Of course we all know about that other ill-fated unabomber billboard last year that went over like a lead radiosonde balloon, but I like this one by CFACT (minus the date controversy of course).
Drive by this!
Science tells us that there is nothing out of the ordinary about today’s weather. There have always been droughts, floods, fires and storms and they will continue no matter what we do. A little historical research shows us that today’s weather is not even particularly extreme and by some measures is unusually tame.
NOAA and the U.K. Met Office, the two main sources of temperature data the UN’s IPCC rely on most, report that any warming there may have been has been limited to only three quarters of a degree in a century! Three quarters of a degree! Hardly the sort of thing to make a noticeable difference in extreme weather.
Further, the Met Office’s data shows no warming for the last 16-17 years! Our new billboard plasters the Met Office data in an easily understood graph right up in the sky.
It shows no warming for over 16 years 15 years. I’ve sent them a correction notice.
If you want to chip in to get one in your area, visit the link below. Billboards are surprisingly inexpensive.
http://www.cfact.org/donate/support-cfacts-billboard-campaign/
UPDATE: the 15/16 year issue discussed in comments is a matter of perception. If you count years, 97,98,99,00,01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12 you get a count of 16 years.
If you do the math, you get 15 years:
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=08&d1=31&y1=1997&m2=08&d2=31&y2=2012&ti=on
Note the extra day in that report. The issue has to do with defining the start point as zero or one. Counting years, like counting days, can give you can extra day. The timeanddate.com website allows for this by allowing you to not count the end day:
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=08&d1=31&y1=1997&m2=08&d2=31&y2=2012&ti=off
Either way, te lack of warming over the time period is a compelling argument.
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Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 10:52 am
Funny, Phobos–you using the word “judgement” when talking about “climatologists”. Would you use that term to describe Mann, Jones, Gore, or any of the other clowns you describe as “climatologists”?
I wouldn’t.
What I would use is the standard CAGW acronym, but correctly spelled: Catastrophic Anthropogenic Genocidal Warmistas.
That’s accurate.
“Tempest in a teapot”. Dates do not matter, what matters is no warming in 15 or 16 years.
That figure…you know the billboard would be a gigantic own-goal, making every climate sceptic a laughing stock apparently unable to count or do simple arithmetic.
Hansen uses GISTemp, not HadCru. Without using his data, OR explaining that his data is suspect, and HadCru4 is good, this billboard is misinformation. The warmists will see this right away.
The CAGW war is being fought with the same weapons on both sides here. Tactically sound, but I have a problem with the strategy. Of course, I also have a problem with our side using torture as public policy, but perhaps there is a reason and a social justification for certain people: whatever works goes. Morals or ethics should not stand in the way.
As I said, I have a problem with the strategy.
Let’s see what has happened on the Met Office’s patch.
Very worrying scenario:1997 – 2012 fall of 0.83C
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/17Yr-CET.htm
Anyone would like to tell Met Office, CRU and more importantly The Department of Energy and Climate Change in Whitehall.
RACookPE1978 says:
February 27, 2013 at 11:23 am
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 10:52 am
But why 16 years? No climatologist would ever make a judgement about climate based on 16 years.
Funny ….
Hansen – in 1988 – used a shorter 13 year trend to BEGIN his crusade and his requests for funding FOR his theory of CAGW.
Then again, I would then be assuming Hansen is somehow, a “responsible scientist” instead of a screaming CAGW dogmatic extremist, er, criminal.
*
This was going to be my point, RACookPE, only you beat me to it and said it better.
I like the billboard. It sure doesn’t look like a hockey stick. I like Gore mentioned and the “inconvenient truth”. I hope these billboards get everywhere.
As for the dates, I took the years to be inclusive, but if they are in fact from Aug to Aug, then they are not and, if that is the case, I agree it should be corrected. While controversy will draw more attention to the message, it won’t help if they say “They got that wrong, that means they got the rest of it wrong.”
Just my two cents.
The billboard is spot on. Al Gore will be remembered by this generation as being a treasonist. He sold his country and people, with a bunch of inconvenient lies, to make himself wealthy beyond belief. All this from a man that was nearly POTUS. Unforgivable. By biblical comparison Judas was just a petty criminal .
judging from the number of hysterical warmist sock puppets showing up to nay-say, this billboard is very effective. No frigging hockey sticks, please! Too complicated for the average Joe/Jane to comprehend.
