Like what Judith Curry saw recently at NCAR’s seminar, he seems to think it is all about communication.
Part of the problem, he said, was that the climate sceptic lobby employed communications professionals, whereas “scientists are just barely competent at communicating with the public and don’t have the wherewithal to do it.”
Yet sceptics are the ones without any MSM support. So where do they get this idea? Full story here
A few things come to mind that he didn’t cover as other possible reasons skeptics are winning:
1. We don’t hide behind FOIA laws, then circumvent them when we lose. If you’d shared the data when asked, Climategate would never have happened.
2. We don’t rewrite history, either by deleting>morphing commentary like Skepicalscience does, or by creating questionable paleostatistical methods to enable pretending the trees tell us last 900 years were flat without any possible natural variance.
3. We don’t call people on the other side of the debate ugly denigrating names like deniers and flat earthers.
4. We don’t keep trying to link weather patterns/weather events to climate in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Burning issue: Hansen’s evidence that the world is hotting up
Moscow, August 2010
Russia experienced its hottest-ever summer last year – for weeks, a large portion of European Russia was more than 7 °C (12.6 °F) warmer than normal, and a new national record was set of 44 °C (111 °F). Raging forest fires filled Moscow with smoke, forcing the cancellation of air services and obliging people to don face masks.
Jim, get a clue, the Moscow heat wave had NOTHING TO DO with global warming. It was a blocking high weather pattern. NOAA’s own work concludes this:
NOAA finds”climate change” blameless in 2010 Russian heat wave
We mentioned this previously on WUWT, now it is officially peer reviewed and accepted.
NOAA: Natural Variability Main Culprit of Deadly Russian Heat Wave That Killed Thousands
Source here
Daily Moscow temperature record from November 1 2009 to October 31 2010. Red and blue shaded areas represent departures from the long-term average (smooth curve) in Moscow. Temperatures significantly above the long-term average scorched Moscow for much of July and August. NOAA credit. – click to enlargeThe deadly Russian heat wave of 2010 was due to a natural atmospheric phenomenon often associated with weather extremes, according to a new NOAA study. And while the scientists could not attribute the intensity of this particular heat wave to climate change, they found that extreme heat waves are likely to become increasingly frequent in the region in coming decades.
So Jim, when you try to tell us that the 2010 Russian heat wave was caused by global warming, people who know better have no choice but to call post normal science BS on you.
h/t to Kevin Hearle
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People, some of them eminent on both “sides” of the issue have now been writing for years about communication – much of it concluding that “messaging” and “communication” so often mean – “listen to us – we are the experts – no you don’t need to see how we came to our conclusions”.
Coupled with what we actually see happening with the predicitions that have been made over the last 20+ years, particularly by Dr Hansen, and others……
Add in what appears to be incontravertible evidence that the money spent on pushing the message and producing it is thousands of times more than has been available to “sceptics”…….
In a rational world, the only conclusion is hubris, a sense of entitlement to special expert status, and a rather sneering irritation that the proles just won’t be told.
Come on Dr Hansen, roll your sleeves up, get your data together and sit down and argue it with us. If you’re right, (and even if you aren’t) what’s not to like?
I think there are three reasons why the global warming message is failing, having nothing to do with media.
1, It’s not getting warmer.
2. Great sacrifices needed to fight.
3. Global economy is teetering.
I think with these three factors staring us in the face it doesn’t take a sophisticated media campaign for people to get skeptical.
Mr Hansen you said:
[ ” Part of the problem, he said, was that the climate sceptic lobby employed communications professionals, whereas “scientists are just barely competent at communicating with the public and don’t have the wherewithal to do it.” ].
YET:
Realclimate .> Environmental Media Services > Fenton Communications > Tides > George Soros.org
Mr Soros also gave you $720,000,00 to “politicize Science”. in one year.[ page 123 and page 143 ]
http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/annual_20070731/a_complete.pdf
????
Neil Jones says:
October 11, 2011 at 3:49 am
Ve haf vays of making you listen.
‘Sceptics’ aren’t winning the battle, science finally is.
As I like to say: It is always something, ain’t it? It is simple amazing the disconnect from reality people and corporations have today. In their minds, they are not wrong. So when things aren’t going there way, it must be something working against them. James Hansen has the “I’m always right” mentality, so when things aren’t going his way, it must be something conspiring against them because he knows the message is right. It is no coincidence that people or corporations who have this “I’m always right” mentality usually stand to lose lots of money by not being right.
fredb: “Skeptics are winning? Maybe in the USA, and does it matter much in any case?
You simply have to laugh at the silly comments from those like fredb. Did he miss out on the positions of China, Canada and India? How about Russia and Brazil? Fred is an example of true denial. Hansen is right on this topic and anyone with the least amount of common sense can see it.
It’s time for alarmists to take heed of the old saying “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” It’s now time to realize you were fooled. You believed the wrong group. So, blame it on them and get over it. You now have been exposed to the truth. If you deny that truth you are now at fault.
Not winning in Australia. Carbon (dioxide) Tax expected to pass parliament tomorrow.
Same old story , the problem is seen as the selling of the message not the real problem which is the ‘quality’ of the message . And if you were really interested in improving the quality of the message , the last people you would turn to would be ‘death trains Hansen’ and ‘St Gore ‘ . Actual AGW skeptics should be happy the greens still see these people was leaders of their cause as they do it far more damage in the eyes of the public than any AGW skeptic could.
But one of the base problems in this case , is that the AGW hardcore simply cannot accept that any views other than their own should receive any coverage at all , so even if its weighted 99% in their favor that 1% is still to much for them . And so they bitch and moan about anything that does not follow the AGW support line being seen in public .They simply can’t allow for other voices and need to come with reasons why it happens , and so we get ‘fossil fuel conspiracy’ the the idea that AGW skeptics should be ignored becasue their ‘bad or mad’ etc .And its why you see some of them calling for censorship, banning of web sites , blacklisting of individuals etc . All that is fairly standard and accepted approach for religions, but has nothing to do with science which is what this is supposed to be about.
