The kidz at Skeptical Science (SkS) have made fools of themselves again, creating an app that is not only morally wrong, but the clearest case of science propaganda disguised as climate information I’ve ever seen.
![Widget[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/widget1.jpg?quality=83)
First, one wonders what the people of Hiroshima think about the tragedy of war that befell their city being used as a unit of measure for propaganda today? Would they see that as demeaning and insulting to those who lost their lives? You can thank scientist turned activist Dr. James Hansen for making the ugly comparison.
UPDATE: commenter TamLin adds at the Guardian
TamLin 25 November 2013 4:24pm
I’d like to raise a couple of points. First, as an anti-alarmist, I am very glad to see the appearance of this widget, because I am reasonably sure the whole thing will be an own-goal for the CAGW movement that will hasten the end.
Secondly, as a resident alien in Japan for the past 30-odd years, I have a keen appreciation of the general Japanese sensibility about the atomic bombings. The issue of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings has developed what could be described as a “sacred or religious” aura” in this country that makes it totally off limits for purposes of comparison, allegory or humor. This app breaks that taboo in a way that most Japanese people would find deeply offensive just as most Jewish people find inappropriate references to the Holocaust offensive and many devout Muslims found The Satanic Verses and many devout Christians found Piss Christ offensive.
Certainly, one could argue that nobody has the right not be offended or that nobody need be offended by such things. But that’s not the point. The whole point is that many ordinary people do get offended, and often much more deeply offended than an outsider would imagine. Also, there are organizations and other vested interests that will make a point of being offended.
If its a question of winning hearts and minds, using Hiroshima in an app of this kind is like walking into a minefield PR disaster-wise, particularly when it comes to Japan. At the very least, it reveals to people a whiff of something decidedly unpleasant about the nature of the alarmist movement, something that people may not be clearly aware of but that is nonetheless palpable to many of us outside the movement.
Second, for people that don’t understand how much energy the Earth receives each day, “4 atomic bombs per second” sounds frightening, even terrifying. That’s exactly what they are counting on, and that’s why this is pure propaganda. But here’s the reality of the numbers and they aren’t frightening at all.
1 ton of TNT = 4.184e+9 joules (J) source
Hiroshima bomb = 15 kilotons of TNT = 6.28e+13 joules (ibid)
Hansen says increase in forcing is “400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day”, which comes to 2.51e+19 joules/day.
A watt is a joule per second, so that works out to a constant additional global forcing of 2.91e+14 watts.
Normally, we look at forcings in watts per square metre (W/m2). Total forcing (solar plus longwave) averaged around the globe 24/7 is about 500 watts per square metre.
To convert Hansen’s figures to a per-square-metre value, the global surface area is 5.11e+14 square metres … which means that Hansens dreaded 400,000 Hiroshima bombs per day works out to 0.6 watts per square metre … in other words, Hansen wants us to be very afraid because of a claimed imbalance of six tenths of a watt per square metre in a system where the downwelling radiation is half a kilowatt per square metre … we cannot even measure the radiation to that kind of accuracy. (calculation by Willis Eschenbach here)
So “4 atomic bombs per second” translates to about 1/100 th of the energy emitted by a 60 watt refrigerator lightbulb per square meter of the Earth’s surface. Scary, huh? Compare that to this calculation:
Hiroshima was ca. 63 TJ = 6E13J.
The earths circular area is 3 * (6E6m)^2 = 1E14m2.
The suns TSI is ca 1kW = 1E3 J/s, so the earth gets ca 1E17 J/s on the sunlit side, so the sun explodes about 1E17/6E13 = 1E3
1000 Hiroshima atomic bombs on this planet. EVERY SECOND. (h/t bvdeenen)
So the energy difference is 4/1000th of what the total energy received on earth is each second. Not so scary now is it?
UPDATE2: Barry Woods adds in comments that Cook decided privately on the SkS private forum to go for the “impressive” measure of 3 nuclear bombs per second. There is no question that Cook created the app for propaganda purposes.
