Note – this will be pinned as a top post for a few days. Other posts will appear below this one.
UPDATE: Josh weighs in with a Friday Funny.
UPDATE2: McKibben has a Forrest Gump moment with his latest propaganda video
I’m doing something I’ve never done before, I’m asking every reader of WUWT to write a letter to the editor this weekend. I don’t take this step lightly, but given what I’ve observed the last few days, I think it is time to stir the power of our collective WUWT community for the common good.
Readers may recall the debunkings I regularly put forth any time paid activists like Bill McKibben, Joe Romm, David Suzuki, or Brad Johnson (and others) try to make claims that human induced climate change is making our daily weather “more extreme”. You know and I know that this is “garbage science” (even worse than “junk science”) because it is an attempt to twist science to strike fear over climate into the hearts of the average citizen. It is an act of desperation, rooted in the fact that the modeled warming scenarios described by the scientist activist high priest of the global warming movement Dr. James Hansen, just have not come to pass. Climate feedbacks don’t seem to be strong, climate sensitivity doesn’t seem to be high, there’s been no statistically significant warming in the last decade, and thus the only thing left is to blame bouts of normally occurring severe weather on climate change. The level of thinking sophistication here isn’t much different from blaming witches for bad weather in medieval times, but the sophistication of telegraphing this message to the weak-minded is far more sophisticated than in those days.
And, yesterday, we saw a message similar to calls made during those dark times “she’s a witch, BURN her!” in Steve Zwick’s rant on Forbes.com where he says:
We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. … They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?
The level of delusional fail here is off the scale. If this were an isolated incident, we could simply laugh it off as the hateful rantings of a person afflicted with climate derangement syndrome. But there’s more.
Yesterday, it entered my children’s school (see below), and this week, we saw a survey on “extreme weather” conducted by Yale, use a phrase in the press release that is straight out of a propagandist organization, Bill McKibben’s 350.org. The heat is on to make climate all about the weather for propaganda purposes, and there’s no data to support it. It is a lie of global proportions. We need to step up. Here’s what I found in my children’s school yesterday:
At my children’s school yesterday, they had a book fair. In that book fair was this display from the publisher of a new book INsiders – Extreme Weather.
Of course you know what book I picked up to look at first, and it took me all of about 15 seconds to find this (I highlighted the relevant part digitally):
“Some scientists”? I think the author really meant “some activists”.
To be fair, there are some very good sections of the book well rooted in science, for example this one on lightning:
I know the author, H. Michael Mogil, who is well rooted in science, and who is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist. I can’t imagine him fully signing off on the climate=severe weather idea as McKibben et al put it. But, I think there was pressure from publishers to include the section on climate linkage, and I think he hedged his statement as best he could. My point is that is it beginning to pervade children’s books.
Also this week we had this poll released from Yale University, which got a ton of press thanks to it being carried in the Associated Press. It even made my own local newspaper.
The poll itself is a logical fallacy, with sloppy questions like this one:
I give it a thorough debunking here with a strong emphasis on the reporting bias introduced by our technologically saturated society. Anyone with a cellphone can report severe weather now and within minutes it can be known worldwide.
Here’s a quote from the lead author that was carried in news stories, bold mine:
“Most people in the country are looking at everything that’s happened; it just seems to be one disaster after another after another,” said Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University, one of the researchers who commissioned the new poll. “People are starting to connect the dots.”
At the time, I didn’t note the significance of the “connect the dots” meme, but one of our sharp WUWT readers pointed out that this is the new catchphrase of Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement.
In tips and notes this morning, Nick Ryan confirmed this for me with this letter from McKibben he posted.
Subject: Good news.
From: organizers@350.org
To: nick_ryan@xxxx.xxx
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:57:30 +0000
Dear friends,
Good news this time.
At some point every one of us at 350 has thought to ourselves a little despairingly: is the world ever going to catch on to climate change? Today is one of those days when it feels like it just might happen.
A story on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times described a new poll — Americans in record numbers are understanding that the planet is warming because they’re seeing the “freaky” weather that comes with climate change.