This is a tiny step forward for Hansen. Significant, since of course, he IS the “father” of the AGW movement; i.e, publicly, admitting to the fact his side is losing support. His illogical proposal to resolve the loss seems to be evidence that he now is in denial regarding its causes.
Well Jim, lets talk about your ABC scenario, The Hot Spot, Missing Ocean Heat and heat trapping clouds. And while we are at it, discuss “we must get rid of the MWP” and graphing trees rings data with temperature data.
@Mark
You forgot to mention that we are the spawn of Hitler, believe the earth is flat and are funded by Big Oil…
I admire Dr Judith Curry so much for what she as done both in Science and in the Blogosphere.
Mr Watts has an excellent site and I read it regularly.
But Dr Curry’s Blog gets so many more thoughtful comments than almost any other Climate related Blog.
I think she is wonderful and would love to meet her one day!
I always come here to WUWT for my daily dose of CAGWism (Hansen being a perfect example of that). In fact, you should have a daily CAGW forecast. It might go something like this…
The CAGW forecast for today:
Partly insane with obfuscation in the upper 70%. Chance of climate science ridiculousness is near 100%. Seven day outlook is for more of the same…
Scorle says:
“Actually in the northwest of Holland it was not cold enough to reach enough ice thickness to scate.”
This is an example of why skeptics are winning. Proponents of alarm tend to make statements implying something unusual is going on, but when one checks it’s fairly normal.
http://benjamincreations.tripod.com/europe/netherland/netherland.html
“the Netherlands has mild winters, and the ice often does not get thick enough for skating.”
“The Netherlands has a mild, damp climate. It has gentle winters and moderately warm summers. The sky is frequently overcast in winter, and fog often covers the land. Temperatures average from 60 to 65 °F (16 to 18 °C) in summer, and a little above 30 °F (-1 °C) in winter. Extremely hot or cold temperatures are rare. “
Current public opinion may be turning but U.S. public schools have been inculcating the concepts of climate change for a while now. We’re likely to have a generation that believes in doing whatever it takes to rescue the earth from climate change. Children are still being educated in this world view, along with the other collectivist issues.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Web site network includes “Climate Kids: NASA’s Eyes on the Earth,” which use cartoons, games, and other activities to teach children about man-made global warming and climate change. According to NASA’s budget request for fiscal year 2012, totaling $18.7 billion, the agency would dedicate $145.8 million to educational programs. The “Climate Kids” site is supported through NASA’s educational programs, according to a spokesman with the agency. See http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/climateTales/ .
schnurrp says:
October 11, 2011 at 4:27 am
“I think there are three reasons why the global warming message is failing, having nothing to do with media.
1, It’s not getting warmer.
2. Great sacrifices needed to fight.
3. Global economy is teetering.”
The West is teetering. And that’s where the warmists have achieved capital misallocation on the grandest scale. They have wrecked the economies; and it is time they go to Asia now, convince the people there of some of their make-believe, and wreck that part of the world. Follow Maurice Strong.
DDP has it in a nutshell – its not skeptics, its the science that’s winning…
P.S. Must make a mental note to employ a ‘communication professional’….
Mike Lorrey says:
October 11, 2011 at 3:37 am
Hey Anthony, does this make me your pet communications professional? Where’s my paycheck?
—————————-
Mike, Don’t tell me Exxon is behind on your checks.
Sceptics winning? “Mustn’t let that happen, must we?” Just a gambit to re-boost troop morale that must be getting low at the moment.
Assumptions of “randomness” & “i.i.d.” (“independent, identically distributed”) are patently untenable. Take a look at the cumulative seasonal departures from “normal”. Mainstream climate scientists: If you need help interpreting the patterns, please feel welcome to contact me. With Absolute Sincerity.
Funding for warmist ‘climate science’ outweighs funding for sceptical science by at least 100 to 1, a fact which Hansen dares not mutter, even to himself.
Funding for sceptics is almost entirely from private sources, while funding for warmists is almost entirely from public (government) sources.
And yet the sceptics are winning, even though warmist propaganda is far more sophisticated than that of the sceptics, who just use real facts and real science, a strategy which the warmists abandoned a long time ago.
It just goes to show that when it comes to government, the subject of ‘climate science’ comes at the very top of how best to waste money on useless projects and generating distorted conclusions from originally good data.
LIke Catholics, Leftists are essentially dogmatic, reliant on the dogma. The dogma explains everything, like how the working class are going to respond. So when they don’t respond correctly, the Leftist is left with two possibilities: one, the dogma is plain wrong – impossible: world-view-shattering proposition; two, the dogma hasn’t been explained properly to the people; for, had it been, the scales would fall from their eyes and the capitalist disinformation would have no traction. So, comrades, we must re-double our explaining efforts.
Taken from Australian parliament live TV stream tonight, here is a screenshot of democracy being shut out in the cold for the purpose of stopping a global warming of 0.00007°C.
i.imgur.com/KBrIt.png
Was it just a lame Liberal party stunt?
Are the rejected submissions just useless waffle that would add no substance to the debate anyway?
Is it the dulling of democracy from a government who no longer have any pretence of answering to the people?
Well now you won’t ever know.
Roy says:
October 11, 2011 at 4:26 am
This is one of the reasons I have to give Hansen reluctant credit. A man who tells you up front, on his official bio site, that the hard part of his job is cherrypicking the data to get the results he wants must at least be awarded points for chutzpah.
Regards,
Ric