiracy to deceive the public, produced false predictions, produced outrageous theories and yet claimed the moral high ground of science in their defense. The public in the USA is aware of this behavior and will in all cases seek proof that it is not present in any new communication from the pro-AGW camp. Finally, there is the word ‘denier’. The pro-AGW camp’s use of this word has won for it a place right up there with ‘redneck’, ‘wetback’, and ‘nigger’.
Any more questions?
I new it. What good can come from a EU sponsored Climate Reconciliation Meeting?
I’m almost sure the objective was to gather more insight’s why their propaganda machinery got stuck. But maybe they can have a look outside the window when their planes arrive in Norway and ask about the antique snow plough train their neighbors
had to pull from a railway museum clear their rail tracks.
http://www.thelocal.se/31104/20101227/
Or maybe they could ask how many times they had to dynamite ice lakes to keep the hydro plants running this winter season.
And maybe it would help if they simply stopped lying about Global Warming and it’s causes.
I’m afraid they will never learn.
Saturday funny
Klip O’Toole – Chief of Climate Police – Episode Two
And for you Anthony,
Klip O’toole Episode 04
Maybe they are going to discuss the disappearing ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). But then they will have to explain why automobile sales went up 9% world wide last year. Maybe they are flying over to put more contrails in the sky to cool the world off a bit and use up carbon based fuel that could foul the lower atmosphere. /sarc off
Joe Romm is in the year of trouble. EPA woman is history. Judge rules one more time against illegal offshore drilling embargoes. The winter has arrived. Cold and wet.
The human element of global warming comes from hand waving.
There are far more important and immediate issues in the public consciousness these days than some obscure conference in an even more obscure town. What’s going on in the Middle East for example. Or in my backyard garden.
I think these folks are just upset about being upstaged. It’s very hard on the ego, when one realizes that one is irrelevant.
Oh and related to the previous post on Proposition 23: Why doesn’t California shut down all their airports, remove all the fuel guzzling military bases, National Guard, and Coast Guard bases; increase their fuel tax to $10 per gallon and issue everyone a bicycle. No need for Cap and Trade then. Carbon problem solved as most two legged carbon life forms would quickly emigrate to Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Mexico. Then Arnie and Al Gore can have cocktails with Charlie Sheen at Al’s beach side mansion and congratulate themselves on their success. No ice of course. No carbon based power. /sarc off
The new spin on all this snow, and I’m not kidding, is that because the Artic is heating up the cold has to go somewhere. The scientific mind at it’s best.
Looks like most of Norway has at LEAST 4′ of snow on the ground right now.
Mountain ski resorts about 250 to 300 cm (7 to 9 feet).
I’m sure these media wonks can get in some good SKIING while discussing how to promote GoreBull Warming. Maybe some of them will be stupid enough to be interviewed, outdoors, snow falling…winter clothes on, standing on skis, whining about the loss of the polar bears. Even MORE entertaining if we could get a polarbear to chase them down the slope!
If they are savvy enough to know about webcasts, why not a video conference and a lower footprint? Something does not compute!
There are folks who can predict the weather claiming that we may be in a 20 to 30 year cooling cycle. If we are; will we blame the cooling on the heating?
(Do we ever blame the heating on the cooling?)
The Hypocrisy Crowd. Do as I say, not as I do, and the more you do as I say, the more I can do as I may. When and if the sheep that still believe the BS these people are shoveling wake up; maybe then these hypocrites can take their rightful spot…in jail!
What a weird thing for carbon lifeforms to be doing. You would think none of them know what carbon is all about … Photosynthesis and cellular respiration, what odd concepts, that use carbon. I wonder, do they know what earth would look like if we puny humans could reduce atmospheric CO2 to zero?
You can fake the science, but hiding the ice and snow is not going to work.
Bum Candor Runs: ‘Numb Crud Sonar’ detects ‘Mourn and Scrub’ from ‘Nomad Burn Curs’ seeking ‘Snub Drum Acorn’ in ‘Carbon Mud Urns’ during ‘Random Sun Curb’.
Businesses like mine and those much larger alike are doing whatever we can in the way of WebEx meetings and teleconferences to cut down on costs. These leeches seem to care neither about cost nor carbon… the gravy train keeps on rolling for the climate charlatans.
