While we are polar opposites, and Dr. Schmidt can’t find it within himself to respond to any of my emails or to allow my comments and many others to appear on RealClimate, let me offer congratulations anyway.
New Award from the American Geophysical Union Recognizes Excellence in Climate Communications
AGU Release No. 11–34 18 October 2011
WASHINGTON, DC — In recognition of his exceptional work as a climate communicator, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has selected Gavin Schmidt as the recipient of its inaugural Climate Communications Prize.
Schmidt is a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and co-founder of the RealClimate.org, a blog that covers areas of science related to climate-from present-day measurements to paleoclimate proxies, from natural climate variation to anthropogenic change. Schmidt has also worked with photographers on a popular science book, on museum exhibits, and on online courses and has often appeared on TV and radio and in print.
The award, which was established by AGU earlier this year, recognizes excellence in climate communication as well as the promotion of scientific literacy, clarity of messaging, and efforts to foster respect and understanding for science-based values related to climate change.
“AGU created this award to raise the visibility of climate change as a critical issue facing the world today, to demonstrate our support for scientists who commit themselves to the effective communication of climate change science, and to encourage more scientists to engage with the public and policy makers on how climate research can contribute to the sustainability of our planet,” said AGU president Michael McPhaden. “That’s why we are so pleased to recognize Gavin for his dedicated leadership and outstanding scientific achievements. We hope that his work will serve as an inspiration for others.”
Schmidt said, “Talking to the public and the media is often neglected in assessing people’s contributions, and yet, as taxpayer-funded scientists we have a collective responsibility to share the expertise we have with the broader public. I’m very happy that the efforts I’ve made-in collaboration with many colleagues-have been recognized by this new award. I hope that this can serve as an encouragement for more scientists to dip their toe into the public discussions.”
The prize, which comes with a $25,000 cash award, is sponsored by Nature’s Own, a Boulder, Colo.-based company specializing in the sale of minerals, fossils, and decorative stone specimens.
“This award will help increase communication of our scientific understanding of climate change and its consequences, and I congratulate Gavin for all that he has accomplished and what it means for the scientific community,” said Nature’s Own president and founder Roy Young, an AGU member. “Gavin has worked tirelessly to bring the work of scientists in understanding our changing world to both the public debate as well as to the broader scientific community.”
The award will be presented to Schmidt in December during the honors celebration at AGU’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
The American Geophysical Union is a not-for-profit, professional, scientific organization with more than 60,000 members representing over 148 countries. AGU advances the Earth and space sciences through its scholarly publications, conferences, and outreach programs.
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
The photo in this article doesn’t look like the other pictures of Gavin that I’ve seen.
Is that his H.S. Yearbook picture that was used?
Maybe he’d like to come communicate to everyone why the tropospheric hot spot never appeared. Maybe he’d like to communicate to everyone why the 14 year study of atmospheric infra red downwelling shows less, 3/4ths of the time than before; the one, released last april.
Maybe he’d like to communicate how all that ice is melting and yet there’s no perceptible difference in hydrological cycling; in fact maybe he would like to communicate how there’s more energy instantaneously in this system yet turbulence and storms are down. Maybe he’d like to communicate why the optical astronomy and, the infra red astronomy fields, can’t find a student, professor, journalist, janitor among them, who can show us evidence of rising atmospheric heat; in form of earth-emission spectrum infra red, or any heat at all in form of increased atmospheric scintillation: the stars twinkling… and maybe he’d like to communicate why the field that builds, calibrates, and deploys the assemblies that flex telescope mirrors
is utterly silent about how ever more energy in the atmosphere is necessitating ever more flex of said mirrors: complete with communicating how they have to use ever longer plungers, more powerful motors, and mirrors of different thicknesses or composition to stand the strain.
Maybe he’d like to communicate why temperatures stalled out somewhere between 1995 and 1998 and haven’t risen one iota since; with Phil Jones actually commenting how he’d (effectively) be darned if he’d go telling the scientific community the earth had actually started cooling around ’98 and not risen a bit since; and maybe he’d like to communicate why it is that the sole source of temperatures involving stagnant temps: barely cooled, not even statistically significantly, but no warming – is the RAW TEMPERATURE DATA PLACED ONLINE BY LAW, the SKEPTICS were CHECKING his and RC’s and N.A.S.A.’s ever more bombastic claims against.
Maybe he would like to communicate how it is that He, Mann, Jones, Briffa, Trenberth, – all the people who were furiously calculating doomsday – didn’t recognize they weren’t even using real statistics until the Head of the Royal Statistical Society noted so.
Yea he’s a communicator all right.
RDCII: After I realized, from his offensive (in multiple meanings) style and they strange way that comment threads seemed to end when Gavin had the last sarcastic word, that RealClimate was a propaganda site, I went to other sites, such as this one, the Bishop’s, and of course Climateaudit, and realized that AGW wasn’t science as I understood science at all, but rather politics, and of a particularly dirty kind.
