I noticed with my morning coffee that Tom Nelson had a Google Trends graph that piqued my interest, so I decided to expand upon it a bit before getting back to work. After looking at my results, the title of this post could just as easily be “off the radar”. Have a look:
Source: Google Trends
You can clearly see when An Inconvenient Truth was released, the 2007 IPCC report and subsequent Nobel prize, and when Climategate occurred. That Gore blip in the summer of 2010 was the “Sex Poodle” episode.
Here’s a similar graph with the maximum number of relevant phrases plotted, along with some news items that mark the timeline:
Source: Google Trends
 |
Head of UN panel blasts ‘Climategate’ affair
Ottawa Citizen – Dec 7 2009 |
 |
‘Climategate’ inquiry shows scientist didn’t falsify data
Vancouver Sun – Feb 3 2010 |
 |
‘Climategate’ inquiry mostly vindicates scientists
Huffington Post – Jul 7 2010 |
 |
British academics win right to temperature data held by university at center of ‘Climategate’
Washington Post – Jul 1 2011 |
 |
More ‘Climategate’ emails leaked
TheChronicleHerald.ca – Nov 23 2011 |
 |
UK police close ‘Climategate’ investigation
Hindustan Times – Jul 18 2012 |
Here’s one I found amusing. Like an EKG heartbeat (in red), we have the yearly heatwaves in the NH summer garnering more interest. But most interestingly, when the seasonal interest turns to heat waves, global warming takes a dip each time.
Source: Google Trends
This suggests to me that the global searching public isn’t connecting heat waves to “global warming” as some journalists, bloggers, and activists would like you to do.
Messaging FAIL.
“That Gore blip in the summer of 2010 was the “Sex Poodle” episode.”
***
Refresh my memory: Was Al described as a crazed sex poodle or a sex crazed poodle? Either way, the vision brought to mind is a yappy little poodle, too small to even soil a girl’s blue dress. On the other hand……..
I seems to me that Saul Alinsky’s method included targeting, and marginalizing an opponent. It would include trivializing and ridiculing him. In this case, it is just too easy. A better target would be the individuals who believe in Al.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
On retreating into the shadows, please do not forget the Degrowth conferences.http://www.venezia2012.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/DEGROWTH-CONFERENCE-VENICE-short1.pdf is the flyer for the one coming up in September in Venice.
The initial conference was in Paris in 2008 and then Barcelona in 2010. There was also a Degrowth in the Americas conference in Montreal in May. This is the Ehrlich vision of actually shrinking the economy to be “sustainable.” It’s also consistent with what the new economics foundation is pushing in the UK and the Line of Plenty arguments we are seeing surrounding the shift to Prosperity without Growth by pushing collective well-being. Tim Jackson is also a proponent with his “I am because we are” view of future prosperity.
It is also reflected in that UN World Happiness Report initiated in 2012.
OK, The relative quantities on the Ordinate are obvious, But what do the numerical values measure? Or am I just too dense?
@ur momisuglyEric Simpson….I love your listing of synonyms & your post in general (July 22, 2012 @ur momisugly 2:49 pm)
I’d like to add a few of my own, having worked as a consultant in the carbon credit/CDM space:
Carbon Hucksters, Fart Chasers, Credit Privateers, Bean-Counting Idiots, They-Who-Own-Worthless-Paper, Chicago Climate Expunge, Methane Mafia, “The Gang Who Couldn’t Mitigate Straight,” Additionality Buffoons, No Cents Left, Kyoto Con-Men, Joint Implementation Imbeciles, etc.
BTW, I take exception to you slandering the good reputation of Chicken Little!! Cheers!
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
This is interesting in light of the poll of Gen-Xer’s showing they are rejecting Global Warming hoax.
Eric Simpson says:
July 22, 2012 at 2:49 pm
@David Ross. I get your point on the downside to using “warmist.” Perhaps alarmist then is a better all-purpose synonym.
‘Alarmist/alarmism’ has already been captured by the CAGW crowd, notably the Australian Labor Government, in describing those who are against our recent Voldemort tax (the tax that cannot be named). A Google search of ‘Gillard Abbott alarmist’ reveals its use by both politicians and the MSM such as:
“It should be possible to sell Julia Gillard’s climate change package to voters. Despite Tony Abbott’s alarmist claims, it can be portrayed as a good news story.” – Laurie Oakes in The Punch
“Climate Change Minister Greg Combet attacked Mr Abbott as alarmist, while Craig Emerson held a conference in the South Australian town of Whyalla, which Mr Abbott had predicted would be wiped out because the tax would hit the steelworks.”
The reason for the tax, such as sea level rises, heat waves, droughts, floods and plagues of toads is not considered to be alarmist but outlining the effects of the tax on the Australian economy are.
Maybe it should be “Awarmist”?
In response to alan, Eric Simpson and John Trigge
Alarmists would be my second choice after catastrophists. I still lean towards catastrophists despite its somewhat cumbersome length. It has the necessary gravitas.
Alarmist isn’t quite strong enough. It doesn’t capture the ‘sky-is-falling’ mentality of the people we wish to describe. They are prophesizing plagues and calamities beyond Biblical proportions.
But using stronger or more colourful terms like
Chicken Littles,
Prophets of Doom,
doomsayers ,
…
climate armageddonists,
thermogeddonists,
millenarianists,
sounds like we are trivializing the issue or dismissing it without consideration.
Maybe its best we use both, as best fits the situation and including within the same articles. A good writer makes use of synonyms to avoid too much repetition. Whichever is used, the important point is to shift the emphasis from warming to alarm/catastrophe.