In Sweden this video is blocked by Sony on copyright grounds. I expect it is the same in many countries.
Well, here’s the thing.
If you are going to argue for limits on “greenhouse gases” then you must show that there is some kind of a problem with them.
To date there is no evidence that the recent spell of warm temperatures were unusual in either magnitude or rate of change. They fall within the typical range of the natural variation seen on this planet over the past 1000 years. One thing that tends to obscure all of this is that we have just come out of the coldest period of the past 7000 years (the LIA) and the oceans might still be recovering from that event (and might continue to recover for another hundred years or two) as the abyssal deep continues to get a little bit warmer. It is much easier to cool the deep ocean than it is to warm it, mainly because cold water sinks. It takes a lot longer to warm it up than it takes to cool it down.
So the onus is still on those who would demand we spend billions of dollars and change our lifestyle to:
A: show that there is a problem that is outside of natural variation.
B: show that we are the ones responsible for it.
C: show that any of their proposed changes will have any measurable impact.
To date they have shown none of the above. Until they do, they sound to me like Charlie Brown’s teacher (wuah, wuah, wuah … wuah wuah … wuah wuah wuah). And for those outside the US who might not get that cultural reference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUyLwXhqlWU
The sad thing is that children coming out of our school systems today have been taught all their lives that “greenhouse gases” are dangerous and must be controlled. It is just fact to them, they have been indoctrinated in that since kindergarten and their library is full of such books. There is not a single book with a counter argument or one that shows that client varies naturally to the same extent we have seen anywhere in their libraries.
THAT is where people need to be exposed to multiple points of view.
Methinks Fred better make up with Gavin before Fred gets to Norway – otherwise the surrogates may get him.
I cannot think of a more dubious person to include on this panel than Oreskes.
Why no bona fide skeptical columnists – such as Larry Solomon or, god forbid, Bjorn Lomborg?
I simply do not understand how a conversation among ardent warmistas is going to shed light on how to better convince a growing number of skeptical taxpayers and voters that something needs to be done. It is like having focus groups of only Pepsi drinkers talking about how to take market share away from CocaCola.
The big argument re: Lisbon, Pearce etc is here:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/2/5/the-big-cutoff.html
What’s the name of this seminar again? Was this one “The No-Talent Hacks’ Guide to Leeching Taxpayer Monies for Self-Promotion and Personal Wealth?”
I thought they already did that one….several times at least….
“This video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds”
So much for entertainment. These people have left already.
pat says:
February 5, 2011 at 9:37 am
Norway in February. Heh heh.
just wait, they will get a very warm spell up there right about that time and POOF! proof of CAGW….
Of course no real skeptics. Since the science is settled, global warming has now become a “communication problem”, or rather an “education problem”. So this is what the focus will be. They have lost the mainstream media, and this is the current crisis that must be addressed. The same theme pops up everywhere these days: “how to communicate climate change”.
How about starting by open and objective science?
Should be an easy fix……
(I will walk down there and have a listen. It is only 3 minutes walk).
THE NEW STRATEGY FOR “GREENS” – PERSONAL AGW BRAINWASHING
This is from a program to be broadcast by the BBC (who else?) on Thursday Feb 10.
“In Denial – Climate on the Couch”
– Notice the title of the program. It’s really very clever. It’s in the best Soviet tradition of saying those who don’t believe in AGW – now separated from “us” (the sane believers) into a group called “deniers” – must be mentally afflicted. Not bad going for six words!
Program details
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y92mn
Thursday, 21:00 on BBC Radio 4
Synopsis
Something strange is happening to the climate – the climate of opinion. On the one hand, scientists are forecasting terrible changes to the planet, and to us. On the other, most of us don’t seem that bothered, even though the government keeps telling us we ought to be. Even climate scientists and environmental campaigners find it hard to stop themselves taking holidays in long haul destinations.
So why the gap between what the science says, and what we feel and do? In this programme Jolyon Jenkins investigates the psychology of climate change. Have environmentalists and the government been putting out messages that are actually counterproductive? Might trying to scare people into action actually be causing them to consume more? Are images of polar bears actually damaging to the environmentalists’ case because they alienate people who don’t think of themselves as environmentalists – and make climate change seem like a problem that’s a long way off and doesn’t have much relevance to normal life? Does the message that there are “simple and painless” steps we can take to reduce our carbon footprint (like unplugging your phone charger) unintentionally cause people to think that the problem can’t be that serious if the answers are so trivial?