I think that you are overreacting. However, I do support two of your observations:
1. It is good to be able to read WUWT, ClimateEtc, and RC in alternation, and in combination with reading peer-reviewed science. RC, in fact Dr. Schmidt himself, put up the best analysis of the recent CERN experiment on cosmic rays, of all blogs. They have had some other “bests” as well.
2. They frequently delete perfectly reasonable posts from me that point to limitations in the climate science, or flaws in the claims made in some of their posts. Or at least I claim they were perfectly reasonable. Over time, I came to see how their pattern of deleting my posts directed my attention to what they think are the most serious weaknesses in their knowledge. Or I saw where their knowledge had cavities. I became more skeptical overall. If I am indeed reasonable (I maintain that no one can judge himself or herself fairly), and if other reasonable skeptics have had the same experience, then RealClimate may in the long run produce the opposite effect from increasing public support for their view of AGW.
I think he earned his award. You can in fact learn a lot of science by reading RealClimate and following links (some obviously better than others) provided by the team of regular commenters. You can certainly come to understand the evidence that leads them to believe as strongly as they do. But there are limitations in their knowledge that they absolutely refuse to take seriously.
So there are people stupider than those that award the noble pace prize , amazing !
He was probably the lead communicator in charge of Al Gore’s massive fail youtube CO2-test implosion.
I remember when Schmidt and Mann were saying “Hey lay off we’re just starting to study a lot of this ourselves” in general to people asking them obvious questions that revealed their radiation gurus’ lack of grasp of how much simply wrong, information, they were ‘communicating.’
I remember when they, after being just RAKED over the coals revealing them UTTERLY clueless about atmospheric radiation travel, simply CLAMMED UP: and REFUSED to even SPEAK without every room they did so in being in ABSOLUTE CONTROL so no one could simply walk up, grab a microphone and STOP: any ONE of them: Schmidt, Mann, Hansen- i.n. t.h.e.i.r. t.r.a.c.k.s.
I remember when they claimed to be “communicating” – listen to this – the END of the WORLD – but were TOO AFRAID to even let FRIENDLIES comment at R.C. who showed too much grasp of atmospheric energy handling, and they hid there and like adolescent teens refusing to leave their rooms, said they were NO LONGER ABLE to BEAR the LACK of GRASP of the ENTIRE EARTH of a HEATER they PREDICTED was going to APPEAR in the SKY and END the WORLD.
I don’t have any respect for him, for the other frauds in his international and interstate funds scamming con.
And I’ll ask him six or eight questions in a row that will simply make him afraid to touch his keyboard. Bring him around to answer some questions and we’ll see what a “communicator” he is.
I am spotting a trend here – John Cook of the ironically named ScepticalScience got a similar award in Australia for science communication. Orwellian doesn’t even begin to describe it…
the fritz says:
October 20, 2011 at 1:17 pm
“Who is that Anthony about who people talk more than about Gavin?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That would be Anthony Watts, the chap that runs this blog:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/about2/
What’s the point of congratulating him for being a good propagandist? He did no scientific research, just kept jawboning about the global warming myth.
Maybe Gavin will be given the Nobel Peace Prize. Illustrious company that, Ohbombus, Yessir URFat, etc.
I guess my response would be to be “peaced off” if that happens.
Theo Goodwin says:
October 20, 2011 at 9:17 am
There is not one Warmista who understands scientific method or who, however inadvertently, practices it.
——–
Define “warmista”.
Scientists can have differing viewpoints and still both understand the scientific method. An extreme and highly inaccurate viewpoint such as yours serves no useful purpose other than political polarization.
Reward censorship and call it communication, why am I not surprised?
Schmidt to Judith Curry:
Your guns-a-blazing, caution-to-the-winds accusations of malfeasance and misconduct, like Steve McIntyre’s before you, are simply poison to grown-up discussions of real issues. You appear to be well aware of that, and yet continue to indulge in it – even to the point of touting for partisan comments. One can therefore safely conclude that you are not actually interested in grown-up discussions of real issues. So be it.
And this is the kind of Schmidt
hysterical bollocksClimate Communication the AGU believes merits a prize?Are they taking the piss?
This newbie gets $25K and Punxsutawney Phil gets nada?!
It’s a dirty old world …
I’ve posted the following comment at RC. It is currently awaiting moderation. I have made sure it is polite and doesn’t use inflammatory language such as ‘warmist’. It does, however, tell the painful truth about Gavin’s highly censorious actions. I await to see if it is deleted, and if not, whether GS will reply:
“Whenever I have tried to post on RC (polite) comments that disagree with ideas put forward by Gavin and others I have had every single comment deleted by the moderators. However, when I have posted comments on sceptic sites that disagree with the sceptic author none of my comments have ever been deleted.