Barry Woods says:
quote for you (from the SkS private forum, made visible by an admin screwup)
John Cook:
Comment, that’s a lot of energy! I asked various climate scientists for quotes on global warming and Scott Denning gave me this:
“Doubling CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere would add 4 watts to every square meter of the Earth’s surface. This is equivalent to running a child’s night light on every square meter permanently.”.
Somehow, 3 nuclear bombs per second sounds a lot more impressive than a child’s night light! – John Cook
[Wood] Scott Denning sounds like a scientist to me (whilst also being concerned about climate, scientist) – John Cook (or was it Hansen first), not so much, more like ‘misinformation’..
Third, the imagery connection (note the app has a mushroom cloud) is absolutely wrong. Dr. Richard Tol writes in comments at the Guardian
Godwin’s Law now extends to apps.
Metaphors create an image. Few people would associate “Hiroshima” with energy. A more common association is death and devastation. The atom bomb instantly killed 70,000-80,000 people. The image created by this app is that climate change kills 300,000 people per second. That is patently wrong.
This abuse of one of the most atrocious events in human history insults those who perished there and then and their loved ones who survived.
Fourth, others who are in the thick of climate science see the same imagery problem, here is a Twitter exchange from John Cook, the developer of the app and Dr. Doug McNeall from the Met Office on the issue (h/t to Barry Woods):
Dr Doug McNeall (Met Office) had some interesting comments about this – via twitter (my bold)
John Cook @skepticscience
New website about our planet global warming at 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second http://4hiroshimas.com/ pic.twitter.com/7ZUkThicem
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@skepticscience Hi John, as I said before, I think this is a silly way to describe warming: meaningless, and a bit shrill.
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@AGrinsted thing is, @skepticscience knows that this is a poor comparison – it’s been pointed out before.
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@AGrinsted @skepticscience > because climate change is nothing like atom bombs.
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@AGrinsted @skepticscience But, actually, the comparison makes the information available to the public *poorer*, >
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@AGrinsted @skepticscience So, , what do we have – a nice soundbite that gets picked up by msmand touted around a bit.
I think in the next tweet, Dr Doug McNeall, echoes Prof Richard Tol’s concerns earlier….
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@AGrinsted My problem is that the association of death and destruction is also easy to grasp.
Doug McNeall @dougmcneall
@AGrinsted @skepticscience Doing it in a way that holds deep and terrible cultural resonances with millions of people is not great.
That last comment “Doing it in a way that holds deep and terrible cultural resonances with millions of people is not great.” capsulizes the lack of empathy that Mr. Cook and the SkS seem to have when they are pushing the propaganda envelope to advance their cause of climate alarmism.
Such lack of common sense in “anything for the cause” has been demonstrated before, and it failed miserably. Remember the 10:10 video exploding children?
Fifth, why would anyone trust the messaging about World War II and atomic bombs when the proprietor and participants of “Skeptical Science” play Nazi dress up behind closed doors? Yes, this really happened as I document here.
The image below is of John Cook, the proprietor of “Skeptical Science”. It comes from their “inside members only” forum. Somebody went to great trouble to photoshop the image from the original photo of Himmler to put Cook’s face and the SkS emblems in the uniform.
Like with using the deaths at Hiroshima to score propaganda points, did Cook ever think that an app with a red 10:10 style mushroom cloud button might be at odds with his closet Nazi cosplay?
This kind of science propaganda is what Donna Laframboise described as “delinquent teenager” antics.
I find it hard to support cultural/religious groups when it comes to the topic of offence, afteral for thousands of years and still to this day they commit atrocities many of which against scientists whom they declared heretics for their scientific discoveries/claims.
I guess the problem with many of the fields in science is the that like politics there is no right answer (at least one that we know of), so it boils down to who can shout the loudest, especially with a issue that has become as political as AGW. This is at odds with how many people see science as the proving/disproving of theory, but in reality bubbling underneath the surface is a hierarchy that controls the scientific ‘beliefs’ of the current day. As you would expect in politics as the policy of one party comes into question they come up with more audacious claims to support it and oust any within their group that dissent against the party line.