Jolyon talks to people who are trying to move beyond the counterproductive messages. On the one hand there are projects like Natural Change, run by WWF Scotland, which try to reconnect people with nature using the therapeutic techniques of “ecopsychology” – intense workshops that take place in the wilderness of the west of Scotland, and which seem to convert the uncommitted into serious greens. On the other, there are schemes that try to take the issue out of the green ghetto and engage normal people with climate change. Jolyon visits a project in Stirling which has set itself the ambitious challenge of talking face to face with 35,000 people, through existing social groups like rugby clubs, knitting circles and art groups. It wants to sign up these groups to carbon cutting plans, and make carbon reduction a social norm rather than something that only eco-warriors bother with.
And he attends a “swishing party” in London, which tries to replicate the buzz women get from clothes shopping, but in a carbon neutral way. Can the green movement find substitutes for consumerism that are as fun and status-rich, that will deliver carbon reduction but without making people feel they have signed up to a life of grim austerity? And even if the British and Europeans shift their attitudes, can the Americans ever be reconciled to the climate change message? Producer Jolyon Jenkins.
…So there you are. As they’ve lost the scientific argument, the “man-made global warming” liars are now employing a new brainwashing strategy based on the bullying psychology of religious cults.
According to the Norwegian met office
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Oslo/Oslo/Oslo/long.html
The temperature will be -1 C on Monday when the participants arrive and rise up to a balmy 1 C on Tuesday during the conference.
Not quite a full bore Gore effect, but it will do.
Naomi Oreskes’ talk is called “Merchants of Doubt”. The title suggests that doubters are making large amounts of money from their efforts. Au contraire, the warmists are far better funded than people like our host blogger Anthony and others like him.
One of the sponsors Fritt Ord is a foundation for the freedom of expression. Fritt Ord means Free Word or Free Speech in Norwegian.
The discussion of the panel seems to be how to best to frame the debate. I’m sure participants like Roger Harabin from the BBC, Bob Ward the global warming PR consultant from Grantham Research Institute, Naomi Oreskes the maker up of the climate consensus myth and Rasmus Benestad member of the famous ClimateGate climate hockey stick graph team will make sure of that.
Freedom of speech, Sure!
pat says:
February 5, 2011 at 9:37 am
There’s not a single tropical resort that would book ’em–they’re completely aware of the record-setting cold that accompanies these types of gatherings and it simply ISN’T good for their tourist business.
/sarc or not to sarc, that is the question!
Please please weather gods give them a winter storm to remember,snow in Copenhagen ,cold in Cancun…..nasty in Norway.Remind these fools who is in charge of the planets climate.
As for the questions
How is the press reporting on climate change? What can we learn from Climategate? How should we communicate scientific uncertainty? What determines how people perceive climate change?
1.Stop biased reporting, air sceptical thoughts/findings
2.don’t lie where others can find it out.in fact don’t bother lying
3.just tell the truth, nothing in climate science is 100% certain
4. most intelligent people know when someone’s trying to pull the wool over their eyes,stop repeating the same old mantra. ie global warming is to blame for every extreme weather event.
Kate says:
February 5, 2011 at 10:49 am
Well, now they’ve gone and done it–blamed Climate for the problems with the climate. How fitting, although I’m not sure why they’d want to admit it is THEY who are “In Denial”. (Now what…they’re going to dig a pit and have an intimate discussion with Gaia while they’re down there?)
/definitely sarc.
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
The recent monologue on WUWT by Haribin can now be put into perspective, and I was right. A serpent in snakeskin clothing.
Perhaps behind closed doors, the Team will be meeting with ICANN officials and find ways to block “alternative blogs” like this one. They’ve got a stranglehold on the Main Stream Media, but to no avail. And thier shrinking list of devotees indicates that “messaging” isn’t the problem. The real problem lies with people shivering from New Mexico to Devonshire who are being lectured about thier carbon footprint. This week, blackouts plagued the Southwest US was temps plunged below 20 deg F. The utility companies could not keep up with demand. Add near record snowfall from Iowa to Boston; a miserable December from the Orkneys to Vienna, and there isn’t much room for the CAGW point of view.