And the story ends by describing the next step in this process: May 5, the giant Connect the Dots day that people are joining all around the globe: http://www.ClimateDots.org
When the zeitgeist conspires to help our efforts, we need to make the most of it. Two weeks is plenty of time to organize a beautiful photo for May 5, one that will help spread this idea. Are you in a place where flood and rain have caused havoc? Ten people with umbrellas can make a memorable “climate dot” for all the world to see. You’ll think of something appropriate for your place — and you can find lots of examples and ideas here.
This movement is growing quickly, and with not a moment to spare — new data from scientists like Jim Hansen at NASA shows that our carbon emissions have already made extreme weather many times more likely. We can’t take back the carbon we’ve already poured into the atmosphere, but if we work together hard and fast then we can keep it from getting steadily worse.
Earth Day is coming up this weekend, and there will be thousands of events across the US. Each one of them is a great place to spread the word about the big day of action on 5/5. When you’re on the front page of the Times it’s a sign that the message is starting to get through — but only one American in 300 reads that newspaper. Now it’s up to all of us to make sure that everyone around the world gets the message, and Connect the Dots day on 5/5 is our best chance to do that. Please join us.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben for 350.org
P.S. It is key to remember that these photos from May 5 are not just for their effect on that day. We need a bank of images showing the human face of global warming — pictures we’ll use for the hard and direct political work of the next few years. If people don’t know there’s a problem, they won’t try to solve it. So let’s show them on 5/5. Here’s a heartbreaking example, from some local activists in Texas:
Climate Activists in Texas
Clearly, due to the timing and the reference he made to “People are starting to connect the dots.”, the poll conducted by Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University is just a tool that is connected to this 350.org “climatedots.org” campaign, it isn’t science, it is blatant advocacy disguised as science of the brand Dr. James Hansen practices.
So looking at what is going in total this week, I think it is time for us to exercise our own rights to free speech, and thus I’m asking WUWT readers to write letters to the editor to your local newspapers and magazines to counter what will surely be a blitz of advocacy in the coming days.
This tactic is used by these NGO’s so there is nothing wrong with it. It is free speech in the finest American tradition. There is one hitch though, and that’s the newspaper editors back-channel.
You see, one of the perks of being a journalist in the TV and radio news business is that I’m privy to how things work. In print media, editors have established a back-channel to alert each other of potential letter writing campaigns, such as those form letters like we see from “Forecast the Facts”.
The key is to make this your own letter, in your own words. While I can suggest topics, the letters need to be written in your own words for them to be accepted.
You can start here with this essay, and draw from it.
Warren Meyer made some excellent points yesterday in his Zwick rebuttal at Forbes:
A Vivid Reminder of How The Climate Debate is Broken
I really liked this part, which speaks to reporting bias (like we have with severe weather):
In the summer of 2001, a little boy in Mississippi lost an arm in a shark attack. The media went absolutely crazy. For weeks and months they highlighted every shark attack on the evening news. They ran aerial footage of sharks in the water near beaches. They coined the term “Summer of the Shark.” According to Wikipedia, shark attacks were the number three story, in terms of network news time dedicated, of the summer.
Bombarded by such coverage, most Americans responded to polls by saying they were concerned about the uptick in shark attacks. In fact, there were actually about 10% fewer shark attacks in 2001 than in 2000. Our perceptions were severely biased by the coverage.
How to write a letter:
1. Go to your local newspaper website, locate the guidelines for letters to the editor. Typical letter policies limit letters to 200-250 words.
2. Do your research, craft your letter carefully. Cite facts, cite statistics such as I offer on WUWT. Use your own words, don’t quote me, though quoting people like Professor Grady Dixon “…it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes” is fine.
3. [added] Readers are submitting content ideas in comments, have a look at those. Fr example Steve E. writes: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr’s posting on the IPCC SREX Report, “A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change” here: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html is also a good source for letter content.
4. Send it, being mindful of length and guidelines.
Thank you for your consideration. – Anthony
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Looking for constellations in the celestial sphere is the classic “connect the dots” exercise.