What this AGW saga has shown is that science in the wrong hands can be used as a dangerous political tool. The scientific community is open to abuse as it has no real system of validation in subjects like climatology where its near impossible to do so, and the so called experts that control the field debunk any claims that might negate their own. Its clear that in order for science to be used responsibly it needs to have a rating system that distinguishes the level of proof of any particular theory. This would make it easy for the public to establish where science is being used as a political tool and where it has merit applicable to political decision making. How this would be controlled is another question, maybe some sort of council of leading scientists. I guess thats where the idea becomes slightly unstuck, but something is needed otherwise the backlash will be to the detriment of the scientific community.
How many people have died and will die due to high energy and food prices compared to the number who died in those despicable callous evil and unnecessary bombings which were carried out in no small measure as an experiment rather than out of a militaristic need, given that the despicable Japanese government of the time were already all but defeated on the brink of surrender?
How many have died due to the high energy and food prices? Does anybody know the answer?
Just calculate how many Hiroshima bombs are in a typical rain cloud, both due of potential gravitational energy of having that mass of water at that height and due of the latent heat of condensation in the droplets, and be amazed! There is a lot of energy hidden in Nature. Basically, there is mc^2 of it.
Climate accumulates heat? Heat is accumulated somewhere? This would make one fail a basic physics exam. There is no such thing as accumulating heat. Heat only flows. Heat is energy transfer. Energy transfer cannot be accumulated. Energy can, but energy transfer cannot. But when had the ‘science’ a problem with denying physics?
As long as they want to use absurd measures of “global warming”, how about plugging it into E=MC^2 and solving [for] mass? Based on the numbers in the main post, we are adding 279.3 kgs (615.7 lbs) of warming per day.
Some [snip]wit told me that the Antarctic loses 70Gt of ice a year!!!!!!!!!!!
I looked up how much it had, and came to 26,000,000Gt.
If the uniform of National Socialism fits, wear it. Liberal democracy has always been attacked by social engineers imposing their will on others. The uniforms are just part of the fear provoking process. Cook looks right at home.
Tony Banton says:
November 25, 2013 at 12:49 pm
This is certainly no worse than WUWT arguing the toss over Typhoon Haiyan being the biggest on record while they were still searching for thousands of bodies.
Sure it is, Tony. The discussion over the magnitude of Haiyan is about reality. And that is also a critically important argument because the warmist issue is that CG is “causing” something, while reality tells us something completely different. Haiyan was a catastrophe without any doubt or question. Trying to use it for a climate change argument was gratuitous, misleading, warmist exploitation of a disaster. The people suffered from the storm, not climate change, and they would NOT have suffered less if Haiyan were one of the monster storms documented historically – and before AGW had its putative legs under it.
First, there are more people on the planet and they congregate near coast lines. Any storm making land fall on any continent but Antarctica in all probability will affect more people in the 21st century than would have been affected in the 19th. The infrastructure we use is more complex and, unless well defended, more fragile and subject to damage. Power lines, telephone lines, roads, communications antennae, and rail are all exposed and unless properly engineered for such insults will suffer. Also, the material infrastructure is more costly to build and repair, meaning the damage repair is more costly.
In contrast, comparing the amount of energy received by the planet to nuclear-bomb energy releases, especially to the war-time use of them, is gratuitous exploitation to elicit fright and horror effects – darned close to terrorism when you think about it. It repeats a pattern of alarmist “argument” that was revealed in the use of the label “denier” and the association to the Holocaust, the “explosion” of sceptical children in class rooms, arguing that sceptics should be executed or tried for crimes against humanity, etc. Cook’s remark contrasting the difference between a “child’s night” and a nuclear bomb shows that he was well aware of reality and instead wanted to invoke horror and fear among the physically and historically ignorant.
Donations to Phillipine relief are more in order than “we told you so” arguments. As an aside, there many of the Phillipino nurses I know who are sending monetary and goods aid directly to their villages or families, since they do not consider the government trustworthy.