If the trend continues, the Alarmists will demand that the UN give them power to control all fossil fuels- the voters be damned!
Closer inspection of the program reveals that this an invite-only event, and that all Norwegian contributors are staunch warmists of the third degree.
We all know benestad of climategate fame. Member of The Team, regular contributor to Realclimate.
Karine Nyborg is an environmentalist economist, contributing to papers such as: Attracting Responsible Employees: Green Production as Labor Market Screening.
Atle Midttun, professor of economics, author of such gems as:
“we must end carbon consumption as a sign of social status”,
“Two months before the negotiations in Copenhagen, we are afraid that the most probable scenario is that we are entering into the age of idiots. There are signs that the negotiations will not be successful”.
And:
“the current environmental crisis is too good to be wrecked as an opportunity for a new renaissance”
Apart form these three norwegian hyper-warmists, there is the Minister of Environment from the socialist party, who on numerous occasions has demonstrated his dogmatic belief in CAGW.
He is fortunately held back by more sober colleagues in the coalition government towards his daydreams of “green jobs” and a “green economy”.
So there it is.
A collection of activists.
And of course no tickets for dissenting voices, AKA Deniers.
Joseph in Florida says:
February 5, 2011 at 10:19 am
(Do we ever blame the heating on the cooling?)
Take a look at some of the thermometer sites on surfacestations.org. Air conditioner exhaust blowing right onto the site.
The carborundum invitation reads like one to a marketing seminar. What looks to me like another marketing seminar (this time for developing nations) is scheduled for Cairo in June. At the World Conference of Science Journalists the keynote lecture is by the CEO, American Association for the Advancement of Science:
http://www.scidev.net/en/events/world-conference-of-science-journalists-2011.html
Here is a sample of topics. What descriptions I have included are from the program.
The (N)ever Changing Forecast: Can We (N)ever Report Well on Climate Change?
This panel will discuss how to cover climate change when its position in the public consciousness is in constant flux.
Science Oil Spills and Secrecy
(This session produced by AAAS with panelists from the Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR and The American University in Cairo)
Am I a Science Journalist?
In the evolving world of science communication, how do we define a science journalist?
Secrets of the Stars: A Best Practices Panel on Science Blogging
Journalism in the Age of Denial
Denialism has always been defined as “Choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid uncomfortable truth….Is denialism growing around the globe?)
PR and Journalism: A Conversation About Collaboration
Reaching Young Audiences
The Promise and Perils of Investigative Science Journalism
Who Speaks for Science?
What determines how people perceive climate change?
It might be the warmist act of painting themselves into a corner, then proclaiming they know what they are doing.
Such outlandish stunts drive people to perceive the originators of inside-out/upside-down/totally reversed thinking as reality disconnects.
Dogs are now cats, and an F on your final exam is now an A.
It’s cold out there because warming is past tense and Global Cooling is never caused by Global Warming.
Ed Waage says:
February 5, 2011 at 10:54 am
“Naomi Oreskes’ talk is called “Merchants of Doubt”. The title suggests that doubters are making large amounts of money from their efforts. Au contraire, the warmists are far better funded than people like our host blogger Anthony and others like him.”
It is titled after her book. She is trying to get sell her trash before it is rightfully recycled as toilet paper. She is the poster child for why the government shouldn’t write blank checks to universities for “science.”
The only question is who or whom is paying for this get together?
Well they have got to try and melt all that ice up in the Arctic as nature is not doing it for them…
I’ve just realised the British Council are one of the sponsors, well that is a letter off to my local MP. I mean, should we be funding such lavish events during vast public spending cuts here in the UK?
Other sponsors are Oxford Global Media who in effect are just media spinners for hire no matter what their fancy website might say. Jobs for the boys there I guess.
Ed Waage says:
February 5, 2011 at 10:54 am
According to the Norwegian met office
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Oslo/Oslo/Oslo/long.html
‘Naomi Oreskes’ talk is called “Merchants of Doubt”.’
She’s the one who wrote the book exposing sceptics for being against totalitarian government. She claimed that sceptics are against the science because they are against totalitarianism. Of course, sceptics have revealed the non-existence of the Jones-Mann-Hansen “science.” Would someone please ask her if she is in favor of totalitarian government? And, additionally, does she believe totalitarian rule is a fair price to pay for controlling manmade CO2?