Regarding the 15/16 business, it’s better to err on the side of understatement, so as not to give the other side a nit they can pick. (Plus the understated side is correct.)
By not using a more defensible date, like the end of 2012 compared to the end of some preceding year, we’ve given the other side another nit they can pick. Even if the numbers work out less favorably to us with a more recent date, or we can only claim 14 years of no warming thereby, we must “do the right thing.” We must put that above point-scoring. It’s the best policy in the long run, too.
14C is the baseline from which the anomalies are computed, I believe, So it was OK for CFACT to make the computation.
kindlekinser says: (February 27, 2013 at 9:01 am)
“If it is not warming, why has the temperature stayed at a high level for the last decade and a half? Shouldn’t it be cooling? I really don’t understand the skeptic argument here. Since it got really, really warm in 1997, we haven’t seen cooling. Seriously, what do you think is happening?”
LOL that’s an upside down effort to blame skeptics for being unable to clarify a lack of warming. Nice try though, I’m still laughing. I think you should ask the CAGW-promoters, don’t you think? Just call them: “Where is the catastrophe, where is the warming!”
What’s happening? Well: NOTHING and CO2 keeps rising. Start to see the skeptics point???
And why should it be cooling? Do you know something I don’t? Please share your thoughts.
I know for sure that no-one knows what will happen AND that CO2 is not the driver of it.
Bill Parsons wrote:
“I don’t agree with your post, which seems to saying that AGW believers can willfully misunderstand the graph’s message, and claim that “it actually shows…” I don’t see any room for ambivalence about the graph. 15 years: no warming.”
Hi Bill Parsons,
How do you get the nice Italic and indented quotes to appear?
I did not quite understand your message, and wonder if I had stated my comment clearly. I was referring to a hypothetical discussion about whether the billboard graphic was consistent with the title re the 15 versus 16 year issue, and the effect such a discussion would have on the general public. I agree the strength of the billboard is the non ambivalent graph that clearly shows no warming in 15 years. Or by some measures re above comments it is 16 years. It doesn’t matter, that’s the point, but a controversy over such a minor point draws attention to the no warming issue. An example. Is the emperor naked? No, he is carrying a hanky. See, I win, he’s not naked!! Um I lose, everybody now must admit he has no clothes on his torso.
The public is the ultimate battle ground, and the main complaint from the alarmists has been that the public is too stupid to comprehend the science and for the greater good they should be persuaded using simplified and dumbed down explanations, justified by the excellent and beyond reproach scientists that by a lopsided margin of 97 to 3 agree with their message. Further to that is the implication that sceptics and deniers are the stupid people.
Most people would not like to think of themselves as stupid, but might be quite willing to except that the general public is, even though they are members of the general public. Therefore the alarmist message does get traction, as insulting as it is. It was in this vein that “The Inconvenient Truth” could be justified– not. I watched the movie shortly after I had started to become sceptical and it strongly reinforced that scepticism, but there is no denying the impact it had on the general public. My adult children and a daughter-in-law insisted that I should watch the movie, so alarmed were they at the message. I was also alarmed, in the opposite direction, but I have been involved in advertising and promotional work so for me it was obvious propaganda.
I don’t agree with that approach as a rule, but that is essentially the justification for any distortions in the alarmists message, or possibly outright lies in some cases. I disagree strongly with such an attitude, but to some extent the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle does become a factor. Especially on a billboard that is most often fleetingly, if at all taken note of. I’m not saying your approach wouldn’t have merit too, but I like it the way it is. It’s simple and easily understood. Other valid solutions for messaging exist.
Jesus, it saddens me to see all the arguments claiming that August ’97 to August ’12 is “16 years.” I thought we were more intelligent than the Green buffoons, but clearly many are not. It ain’t rocket science. It ain’t even climate science. Sheesh!
Kindykind..
It was called global warming… it hasn’t warmed
Then it was called climate change.. it hasn’t changed either.
in fact, nothing much has happened at all, except lots more lovely beneficial CO2.
As skeptics, we really need to keep perspective front and center with these issues:
http://i.imgur.com/s19MOMd.jpg
oldspanky says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:42 am
DesertYote writes; “I guess you guys are a bit clueless about the lefties propagandist tactics that necessitate the processes that you are whining about. Think a little bit before posting next time.”
I’ve thought quite hard now, and I have decided my posting was just fine. In fact I will repeat myself: make it easy for people to fund the billboard ‘cos it’s too easy not to bother.