“Onlyme” suggested “Climate Cassandras.”
That’s a better term than “warmist”!
Warmist is too broad, as it includes non-alarmists.
“Alarmist” is too accusatory–it prejudges the case, implying the other side is wrong.
“Cassandra” is just right, as the ancient Cassandra was correct, but subsequent doomsters who see themselves as “Cassandra’s” are ego-driven and have a bad track record.
(Just remember to spell it with doubled S’s.)
John West suggested “calamitology.”
Jorgekafkazar suggested “Climatologers.”
Mike Bomley suggested “CliSciFi”
Rick Werme suggested “GWAPers? (Global Warming Alarmism Promoters)”
Kurt in Switzerland suggested “the Climate Clergy”
Wayne suggested “Carbochondriacs”
Mr. Lynn suggested “Carbochophobiacs”
Smokey suggested “carbon cranks”
I suggested “swarmists”, “Warm Warriors,” “Climeballs,” and CACA Cult (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Arlarmism)
Unknown suggested “Hothead”
WUWT announced, after a poll, that “Irritable Climate Syndrome” . . . Wins with 23% of the vote, with ‘Climageddon’ (13%) and ‘Climate Derangement’ (12%) as runners-up out of 2,734 votes.
Oops–“Bromley”
Looks like you’ve fallen for the “Al Gore” fallacy, of assuming that CO2 lead temperature changes instead of followed.
In this case, the heat wave clearly follows the drop in global warming interest by some weeks. I’ve not a clue what to infer from that ;(
steveta_uk says:
July 22, 2012 at 11:47 pm
“In this case, the heat wave clearly follows the drop in global warming interest by some weeks. I’ve not a clue what to infer from that ;(”
Looking closely at the graphs, there is a dip in global warming searches in the summer usually. And indeed often the dip in global warming searches actually does start slightly before the summer heat wave.
Why? Kids are not in school.
summer starts -> school is out -> heat wave occurs later (as heat waves occur in the summer)
As always, one must be careful on correlation versus causation, but other indicators suggest that a lot of global warming search traffic is from schoolkids.
With a little convenient repetition from my July 19th post elsewhere:
“If one looks at the pattern in views per day of the (biased and dishonest) Wikipedia global warming article and compares to that of many other articles on Wikipedia, there is a very strong pattern of particularly higher weekday than weekend activity for the former. From that, one may deduce how many (most) of the around 0.4 million views per month of it (around 5 million a year) are from many of today’s kids getting it directly or indirectly in school assignments on weekdays, as part of propaganda-pushing in much of the educational system as well as the “mainstream” media.
For instance, contrast the utterly different shapes of the viewership curves in http://stats.grok.se/en/201205/Global_warming versus http://stats.grok.se/en/201205/Space_colonization where the former implicitly shows it is what schoolkids are being taught about as our future, more so in fact than in intrinsic interest of the average person. (Although some do assignments as homework on weekends, in general weekday viewing is less likely than weekend viewing to be recreational and not as likely to be someone’s own independent initiative).”
Possibly the attempt to ascribe summer heat waves to global warming may indeed backfire (if enough people notice the bias versus how cold events are reported), but such is not particularly directly shown by the google trends graphs if so.
The overall decline in global warming search traffic over the years is a good sign, though. The “cry wolf” effect still exists.
I have pointed out to Warmists time and again that the more they scream about heat waves likely caused by global warming the more the public tunes out. I recall a media study that showed how people changed TV channels every time a global warming story came up. People are suffering from decades of fear fatigue over a non-problem. In any case there is nothing we can do realistically do about it if it were a problem.
Actually the high point of the summer 2010 blip on Al Gore searches is when he and Tipper announced they were splitting up. The sex poodle incident happened a few weeks later and is the second, much lower spike during that summer.
how about “climate pessimists”?
This suggests to me that the global searching public isn’t connecting heat waves to “global warming” as some journalists, bloggers, and activists would like you to do.
————
Well a politico is bound to think in terms of plots and schemes and messaging.
To underline a possible fail in imagination here is an alternative spin. Immediately after a heat wave there is a strong increase in interest in global warming. Is it true? Beats me correlation is not causation.
But why the heck is there a correlation at all?
or even better “alarmaholics”;-)
Climatillogist?
Mannarxist?
Stickophiles?
Ringdings?
Let’s not get carried away just yet. I think there’s another possible explanation for the drop in profile – the Warmists don’t need to try any more, noting that governments across the world are hooked and not listening to opposing views.
You put post-neo-pre-normal science in the middle of this, and you get ALL the answers…
Unfortunately the damage is already done. The wacko socialist gained enough momentum to get their controls in place through the EPA’s rules and regulations which are absent any legal basis. The control and destruction of America will continue until there is an uprising. Hopefully that will come about after the elections when the Socialists/Communist are taken out of power.
Quick switch here on Canada’s Left Coast from heat wave (almost 80°F for a day or two!!) to cold wave (highs of ~62°F for a few days).
Ahh, waves bedammed. It’s variable weather, and running rather cooler than we’re used to. Period.
There will come a time when people will say…Oh, you’re one of those idiots who still believe in man-made global warming. Aahahahahahahaha.
I did not think of it (wish I had): ‘catastrophiliacs’.
It’s largely the Republican Party’s fault. If they hadn’t stolen the election, Gore would have become U.S. President. He would have been in a position where he couldn’t do much harm, and felt no need to compensate by peddling Global Warming.