JP says:
February 5, 2011 at 11:29 am
“And thier shrinking list of devotees indicates that “messaging” isn’t the problem. The real problem lies with people shivering from New Mexico to Devonshire who are being lectured about thier carbon footprint.”
In the USA, the only people recognized as less believable than Barack Obama are the ClimateGaters, including Hansen and crew. How’s Lisa working out for you at the EPA, Barry? Pretty much like Nancy in that Speaker job, I believe.
Why doesn’t Oreskes just send the organisers a PDF summary of her latest ‘Merchants of Doubt’ book and save all the CO2 emissinos involved in her attendance?
Here in Oz we have WWF advertising Earth Hour every night on TV right now. That is fine by me – if they decide that ‘communicating better’ means spending all their money on TV advertising useless gestures then so be it. As they say fools and their money are easily parted.
So, it’s another exotic seminar where more “New realities” = “New Narratives”, eh? Well, it’s not surprising that the Post Normals have doggedly stayed confined within their own infinitely recurring propaganda loop, which they advise us is necessary and without escape once Post Normal Science has set in upon a
personsociety, and therefore necessarily the whole World, too, no doubt. They should know!But, if only for the purposes of
understanding one’s enemiesempathy imagine what it would be like to be a person or group stuck inside the “perception is reality” world, where the only “ends” allowed for people are also the ‘means” = thought control via repeating the “correct” noises, but with the Post Normals also almost always having to try to figure out what the Post Normals themselves should be “thinking” and projecting outward in order to be “correct” and somehow “win” by finally interfacing with the real world. Apparently, never having to “feel falsified” and going only with “what you feel, not what you can prove” might have some drawbacks?Let’s hope it keeps fine for them – then again maybe not.
Oh…who is paying:
KLIMALØFTET (climate uplift) is the “Norwegian government’s action on climate information to the public”
FRITT ORD (free word) Norway’s biggest fund for “free speech and debate by stimulating unafraid use of free speech”
SUND ENERGY, who, according to themselves:
“We represent several different educational and cultural backgrounds and thrive on diversity that enhances communication and sparks innovation. We are motivated by excelling in difficult tasks and have on several occasions assisted our clients to achieve the “impossible”. Our greatest compliment is when clients not only achieve good results, but also grow by working with us.
Much of what we do is “bridging” environments by assisting clients in designing optimal strategies and in understanding their counterparts and stakeholders. Mindsets are diverse and the right answer is often not the same for all parties. We also have a large contact network in many countries and different sectors of business life and politics. Clients find this useful not only in understanding market developments, but also in identifying potential partners and business opportunities.”
Which means essentially nothing.
Except that they want to do business.
The fourth sponsor is the Norwegian Climate And Pollution Agency, which of course is just another government outlet for government policy, promoting the idea of catastrophic AGW.
So no surprises, no skeptics, and of course no inconvenient questions.
Norway in February? Do they really believe that crap they’re spewing?
Re Oslo
Regarding Sund Energy
Which according to this page of their website-
http://www.sundenergy.com/projects/
mostly seems to be representing or advising the gas industry. Hopefully the conference attendees will look at the sponsor’s activities and decide the tired old meme of ‘big oil’ funding sceptics deserves permanent burial. Otherwise they just make our life too easy. One could also say the same about the Norwegian governments sponsorship, but then Norway invested it’s oil/gas windfalls rather better than we in the UK did.
Is Gavin going?
Atomic,
make no mistake.
All Norwegian “green energy” proponents in Norway are already fully financed by Statoil, BP, EXXON, etc…
Still they seem to stick to the same old message of lower consumption.
Only this time in suits.
Wasn’t Roger Harrabin the reporter who said the MET really did predict a cold winter, but then found out from his own FOI request that his story was completely wrong? He tried to make out that the MET isn’t biased and useless, and that their weather models aren’t biased by a belief in global warming. Instead of jetting off to a conference, his time would be better spent finding out who tricked him and why. Surely, if he’s acting as someone’s “useful idiot” he should find out what’s going on before he totally ruins his reputation.
Aside from all the facts, they aren’t going to be effective persuaders until they hire someone with a sense of humor and metaphor.