I especially don’t buy SkS’s figure of 2,037,061,382 nukes · perNuke / areaOfEarth which is ≈250,000,000 joules per square meter accumulated since 1998, huh, with no meaningful increase in temperature over that same period? Irregardless whether this is 0.6 J/s/m² or not. Does that data itself make sense to anyone !?!? In other words that is the energy to raise the top meter of the entire Earth 60°C and a bit more if allowing for land. Sorry, I just don’t buy that figure! Heat rises to the top in the waters of the oceans.
Seems John Cook at SkS has just published their own (and Trenberth’s, and Hansen’s) refutation in one very sick app. Now that seems to be a first.
( using: perNuke = 6.28E+013 J, areaOfEarth = 5.1E+14 m², cpH2O = 4187 J/kg/K, think that is calculated correct )
Action now, we must get the energy down to an absolute minimum of something survivable, say 10 KG TnT. Now let’s see, what would happen if the energy input went from 600 hydrogen bombs a second to practically nothing.
Unscientific crap, such dishonesty, though properly and honestly done it is kinda good idea. We need an AGW calculator.
Lives saved by higher temperature
Food increase simulator
Lives saved by more food
Oxygen increase simulator
Conversely
Deaths due to AGW (zero) compared with…..
Lives lost by fuel poverty
Number of deaths from hunger and quantity of food burned in cars
Deaths due to malaria, while we fiddle about with AGW
Deaths due to cancer while we fiddle with AGW
Deaths due to heart disease while we fiddle with AGW
Koala deaths due to clamydia while we fiddle with AGW
Number of phillippino cyclone shelters built
Number of cyclone shelters that could be built with CAGW research funding
Length of seawall that could be built with AGW funding
Number of people that could be fed with AGW funding
@Tony: “This is certainly no worse than WUWT arguing the toss over Typhoon Haiyan being the biggest on record while they were still searching for thousands of bodies.”
How DARE you speak about the annual crop reports while Kulaks are starving! This sophist game is an excellent choice for the party at fault as only the reprobates and con artists benefit from the red herring introduced.
Actually Anthony, we should publish the alarmists salaries in cyclone shelters per annum
Dana:
[T]he widget was conceived to debunk the pervasive ‘pause’ myth. You could argue that the widespread disinformation about the mythical ‘pause’ is helping to slow action to reduce emissions. After all, if global warming has ‘paused’ then surely we’re in no hurry. Thus by debunking that myth, it’s possible that the widget will move us closer to solving the problem. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, but it certainly won’t hinder those efforts.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/nov/25/global-warming-counter-widget#comment-29221325
@tim: “This would make it easy for the public to establish where science is being used as a political tool and where it has merit applicable to political decision making. How this would be controlled is another question, maybe some sort of council of leading scientists.”
Uh yeh, we’ve done that many times. Put the eggheads in charge and you get all sorts of scientific solutions. Such as Eugenics and Collectivization of Farms. While you properly note that people have gone after scientists, it’s no less true that scientists have gone after people. Or, simply, people have a habit of persecuting outgroups.
The problem is essentially Philosophy. Political ideologies are simply a philosophy, a weltanscauung. As to are Religious ideologies. And make no mistake about science, it’s the fusion of philosophy and engineering. Putting scientists in charge is strictly worse than the other two though. The other two have nothing but rhetoric, but scientists bring very clever sophistries written in undecipherable hieroglyphs. So people don’t question it because they can’t. Often, not even the scientists; which gives them a self-certain Faith of their own truth that not even the Pope can hold a candle to. So if you’re truly serious about putting Top Men or technical merit in charge then the first thing you do is: Drown all the Philosophers. As it’s only the engineers that can and have demonstrated technical merit for time immemorial. Of course, they’ll often tell you to get bent also; which doesn’t make for good ideological fuel.
I commented that the propaganda was an insult to war dead and to my amazement my comment was removed by the Guardian moderator.
Steven Mosher says:
November 25, 2013 at 11:00 am
just by living and breathing Al Gore has produced 56Million watts.