####
Then your thinker is broken.
batpox says:
February 27, 2013 at 8:33 am
###
And who the el are you? Begone troll. You are stinking up the place; you along with the rest of your buddies that were told to post idiocy here.
Looks like it would make a readable and affordable bumper sticker and get a lot more exposure too. And I agree with leaving out the naming of names.
My 2c-worth.
Using those dates, it is 15 years not 16. If it has now become 16 then the billboard should only say 16 if its date and graph are changed accordingly. That it doesn’t need 16 – see below – is irrelevant.
It isn’t an ad hominem. An ad hominem addresses the person not their argument. The billboard clearly addresses Al Gore’s argument.
Yes, there is a reason for 15 years of non-warming being significant.
NOAA’s State of the Climate Report for 2008 –
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
– states on page 24/198. “Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate. “.
We now have that discrepancy thanks to 15+ years of non-warming, in other words, the model has failed.
People, remember it is a billboard, not a published paper. GISTemp vs. HadCru, 15 vs 16, who cares. Drivers are not looking for fine detials, they see the graph, they start questioning the “consencus”. Mission accomplished.
I also would donate if paypal was available.
An here is another climate billboard:
http://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/suzuki_runs_away1.jpg?w=269&h=442
Where is Mr Donearunner?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/suzuki_runs_away1.jpg?w=269&h=442
What happened to the climate crisis? No time to wait and all that? What about the climate refugees David? What about the children and the grandchildren?
The coward legged it. Why? What was he going to say to the audience that could not be repeated to the public at large?
Phobos says:
February 27, 2013 at 9:20 am
This billboard may have set a record for the ultimate cherry pick — I wonder why they didn’t pick April 1997 to April 2012 (+0.24 C) or May 1997 to May 2012 (+0.24 C)?
And actually, HadCRUT4 has Aug2012 – Aug1997 = 0.1 C.
And actually the surface temperature (“14 C”) isn’t computed, only the anomalies. But then, there isn’t the impression this billboard really cares about the science. Too bad.
———————————————–
I don’t care for the billboard, either.
I’d prefer to see it near a high school with:
“An inconvenient truth? ”
“Did your science teacher tell you this?”
Show the graph and leave off the years thing just let people do the math.
Whether the earth is warming or not I am not knowledgeable enough to know but, I’ve always doubted scientists could measure this massive ball warming with any accuracy.
My response to 0.24C warming is ……sure…. whatever.
cn
Kindelkinser
The Earth has warmed and cooled many, many times. There have been several times when the Earth was warmer than today during the Holocene: Holocene optimum, Minoan Warm period, Roman Warm period and Medieval Warm period just to name a few. And we only recently (circa 1850) exited the Little Ice Age which was more than 2C cooler than today around 1750. Thank God it has warmed since then, the LIA was a period of hardship, famines, plagues and mass deaths!
The skeptics acknowledge these cycles and believe the current warming is mostly, if not entirely, driven by natural variabilities. The Earth has not warmed in the past 15 years and probably actually is cooling except for the NASA/GISS “adjustments” since 2000.
I don’t pretend to predict the Earth’s future temperature trend(s) over the next 10 to 100 years. But if the Sun is going into another Dalton or Maunder Minimum, you are likely to see a lot more cooling in the next 2-3 decades than anyone wants!
It’s a sine wave, and we’re at the peak and very likely will see cooling in the next decade.
Bill
We now have that discrepancy thanks to 15+ years of non-warming, in other words, the model has failed.
Now watch them up it to 20 years. Or even 30. IIRC, two or three years ago Phil Jones was saying 13 years was enough to refute CAGW, and he revised that to 15 when we got to 14. Now it’s 15 … wonder what he’s saying now?
That aside: I’m in general agreement with those who say the discrepancy in the timespan isn’t a problem. If it generates discussion (as it has here) then the message itself is more likely to stick in people’s mind. As Oscar Wilde said: The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. If this billboard gets people talking, it’s done it’s job.
Apologies, in my comment I omitted attribution. It should have begun:
Mike Jonas says:
February 27, 2013 at 2:24 pm
…
We now have that discrepancy thanks to 15+ years of non-warming, in other words, the model has failed.
You put blockquote and /blockquote before and after the quotes, surrounding those tags with open and close angle brackets. This will work on any WordPress site–and most others too. I wish more people used them–they clarify who said what.