What’s the first association of the name?
Non illegitimi carbonundrum.
Appropriate, but not in the way they want.
“Ghost Whiners In Norway”
Dances in the past
Bring the spell right up to date.
A Tarentella.
=========
With all due sarcastic respect to our “betters” they must meet in Norway in February so that the instant winter weather will be a boon to the tourism trade. No middle latitude country or tropical country can afford the additional revenue loss (tourism) or expense (snow removal).
These folks are having their last hurrah before the big funding cuts come. Regardless of who makes the demands on spending the House of Representatives must approve it and the “climate” in that body has taken a decidedly more skeptic view on the science of climate. Perhaps the umbilical to the government teat is about to be cut.
Bill Derryberry
Seems to be the wrong place for a climate conference, Norway in January. Don’t they normally go somewhere warm.
They would not join us in Lisbon.
Now they will not let us join them in Norway.
Although they are debating How To Communicate.
Last week, BBC Science was Under Attack.
Then the BBC Met The Skeptic.
Next week BBC are pushing Skeptics Under the
BusCouch.So….. they want to Forcibly Reprogramme us,
having hung the millstone of AGW round children’s necks
having raised a generation of “Debate Is Over” Believers
Just like the Inquisition
Just like Stalinist Russia
Just like 1984.
Or will they?
Ed Waage says:
February 5, 2011 at 10:54 am
According to the Norwegian met office
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Oslo/Oslo/Oslo/long.html
The temperature will be -1 C on Monday when the participants arrive and rise up to a balmy 1 C on Tuesday during the conference.
Not quite a full bore Gore effect, but it will do.
Naomi Oreskes’ talk is called “Merchants of Doubt”. The title suggests that doubters are making large amounts of money from their efforts. Au contraire, the warmists are far better funded than people like our host blogger Anthony and others like him.
==========
R williams of ABC aus agw Bias fame, recently allowed this to take taxpayer airtime here in aus..I sincerely hope they all get frostbitten! m Oreskes especially. her clever twisiting and implications with no proof of what she claims, classic psyops type spindoctoring indeed.
Oslo in February is actually quite OK. It is about +4C here where I live, a one hour drive west of Oslo, the sun is shining, there is no wind, so alas, there will be no snowstorm when the delegates arrive. Oslo at 0 degrees is not like Chicago at 0 degrees, I am sorry to say.
Norwegians consist of people who actually followed when the ice age ended and the ice retreated. They love snow and ice (I am a genetic misfit). You can see that every Easter, when the snow disappears in the lower land and the sun rises higher for every day. Most people travel to the mountains to enjoy the snow and ice while it lasts, hurl themselves together in small wooden cottages or mountain resorts, and go skiing all day and party all night. Today, I am sure hundreds of thousands of Norwegians are out skiing.
Benestad whined about the lack of communication along the warmists a year ago, in a letter to the opinion pages of Teknisk Ukeblad. Teknisk Ukeblad is the technological weekly in Norway, being mailed to all members of the union of the university educated engineers – which is as good as all engineers educated from the Norwegian Institute of Technology, University of Trondheim, renamed some years ago into the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. I mention this because you should be aware that Norway is a small country, a bit larger than Minnesota with a little less people, and very centralized, almost like Minnesota. The Teknisk Ukeblad is situated in Oslo and probably doesn’t have a single journalist skilled in science. Mockingly we now call it The Environmentaltechnology Weekly because they are in the hands of the environmentalists and print all the badly written press releases about AGW from the Norwegian equivalent of Reuters.
Norway as a country is obsessed with one notion: that the only thing that matters is to be BEST. That is why we pour money into sports, especially winter sports. There is something religious about this, and note that this obsession is not shared by the Danes or Swedes – or Icelanders or Finns.
We print news every month to bring to knowledge of people that we are the happiest, the richest, the most caring, that Norway is the best country in the world to live in, that we live longest, are most prosperous, that our technology is the best, that we are world-leading in this or that, that we set an example for other countries, etc. etc. While we are one of the most over-taxed countries with a rigorous control in so many areas that people who come from dictatorships for instance in South Africa have said to me that they were much freer in their dictatorships.