It is great for mythology, even if it does not have scientific value whatsoever.
“The stars within an asterism rarely have any substantial astrophysical relationship to each other, and their apparent proximity when viewed from Earth disguises the fact that they are far apart, some being much farther from Earth than others”
Anthony, the line before your highlighted phrase is even more dangerous. The atmosphere is nothing like a green house: the former is open and the latter is a closed system. Accepting their statement violate the basic premise of any argument about the effcts in the atmosphere.
Lutz Jacoby
Here is the letter I have sumited to the Union Tribune, my home town paper in San Diego. I have also set it as blog on my Colemans Corner web page.
Dear Readers of U-T,
When the Dalai Lama teamed up with two global warming scientists from the Scripps Oceanographic Institute during his San Diego visit, the symbolism reached the ultimate. There is was for all to see, the global warming scare is now as much of a belief as it is science. And, that is what makes it so difficult for those of us who know that the scientific hypothesis behind the anthropogenic (man-made) global warming has failed. Environmentalists, Al Gore inspired political liberals, the scientists whose livelihood depend on obtaining grants from the 2.7 billion dollars a year of our tax dollars that our Federal government spends a year to support the global warming scare now have a strong faith based following as well.
The basic science behind global warming is the theory that the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels to power our civilization, interacts with water vapor to produce a highly magnified greenhouse effect leading to uncontrolled, extreme global warming. Computer scientists put this assumed resulting “positive feedback” into their climate prediction models and came up with the extreme warming forecasts that lead to the scares about uncontrolled heat waves, polar ice melting, ocean water level rises and coastal flooding, the death of polar bears and millions of people. But that amplified effect has failed to occur in reality. Scientific measurements find the temperature impact form increased CO2 in insignificant. The glaciers and polar ice are not melting beyond the gradual natural result from the natural warming Earth has been enjoying over the last 12 thousand years of this interglacial period.
Many environmentalists suggest we go ahead with our the reduction of our carbon footprints as insurance, just in case the CO2 forcing turns out to be real despite the lack of scientific validation as of now. Well, if you want to take the safe route, turn in your smart phone and iPods, sell your car, turn off your A/C and furnace, cancel all airplane trips and wait it out. The solar and wind power alternative energy are incapable of powering our civilization as of now and show little sign of being up to the job in less than 50 years. And, this is despite billions of tax dollars of incentives and tax exemptions.
Meanwhile, scientists and engineers have reformulated our fuels, cleaned up our coal put catalytic converters on cars and scrubbers on smoke stacks and greatly refined the internal combustion engine reducing air pollution from our advanced civilization to a small, acceptable level. Now CO2 is the only significant exhaust gas and it is not a pollutant despite the anti-science ruling of the Environmental Protection Society. In fact, the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is a marvelous fertilizer and Earth is 20% greener as a result.
These are facts. Yet the dramatic anti-science drivel of the global warming zealots is the basis of so called research report news accounts regularly published without question by all forms of media.
Science will win out in the long run. But it is a difficult time for honest scientists.
Regards,
John Coleman
858-243-17078
jcoleman@kusi.com
http://www.kusi.com/category/195823/colemans-corner
Anthony,
There’s a lot more we could do (at WUWT and all skeptical blogs) with the “Connect the dots” meme. In fact I’d say Bill McKibben has handed us one on a plate.
He wants that phrase “People are starting to connect the dots.” to be connected with CAGW, well so be it. Let’s make it our own. There are so many “connect the dots” in skepticism…
Al Gore says sea level is gonna rise twenty feet. . . . Al Gore recently bought a $8 million oceanfront mansion in Montecito, California – connect the dots.
Get the idea?
It IS getting pretty bad out there. As I write this, another article in The New York Times laments that the Discovery Channel series, “Our Frozen Planet,” does NOT serve as sounding board for the warmists misleading theories on why polar and Greenland ice is decreasing (uh-huh), polar bears are declining (oh yeah), etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/business/media/discoverys-frozen-planet-is-silent-on-causes-of-climate-change.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw
The Financial Post has an article scheduled for Saturday’s paper written by Lord Moncton : Aristotle’s climate — the fallacies of global-warming hysteria.
