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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Did Hansen ever consider that global CO2 emissions are up about 35% since the year 2000, yet temperatures are basically FLAT.
click on the pdf of the publication referenced here.
http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2011/long-term-trend-in-global-co2-emissions-2011-report
on page 11 of the PDF it shows CO2 emissions have grown from 25 x 1,000 million tonnes CO2 to about 33. – a 33% increase!
Yet global temp’s have been FLAT for a decade.
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Estimates%20of%20recent%20global%20temperature%20change
Oh, the PR skills are just fine. It’s the message that rubbish and the odor of it does not pass the sniff test. If is smalls like dung, it probably is.
Jim Cripwell
You are correct the Tax is expected to pass The House of Representatives today and still needs to go to the Senate in about a month. Ask Why It Is So has got it right.
fredb says:
October 11, 2011 at 4:19 am
Maybe in the USA, and does it matter much in any case? Sure for Americans it matters. But there’s a much bigger world out there where the debate is far, far different,
Take the word ‘cheap’ away from the phrase ‘cheap coal’ and the debate ends regardless of whether or not you believe in ‘Climate Change’. The price of a ton of steam coal in the port of Amsterdam is in excess of $100/ton. The mine-mouth price of steam coal in Wyoming is $14/ton.
Coal delivered to Texas ends up being about $40/ton.
The debate in the US is whether or not we should use our ‘cheap coal’ to our economic advantage. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t have ‘cheap coal’.
With all due respect, doesn’t Hansen (above photo) look just like [snip – pointless, rude, let’s not go there – Anthony]
It is interesting to reflect on how we arrived at the current perception of AGW and what to do about it. In the beginning, the AGW movement established a convincing connection in most people’s minds between CO2 and the warming trend of the last two decades of the 20th century. At that time CO2 became the main culprit and CO2 producers became the targeted “enemy”.
But the “enemy” had to be further defined as only fossil fuels to allow for “carbon neutral” schemes such as ethanol and boidiesel to flourish. Nuclear electric power generation, a true carbon neutral process was not even considered as a solution because it was just “too dangerous”. Never mind the history and science, it is the perception that counts.
Then before the top of the natural climate cycle was fully developed, “global warming” had to morph into “climate change” and because CO2 did not match up well with a period of no warming or cooling, the only acceptable energy then became “clean energy”.
Now we have people thinking we have to have “clean energy” at whatever price because unclean energy will no longer be acceptable. The original rationale for avoiding fossil fuels is probably forgotten by most. It is clean energy for it’s own sake. (Don’t give a lot of thought to what “carbon neutral” will do for us, just trust us on that.)
Sometime in the future, the public in Europe and America will discover how much of an economic price we all have paid fo allay their fears of the nebulous tipping points that seemed so real but were always just ahead of us ….. if we don’t act now.
Scottish Skeptic said,”Why aren’t climate scientists and people like the Met Office hearing this “good news”? Why do they continue to see doom and gloom when the outlook looks so good?”
It’s not hard to understand their lack of reasonable response to good news when you understand that their’s is a political agenda predicated on global warming being a disaster in the making. There is absolutely no percentage in their ever having good news—their goal is to scare the public into handing over all of their rights, freedom, and money to save the planet.
The agenda is all about wealth redistribution and a huge grab for power and wealth while creating a one-world totalitarian/socialist government.
This is exactly why, in the face of loads of contradictory, valid opposing evidence, the warmists continue to claim warming and its supposed damaged. They cannot afford to admit the truth; if they do, they cease to exist and have failed in their goals.
Standard leftist narcissistic defense, “the messaging is wrong”. It can never be that the message has been heard, considered, and rejected. Or that the message is just plain wrong.
Scottish Sceptic says:
October 11, 2011 at 7:32 am
You are so correct but of course sceptics will have problems communicating. Fear is a well proven political tool so the politicians love it. The scientists who do hold the alarmist “beliefs” continue to have it reaffirmed by people in high places which makes them feel good and correct. How many scientists would otherwise get to tell prime ministers or presidents what to do?
Sceptics have many theories so they do not tell one story which is much less convincing. We are also sceptical of each other. Peak science organisations in “the coalition of the willing” US , UK Australia Canada New Zealand all agree. Another point is most sceptics say they don’t know what will happen in 100 years but the believers do say they know. So we have peak scientific organisations and politicians from our political spheres saying the same thing. On the other side the sceptic rabble and yes there are scientists amongst them but their views are discounted in various ways.
So now pretend you know nothing who would you believe?
It doesn’t feel to me in the UK that the sceptics are “winning”. We have yet to see a change in Government policy that would signal this. But if it makes warmists feel better to blame the growth of scepticsm on fossil fuelled propaganda so be it. This is just another example of their lack of judgement and detachment from reality.
Several weeks ago I wasn’t feeling well, so I spent a quiet day watching TV. It was on the weekend, and the Sy Fy channel was running their Natural Disasters marathon. Each and every show I watched had some natural disaster that was somehow attributed to Global Warming. I don’t remember the names of all the shows, but there were dancing electrical impulses, caused by some weird atmospheric situation: caused by Global Warming. There were intense low pressure systems forming huge freezing storms ( the Day after Tomorrow?) caused by: Global Warming. I swear there were earthquakes, tornadoes and volcanoes, all caused by, you guessed it, Global Warming. ( As a side note, how do all the cell phones and computers keep working for the handsome heroes and scantily clad heroines when Mother Nature is unleashing her fury and decimating mankind,especially when they are in remote places like Yellowstone or mountain tops or landing strips in the middle of nowhere? All it takes is a thunderstorm or a bozo on a backhoe and I lose touch with the modern world.)