Our politicians have extended this obsession to the climate crisis. We SHALL be the BEST of the world in developing CO2 capture and storage, wind turbines, etc. We shall be best in giving away money to other countries so they can combat climate change. Our prime minister was recently appointed by Ban Ki Moon as head of the UN’s climate combat panel – or whatever they call it. Our environmental minister who is going to appear at this conference fly all over the world and throw money into other countries climate combat schemes. Billions of them.
Benestad complained in his letter that climate change combat didn’t receive enough attention, they communcated too poorly. I wrote a long letter in reply to the T. U. where I pointed out that no other branch of science (if you choose to call it that) ever had the same amounts of money, prizes and international attention at their feet or in their hands. With a Nobel prize, an Oscar, and a lot of feature films scaring the shit out of people or TV serials and debates presenting the scare again and again, they were so grossly overcommunicated I wondered what was his problem?
The sarcasm and the heap of sound arguments were of no use. The T. U. didn’t print my reply, so I mailed it to Benestad and received a feeble reply that they (the warmists) didn’t communicate well enough because people still didn’t believe. At this time half of the Norwegian population didn’t believe in AGW at all.
So be sure of this – there is no discussion of climate in itself in this conference – there will only be a discussion of how to work with presentation and spreading the word.
Cicero is one of the two institutes founded by the government to work explicitly with climate. If you as an employee become a skeptic, you are likely to be fired. They are a few hundreds, many working with meteorology and mathematical modelling, others with social sciences – like plans for what to do when the drought is over us and the sea washes in over us. Or economists working out taxation to carry out the climate combat plans or lawyers working out the legislation for the taxation.
Yep. The only consolation is that the conference will not succeed, from the simple basis that they don’ t speak the truth. Whatever they do to perpetrate a lie, just let them. It will disappear in the end.
John Marshall says:
February 6, 2011 at 3:08 am
“Seems to be the wrong place for a climate conference, Norway in January. Don’t they normally go somewhere warm.”
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They’re making sure that cold is normal where they meet, so when the Gore- or COP-effect hits, it won’t be noticed.
Panellists include Fiona Fox, Bob Ward, Roger Harrabin, Fred Pearce, Naomi Oreskes and Rasmus Benestad.
In an equitable world most of these would be stripped of their doctorates for scientific fraud. I do not know about Rasmus Benestad so can not talk about his scholarship.
These people sure live a lavish, high-carbon lifestyle on the public dime, decrying carbon use. An unbiased observer might call this hypocrisy.
Thanks a lot for making the effort to describe the terminlogy for the newbies!
Carbonundrums? They better watch it on the spelling, for a moment I thought the meeting was sponsored by Big Abrasives.
Although, Big Abrasives are masters at carbon sequestration. Once they’ve made a chunk of silicon carbide, safe bet that carbon ain’t going back into the carbon cycle anytime soon. And that’s not even mentioning the synthetic industrial diamond abrasives.
Still, we don’t really need a lot more abrasive dense lumps. Especially at this conference. ☺
Someone needs to tell all these AGW Folks about TELECONFERENCE facilities…
They need to all link from their laptops “for the children” and “for the planet”….
How is the press reporting on climate change?
It´s not true what said by Theo Goodwin, at least in Spain: see below.
What can we learn from Climategate?
Regarding what that way called, it´s been demonstrated, by more than three independent investigation commissions, that only some lack of information happened, but everything was scientifically correct.
And when the issue came up, most media spent hours and days talking about it. But when the news was what done by the scientists of U. of E. A. did not affect the “very high” risk of global warming, very very little could be seen/heard.
How should we communicate scientific uncertainty?
It´s unavoidable: Nature is very very complex…But I usually say that even if those figures of likelyhood such as 90% … 85% were so exagerated that they should be much lower, even around 50%, can we toss a coin to risk our planet future so gravely?
An example. Simon Lewis says (see linked paper):
“It’s difficult to detect patterns from just two observed droughts, but to have them close together is concerning”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12356835
Even if the likelyhood of what said can be moderate -for now-, can we be called rational animals and just wait until seeing the risk is almost 100% sure?
What determines how people perceive climate change?
I think sceptic´s arguments should be countered restlessly. Most people wish climate change were not true, not to have to reduce their energy consumption. And what each person can do is so little! (they think). If they hear there are people saying the issue is just unnecessary alarmism … they do nothing!