And an article from Peter Foster : Time to celebrate, because Earth Day Backers and the UN were all wrong.
So something to look forward to while we suffer fools ungladly in the mean time.
Hijack the campaign so ‘Join The Dots’ shows the connections between scientists, activists, politicians and money.
Mr. (I’ll bet it is Dr.) John F. Hultquist said: “As for “weather” – go outside – an old saying is – Weather is what you get, climate is how you know what to expect. That will be based on where you are and the timing and patterns of those things that the atmosphere brings.”
Thank you very much.
I meant to mention in my little screed but forgot to, my own personal definition for “climate” is “average weather”, which is what leads me to answer questions about “climate” the way I do.
In reading stuff, like the Kesterson article for example, it looks to me that “temperature is climate” is a fairly recent invention, “precipitation is climate” going back a long ways. And around here it seems that the temperature is thought to follow the inverse of precipitation or moisture in the ground–“used to be really hot here (when it wasn’t freezing cold), but since so much land is being plowed and planted, it is cooler and rains more.
An having written that, I realize I don’t know how the Aquifer fits in this picture…..plowed ground evaporates? Center pivots? Dang I wish this would all settle down.
CONNECT THE DOTS:
NASA/GISS Director: James Hansen
Hansen’s underling: Gavin Schmidt
NASA web site contributors: Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann
GISS Modeler: Gavin Schmidt
RealClimate run by: Gavin Schmidt
RealClimate owned by: Michael Mann
RealClimate contributor: WM Connolly
Wikipedia editor/censor: WM Connolly.
Those that write letters to the editors of major newspapers should not become discouraged if they don’t get published, as large newspapers received hundreds of letters daily. Keep trying those papers that are more conservative with their editorials. I have had several letters published in The Washington Times. Here is a link to one from a few years back.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/3/a-profession-dominated-by-amateurs/
Also try smaller newspapers as they get very few to pick from.
(Anthony, help me out here as I am not sure how to make a clickable link)
Interestingly, H. Michael Mogil is considered to be one of the 1000+ skeptical scientists on the Climate Depot list…
I thought it interesting that the responses of “Don’t know” to questions such as “Have each of the following types of extreme weather events become more or less common in your local area over the past few decades?” were in the 7-13% range.
Is it common in the US for 90% or so of people to have lived in the same local area for 30 years or more (‘the past few decades’), then to be able to remember with any accuracy what the weather was like over that period in order to make a valid comment on ‘more or less common’?
Given the increase of communications available in ‘the past few decades’, it would seem that our perception of increases in anything could be put down to the increasing reporting of such things rather than them actually increasing/decreasing/static.
Perception is not necessarily reality and perception is the only thing they have measured.
Of course this will be a conect the dots between global warming science and money.
perhaps we could also take time to comment here.
another suggestion would be to make an effort between now and Rio to send the WUWT web link to some new folks:
18 April: VTDigger: Press Release: “Connect The Dots” with 350.org Saturday, May 5 in Waitsfield, Vermont!
Contact
350.org Vermont
Press inquiries
rob@highermindmedia.com
Vermont has always led major events for 350.org’s days of action, and this will be the first one with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in attendance.
“As we see in so many hard-hit places around the world, our tiny state plays almost no part in causing global climate change, yet it is now experiencing escalating weather impacts. Now, it is time for Vermont to help ‘connect the dots’ for the world to see,” said Bill McKibben in explaining why he is leading the rally on May 5 in Waitsfield.
“For some time Vermont has inspired the world with innovative energy solutions, but after last year’s floods, it’s seen the real impacts of our global addiction to fossil fuels,” said David Stember, organizer for 350VT. “Because Vermont is willing to acknowledge and squarely face climate change, the country increasingly looks to us for hope that we can get out of this mess—not just with shovels and remarkable recovery efforts, but also by being a bold movement leader.”…
At 4 p.m. there will be an aerial group photo followed by a rally with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and local political leaders, as well as stories from Vermonters who have experienced the frontlines of our changing world…
http://vtdigger.org/2012/04/18/connect-the-dots-with-350-org-saturday-may-5-in-waitsfield-vermont/
CO2-induced clouds, rain and snow? Sounds like negative feedback, are they sure want to go there?