So when I read that Hansen thinks that it is a lack of communication that isn’t getting the message across, I have to laugh. Movies, television and newspaper articles, all repeat the global warming mantra ad nauseum, and no one is “funding” that kind of propaganda. If the tide is indeed turning, when people hear “Global Warming/ Climate Change” all the time, even in their entertainment, you can’t blame a lack of communication. Perhaps, the lack of predictions coming true, or the hypocrisy of the lifestyles or the price of the Green economy are changing peoples’ minds, but I doubt it is a communication issue.
Time Hansen et al woke up and smelled the coffee. It’s been a long time since people believed what they read in newspapers or other MSM like the BBC. Critical reasoning has become a watchword to a huge number of the ‘ignorant masses’ and a failure by the powers that be to even attempt to answer difficult questions on a large number of topics as fuelled our scepticism of the party line ever further.
Sorry Hansen old bean, but we no longer believe your alarmist drivel!
The heartbreak of a Messiah Complex.
fredb says:
October 11, 2011 at 7:44 am
“[…] it loses the edge in the global game of chess. Such is, in my opinion (and like everyone’s comments, it is opinion), the situation of the USA, where the rest of the world is progressively out maneuvering the simple stance taken by the USA. ”
Like Europe.
Ok, so let’s see if I have this straight. The US is “resisting response” because we’re stupid. The other countries are doing so because they’re scheming, conniving bastards. Got it.
“Michael Larkin says:
October 11, 2011 at 6:13 am
Hey! Look on the bright side. He’s admitting sceptics are winning. Would that have happened before climategate?”
I don’t see it that way, Hansen isn’t admitting that the sceptics are winning per se. I think his statement is a call to arms more like “If you don’t love America the Terrorists win”.
I think he is trying to scare washington into action. He is really saying “Your new taxes are in danger of dissapearing, lock arms and ignore the facts” in my opinion.
This is a ruse which is hardly suprizing given the source.
Pseudo science is losing. That means science is winning and we are not skeptics. We believe in science, not pseudo science.
Skeptics are winning because it is cooling. They’d be losing if it were warming.
==============
JL:
Where is the common ground?
We say let’s see the evidence, they say trust us.
We say show us the data, they obstruct access to it.
We say show us your work, they say trust us. We want to discuss facts, they want to discuss consensus.
We want to compare the model results with the actual climate, they say close enough.
We want to talk about the scientific method, they want to talk about the IPCC position papers.
Where is the common ground here?
You’re right, Jim, skeptics are winning the argument, but not for the reason you state.
You’re losing because your logic is fatally flawed, being based on shifting sands of time itself.
Relativity has left the AGW building empty, swallowed by the void.
Hansen’s climate scare predictions need to be collected and added to the Climate Fail Files…
“…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…..”
And no one connects the poor air quality to the deaths???? Heat PLUS poor air has got to be a real killer for the elderly or the ill.
Falacy of selected evidence?
Watts you state: 1. We don’t hide behind FOIA laws, then circumvent them when we lose.
Anthony with regard to this statement, consider this a demand under the FOIA (ok you are not legally obliged, but your statement makes you morally obliged to provide the information).
The scope of this request is to reach any and all data, documents and things in your possession, including those stored or residing on any of the specified or referenced computers, hard drives, desktops, laptops, file servers, database servers, email servers or other systems where data was transmitted or stored on purpose or as a result of transient use of a system or application in the course of day to day research or product processing work that is owned or contracted for by you or any of your officers, managers, employees, agents, board members, academic departments, divisions, programs, IT department, contractors and other representatives.
For the period 2005 to present
2. As used herein, the words “record”, “records”, “document” or “documents” mean the original and any copies of any written, printed, typed, electronic, or graphic matter of any kind or nature, however produced or reproduced, any book, pamphlet, brochure, periodical, newspaper, letter, correspondence, memoranda, notice, facsimile, e-mail, manual, press release, telegram, report, study, handwritten note, working paper, chart, paper, graph, index, tape, data sheet, data processing card, or any other written, recorded, transcribed, punched, taped, filmed or graphic matter now in your possession, custody or control.
…
1. All documents that constitute or are in any way related to correspondence, messages or e-mails sent by Anthony Watts to, or received from, any of the following persons:
(a) Dr. John Christy,
(b) Dr. Judith Curry
(c) Steven Mosher
(d) Jeff Id (AKA Patrick Condon and Jeff Condon)
(e) Thomas W. Fuller
(f) Stephen McIntyre,
(g) Dr. Ross McKitrick,
(h) Dr. Patrick Michaels,
(i) Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.,
(j) All research assistants, secretaries or administrative staff with whom Mr. Watts worked.
That statement struck me as well. When liberals lose an election, that is their cry – they did not get their message out. not that no one wanted to hear it, just that they did not get their message out. And why do they not do a self inspection instead? Because they cannot conceive of the fact they may be wrong. IN that respect, the AGW crowd is just like liberals. They no longer question, they have accepted the mantra blindly. And so when not everyone follows suit, they lament their lack of getting the message out.
The message is getting out, but just not in the pre-packaged PR job they would like all to recite. The Mainstream Media, while an excellent cheer leader for the movement, is no longer a monopoly.
It is being reported that The Weather Clown will soon announce that the loss of ice in Greenland has accelerated to critical levels. Since the satellites say otherwise I presume a recent atlas is the source.