I hope this award will allow you to reflect Gavin, and hopefully accept that truly effective communication always allows both sides of the debate to be heard at all times.”
Who want’s to lay bets on the moderators at RC letting it through?
Andy, make a screencap of the comment in moderation and save it – Anthony
Ok. Which one of the team is going to get the “Idi Amin Humanitarian Award”??????????
”science based values”
Science based values such as scientific racism? Another scientific consensus FAIL from history.
DirkH says:
October 20, 2011 at 11:20 am
So this is the AGU’s idea of science communication.
Speaking of the AGU; here’s something from Chris Mooney’s photo album:
“Gavin and I”
[I haven’t put in the link, I found it difficult to get rid of.]
====================================
This Chris Mooney?
“I’ve been meaning to thrown in my congratulations to Gavin Schmidt of NASA and RealClimate.org, who is the first recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s new $ 25,000 annual prize for the year’s top climate science communicator.
Yes, you read that right, $ 25,000! (Full disclosure: I am on the board of directors of the American Geophysical Union, but I did not select Schmidt for the prize or have fore-knowledge of his selection; nor was I involved in the creation of the prize, which is funded by Nature’s Own.)
Schmidt is a very worthy choice—RealClimate.org has revolutionized climate science communication online since its inception in the mid-2000s. And Schmidt has built from that platform to become a major commentator, and a lucid one at that, on outlets like CNN.
But at least as newsy as Schmidt’s choice is the creation of this prize in the first place.” http://www.desmogblog.com/why-communicating-science-so-money
He ends his piece: “For science communication, it’s a brand new day”
Really, on the board of directors and he knew nothing about this?? Great communications. He must be so pleased about it because he was kept in the dark..
OK, just done a search on this and here’s a blast from WUWT’s past on Mooney’s appointment! http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/13/time-to-end-your-membership-with-the-american-geophysical-union/
Now, the way that’s written it appears that expertise in communication is to come from Mooney – odd he knew nothing about who was to get the inaugral prize for ‘science communication’…
Hmm, is his opening a freudian slip? “I’ve been meaning to thrown in my congratulations to Gavin Schmidt of NASA and RealClimate.org, who is the first recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s new $ 25,000 annual prize for the year’s top climate science communicator.”
I bet he was thrown by it! Even his title a bit of sour grapes, perhaps? Still, an otherwise excellent piece of propagamotion, maybe some other prize will be concocted for him later as long as he continues to toe the party line.
Is this for filibustering the information on whether he and comrades were blogging during work hours???
“After I realized, from his offensive (in multiple meanings) style and they strange way that comment threads seemed to end when Gavin had the last sarcastic word, that RealClimate was a propaganda site, I went to other sites, such as this one, the Bishop’s, and of course Climateaudit, and realized that AGW wasn’t science as I understood science at all, but rather politics, and of a particularly dirty kind. ”
Ditto .. without RealClimate I’d be pretty neutral on the subject.
Anthony – I’m typing up my comments on an iPhone – can’t take a screencap!
I’ll try and email the link to myself, but I doubt the ‘in moderation’ comment will stay on the link. Rats!
Taking a riff on another blog (dang, can’t recall which at the moment, is it SDA?) now is the time when we JUXTAPOSE:
Point: http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-34.shtml
Counterpoint: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/643-2/
Point: http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2011/10/13/james-hansen-on-climate-communication/
Counterpoint: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/laframboise-gleick-curry/
Sorry if this seems too cryptic, but it really is an exercise best left to the dilligent student.
Andy:
Your comment is up at RC, and no mod comment either. I guess with all the fanbois saying how wonderful Gavin is, they expect your comment will be seen as a lone voice.
Yeah there definitely is a shift in effort, abandoning the science of climate and going for the science of communication. Hansen – we scientists are poor communicators – big oil funded sceptics are the specialists in this, hogging all the MSM space; Al Gore – the Climate Reality Project- let’s get out there, cook up a video CO2 warming experiment and blitz the world with (our) reality of climate change; BEST Berkeley PR-mass media substitute for peer-reviewed science; now AGU inaugural award for communication of global warming science by deleting critical commentary… sanitize the debate so there is only one side.
Hi Anthony and Bulldust,
After scrabbling around and buying an app from the Apple AppStore that lets me take screencaps on my iphone, I then saw that RC had let my comment through!
I feel I’ve achieved great things today: I’ve taught a high-school student how to find the internal angles of a polygon, shown her mother how to use her iPad, recovered some files on a PC that crashed at work, fixed my beloved bicycle, bought a useful App (for once), and managed to get a comment past the mods at RC.
I can go to bed tonight a much happier man:)
One sided communication Award? Of course, the only truth is Gavin’s Truth, censor the dissent praise be.
Its about time that Watts Up With That readers were given the serious duty of choosing our communicator of the year award – I propose Anthony and of course Willis to trump Gavin in spades!!