Have Some Sympathy for Scientists.
No I’m not a scientist. I even need spellcheck to spell scientist right and spell check.
I am starting to develop sympathy for the AGW true believers.
Being a scientist, mad or otherwise, must be hard. They have to have a high tolerance for tedium. All day it’s measure, record, measure, record… Boring.
Then after a couple of years working on something they passionately believe in, they prove themselves wrong. That has got to be tough to take. Sure the other scientists are saying things like “good job”, “You proved that something doesn’t work. That saves the rest of us a lot of time.”, “Great integrity”, “Can you reproduce your failure? Wouldn’t want to say something doesn’t work when it does because who would peer review that? It would be lost forever.”. But the company or university doesn’t make money and maybe loses prestige and you don’t publish.
Wait. Why don’t they publish? Knowing how something doesn’t work is important. That should be worth an abstract and a link. Hey Anthony. Start a publication. It could be called The Watts Up With That Scientific Journal of It Doesn’t Work. The studies must be properly done and reproducible. Preprints would be free but to see what passes peer-review is a $50.00 subscription. Don’t you have a regular contributor who needs a job? They could be the editor who convinces other scientists to peer-review for free. Well, I suppose they would have to be given a complimentary subscription. I like this idea. It would be great for somebody else to do.
But I digress.
There have been some recent articles on scientists with insufficient integrity. This means integrity can be hard in a normal climate. (pun intended)
Now let’s go back 30+ years. We had just gotten out of a period of very visible pollution and were becoming aware that the invisible pollutants were worse. There were a lot of unknowns that are now common knowledge, at least they are on WUWT. One could be excused for believing that human activity was changing the climate of the world toward our destruction.
Now let’s consider money and power. Because of our survival instinct you can scare people in a sound bite but it takes a long time to counter that. So equal time does not have equal effect. This issue was made for politicians and it was real. No lying or exaggeration necessary. The scientists and political leaders were legitimately going to be the heroes who save the world. So thousands of political leaders and many others associated with government were justified to hook their political power wagon to AGW. Poor countries were justified in guilting us out of money. And speaking of money, if you want to get rich, watch which way government wants to go and get out in front.
This has been going on for decades. What is the scientist going to do now? Say “Oops. Never mind.” They would have a lot of powerful people upset with them. All this time they were the heroes along with the scientists saving the world and now the scientists tell them they have spent all this time, money, power and they never were heroes. They would look like fools. Powerful rich people don’t like looking foolish because that perception of them is a big threat to their power. You think integrity is hard in a normal climate? Try standing against all of that and knowing you are going to lose your own power and future income would be in doubt. Sure the scientists would respect you and with that and a dollar you can buy a cheap cup of coffee. The mighty don’t like to fall so they are not going to fall alone. We have a very strong instinct to gain and hold onto power. Power will spin you head around.
Self respect is how much you like yourself. Self esteem is what deep down in the foundation of your psychology you “know” to be the real truth about yourself and how you fit into the world. So for decades you were the respected world saving hero and now that is all destroyed. That would be a severe psychological reality shift and terribly rough for anybody to handle.
So why would a slow typist like me write all of this? Because when people know that somebody, at least a little bit, knows what they are about to go through it’s a little less hard.
How do you change the mind of a person for whom the answer to the following question is a firm yes and how will that way of thinking effect their life?
If I am right and you are wrong does that make you a bad person?
I think this explains a lot. Especially if what they believe makes them a hero or gives them their sense of value as a person or defines their place and value in life. On those issues they don’t experience a discussion as an interesting talk. Instead it is a threat to everything that they are.