============================================================================
We did twice than an an hour today. At landfills. Renewable energy. Green.
Maybe you should rethink your units.
The new skeptical science Hiroshima bomb widget will lead to indifference about global warming.
When you look at the widget, the number of Hiroshima bombs goes up rapidly. But after a while, you look around at the real world, and see that nothing has changed.
Even after 1000, 2000, 3000 Hiroshima bombs have “gone off”, The real world is still exactly the same as it was before. There is nothing to worry about.
Remember, the younger generation is the “I want it NOW” generation. They don’t want to have to wait to see what happens.
I now look at the Hiroshima widget often. It gives me a reassurance that everything is fine.
There have been over 2 billion Hiroshima bombs gone off since 1998, and the world is still a wonderful place.
Thanks skeptical science.
The fact is that it is clever propaganda. The average occidental green cares as much about the Japanese people as they do Jews. Nothing. They won’t see these people trampled under “the message” which, as I said, is clever propaganda.
Cook is stunning in that Nazi uniform. If he had been around in 1935, he might have been the poster boy for the Nazis.
just as hideous: the “duck & cover” equivalent for CFL bulbs in the German schoolroom is near the start. whatever your opinion of CFL’s, including the fact we’ve had fluorescent bulbs for decades – this 28 minute video is worth watching from start to finish. in the second half, almost every single line exposes the utter insanity of the EU’s CAGW decision-making process, & the cronyism behind those decisions:
2012: Deutsche Welle In Focus: Toxic Light – The Dark Side of Energy Saving Bulbs
John Cook: “As for *why* I use this metaphor, the reason is not political. It’s cognitive. There are several decades of psychological research into misinformation and how to reduce its influence.”
He really does fantasize about being Himmler.
@ur momisugly DCA
That and what Anthony points out, and yet they don’t want folks to refer to their site using the common method of the first letters of the words “Skeptical Science”- SS !!!
Perhaps he should take a holiday in Dresden and ask the people there what they think.
Unlike the atomic bomb, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere has generated 3.5 trillion dollars work of extra wealth in the world due to enhanced fertilization.
Went and read some of the comments on the Guardian page. The arrogance and lack of scientific understanding on the warmist side is simply exquisite. Endless appeal to authority, nonsensical quid pro quo, and Machiavellianism are rampant. All I can say is let the fools speak. They are only losing the populous.
If it was simply their idiocy we had to combat, I wouldn’t worry so much. The fact that they keep referencing how the “children” understand AGW as opposed to stupid adults (read: those who are logical, wise, educated, experienced, and able to argue back), just shows the true evilness that lies in their “hearts”. Yes, use the indoctrinated youngsters who believe whatever you force them to read. Yes, there’s a sound, scientific stance.
This is a war. If it isn’t, I don’t know what is.
@Jquip “Uh yeh, we’ve done that many times. Put the eggheads in charge and you get all sorts of scientific solutions. Such as Eugenics and Collectivization of Farms. While you properly note that people have gone after scientists, it’s no less true that scientists have gone after people. Or, simply, people have a habit of persecuting outgroups.”
I think you misunderstood my post. I was pointing out that bad science is often misused by those looking to gain political advantage, of which you have pointed out some more examples.
Let me clarify i don’t think scientists should be involved in political decision making, but their theories and papers will always be used to justify political decisions. This makes it important to filter what science is ‘reliable’ to be used in this way, hence a proof rating of scientific studies. This proof rating is not determine if the science is wrong or right which is almost impossible to do and why science is so easy to exploit, but to measure the weight of reliable evidence to back up the theory. This can be done with standardised rules to mark out the what evidence is considered scientifically valid and how much is needed for each level of ‘confidence’.
As you state in your post scientist’s can often have “faith in their own truth” so it becomes even more important to verify the level of proof involved in that truth or we start on a dangerous path of scientific faiths that people are all to ready to follow. This system would hopefully promote more factual science studies whilst showing up studies that are full of unsubstantiated conjecture as exactly that.