Hanging on the walls in every school back in the early 70’s, they used to have these big posters of dead forests, the skeletal branches clutching at the grey leaden sky, with the smoke stacks pouring out smog that morphed into the poisonous sky with the caption berating the children about the horrors of Acid rain…. Ohhh, those evil Factories. Burn them. Burn them I say!…
Then there were water cycle posters showing DDT coming from the evil farmers fields, flowing into the streams, the streams flowing into lakes and rivers, the rivers flowing into the sea and all along the way contaminating wildlife,eagles eating the rodents and their eggs breaking beneath them, all the lake insects dying the fish starving and then finally the evil DDT, farmer poisoned water flowing into the sea with people eating the fish and getting sick….. Ohhh, those evil Farmers. Burn them. Burn them I say!….
There were also anti logging posters as well, for that was the ecofascist cause celebre of the times, with evil paper pulp mills poisoning the waters with Dioxins in similar posters to the DDT ones…. Ohhh, those evil Wood cutters and Paper makers. Burn them. Burn them all I say!…..
40 years on acid rain is a non event…. They still log forests and make paper, fish still swim in the lakes, rivers and streams. There are still insects, rodents, eagles, fish and people…. and the scare tactics are still the same.
The only thing that has changed is me… I am thoroughly sick of Socialist propaganda poisoning young minds and turning good people into state enemies. Stuff ’em.
Seems part of the trouble simply is that most of the subject is well beyond the audience’s capacity to not jump to conclusions.
Saying “but TORNADOS” is insane, show me a reduction in average number of tornados in the peaks of the Sierra Nevada
I’ve read some of the comments and skimmed others.
Someone said something about the kids learning to think critically in school and (I think they were) implying that the propaganda about man causing all the climate change is not a big concern because the kids would apply the critical thinking they were learning and see through it. Don’t count on it.
In the mid 70’s I was hired for a semester as a teacher’s aide in a public junior high. I worked with two remedial reading teachers. I remember one of the reading exercises for the 7th & 8th graders went something like this:
“There are two things I like about my little brother Billy and two things I don’t like.
The two things I like are he’s easy to please and he’s fun to play with.
The two things I don’t like are he screams and cries a lot and he breaks everything I let him play with. Just yesterday he broke my favorite model plane.”
The follow up questions asked what the things were he liked and what the things were he didn’t like about his little brother Billy, just in case the story itself didn’t scramble their brains enough already. (I was going to add another, more subtle, example from the 9th graders’ material but I’m a slow typist and I think you get the idea.) I doubt if things have gotten better.
Definitely write the letters Anthony has requested but don’t assume the kids themselves will see through the propaganda.
If you’re a parent, pay attention to your kids school materials. You’re the parent. Teach them. Train them.
Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
(WOW! The breeze from all those red flags popping up just blew the papers off my desk!)
The word translated “foolishness” here means “careless habit of mind and body”.
The “rod of correction” isn’t refering to beating the hell of them. It’s an orientalism. It was more like a swat from a willow switch in the one room school house of old. It’s not to punish but to get their attention so they can be corrected or taught.
My point is, while individual teachers in “the system” may be wonderful, “the system” that allows such things into the materials the teachers use isn’t geared to teaching the kids actual “critical thinking”. If you’re a parent, don’t abdicate your responsiblity.
End of Sermon. (Sorry)
Connect the dots? How about a counter slogan – correct the dolts.
Connect the Dots.
Perhaps exploit the fact that “dotty” means “mentally unbalanced”.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dotty
Alex Heyworth says:
April 20, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Connect the dots? How about a counter slogan – correct the dolts.
😎
One effective way to thwart a meme is to take it over.
Jenn Oates says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:29 am
Oh, I can connect dots, from Climategate 1 to Climategate II to Gleick to…
So, people can do there own versions of connect the dots.
Connect the dots is a horrible slogan because it can be subverted so easily. This is what Josh’s cartoon does, for example.
They need to hire some professionals
Looks like cryosphere today has decided to “freeze” NH ice data before it goes over the normal mark.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
“That is the ultimate solution, but how do we turn off the torrent of BS these guys are flooding us with?”
This is the question he asks, and the answer is, leave America. Here we have free speech. If you want to stop people expressing their thoughts, go someplace the law allows you to do that.