Guest essay by By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The Guardian, one of the fastest-collapsing “legacy” news media in Britain, is bleeding circulation more rapidly than almost any other national newspaper. One reason, perhaps, is that on the question of the climate it has long ceased to be even remotely credible.
A recent piece by Ketan Joshi on a Guardian blog trots out, yet again, the notion of “an already well-established scientific consensus on the influence of human activity on climate change”. Inevitably, there is a link to the discredited Cook et al. paper pretending there is a “97% consensus” to the effect that most of the global warming since 1950 was manmade. Unaccountably, there is no link to the subsequent paper by Legates et al. (2013), who showed that Cook et al. had themselves marked only 0.5% of the 11,944 abstracts they examined as explicitly endorsing the “consensus” as they had defined it.
The good news (regarded by Mr Joshi as bad news, of course) is that “The most recent survey of public views on anthropogenic global warming, the CSIRO’s fourth annual survey of Australian attitudes to climate change, show 39% of Australians reject a human role in global warming, a further 8% think the climate isn’t changing at all, and 6% can’t say either way.”
Take-home message: notwithstanding decades of relentless propaganda, more than half of those surveyed have not been taken in by the imagined (and imaginary) “97% consensus”.
More good news: “When asked to rank 16 social issues in terms of importance, climate change came third last. You’d be hard pressed to find any other form of scientific denialism [that hate-speech word again] with such a significant impact on the priorities of Australians.”
Mr Joshi continues with a graphic by Cook, whom he entertainingly describes as a “climate science communication expert”, purporting to show that while the public think 55% of scientists agree on global warming the true consensus is 97%.
Appealing to consensus is not a very grown-up way to conduct a scientific argument. It is the logical fallacy of the argumentum ad populum. But it is enough to fool your average “legacy” news journo, an incurably lazy beast at the best of times, into thinking that the Party Line just might – notwithstanding the volcano of real-world evidence – be right after all.
Trouble is, graphics like that of Cook are effective ways of conveying falsehoods as though they were truths. Well, it’s time to do it back to Them by using graphics as effective ways of dispelling Their falsehoods and illustrating the truths of science. I’m compiling a book of graphs and other images, impeccably sourced and accurately presented, that display the truth in a manner that cannot be dismissed or denied.
Here is an accurate graphic on the “consensus”, as determined from the data file eventually released by Cook et al.:
There seems to be something shoddy about popularizing the truth via colorful graphics rather than relying on the obscure, fuzzy charts that are the norm in most scientific journals. Yet if They colorize Their lies, we must popularize the objective scientific truth by making it visible to those who cannot read equations.
Mr Joshi maunders on: “Cook terms this the ‘consensus gap’. It’s precisely the outcome we’d expect from a systematic effort to distance public opinion from the outcomes of science. It’s likely this gap has been forced open by the efforts of conservative media commentators producing a relentless output of doubt.”
It’s also what one would expect given a growing awareness among all but the invincibly ignorant that my graphic is true. The “consensus” is now known to be 0.5%, not 97%.
Readers of WUWT are invited to join in the fun. Let me know, via comments, which your favorite graphs or other visual images are. I’ll include the best ones in the book.
Footnote. The Eschenbach Rule applies. If you want to take issue with what I have said here, don’t be a climate Nazi (© Roy Spencer, MMXIV). Please cite me accurately rather than rewording what I have said to suit the Reichspropagandaamt.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The Doran Zimmerman “consensus” was at least higher than Cook’s. It comes in at an astounding 0.7%!
There’s a couple of interesting graphics here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/climate-change-a-consensus-among-scientists/
So 0.5% of papers blamed a 0.01% change in atmospheric composition for causing at least a 0.1% change in the lower troposphere’s average temperature (measuring it in Kelvin). This is all small stuff, indeed.
Name 97 of them??
Based on Gallup, BBC, and Der Spiegel polls, skeptics are majorities or near majorities in the USA, UK, and Germany. So when alarmists insult skeptics, they insulting about 1/2 of the population. Many of whom they are trying to persuade to join their side. As a skeptic, I say if our opponents are hanging themselves, then let’s give them more rope…
Not really a graphic on consensus but I always liked the cover art on Jo Nova’s skeptic’s handbook.
http://www.greensense.com.au/gswp/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/jonova.png
“© Roy Spencer, MMXIV”
Just out of curiosity, what’s up with the fetish for writing dates and Nth of some sporting competition in roman numerals?
mpcraig:
Thanks for the comedy.
@MattS – he’s just being true to form for SkS/John Cook depictions of skeptics.
See: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/weareskeptics.jpg
Nylo says:
February 26, 2014 at 11:23 am
So 0.5% of papers blamed a 0.01% change in atmospheric composition for causing at least a 0.1% change in the lower troposphere’s average temperature (measuring it in Kelvin). This is all small stuff, indeed.
Or to put it another way, a 43% increase in CO2, causing, what a 0.3% (1C) rise LT temps
The replies to the Doran Zimmerman survey by those surveyed were quite revealing. Many questioned the validity of the survey questions, such as requesting a definition of “Pre-Industrial” and pointing out the huge changes in CO2 over the history of the Earth. The 79 respondents who made the “Consensus” had self-identified as having published over 50% of their papers in the field of “Climate Science.” Only two questions had to be answered “Yes.” Zimmerman was a grad student, actually did the entire thing herself as classwork for Doran.
The Main Stream Media use this absurd statistic from this even-more-absurd survey in nearly every Climate Change piece. They don’t have to make sense, they just have to have plausibility to technically illiterate people. As Will Rogers put it so well, “Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel…”
I like to show a bars graphic with the composition of the atmosphere, pre-industrial and current. The length of the bar needs to be at least about 2400 pixels for CO2 to appear with a single pixel width at current concentration. Which means it will not appear on a normal monitor unless you zoom in, and both atmospheric compositions will look exactly the same. Most people don’t really realize what ppm means and how minuscule is the change in atmospheric composition that we are causing. It is also instructing to show them the atmospheric composition without any labels for the different gases and ask them which of the sectors they think represents CO2.
https://www.enviromedia.com/enviroblog/?p=1023
@Anthony Watts,
LOL!
Nylo says:
February 26, 2014 at 11:43 am
I like to show a bars graphic with the composition of the atmosphere, pre-industrial and current.
The point is that the O2, N2 & Argon are transparent to IR radiation
– so they are irrelevant……
– it’s only the molecules that can interact with the photons that are of relevance when discussing the Green House effect
– that’d be CO2, H2O, CH4 …
… and CO2 has increased by 43% since pre-industrial times
If 0.5% of Doctors you ask agree that you need surgery…
C3 are big on graphics Lord M, although I dare say you’re familiar with them already.
Worth a look for sure.
http://www.c3headlines.com
mpcraig says:
February 26, 2014 at 11:19 am
There’s a couple of interesting graphics here:
I have seen the graphics, my reaction was the same as from several commenters: you can’t count everybody who didn’t sign the Oregon Petition as being pro-consensus.
And about the question why so many engineers are amongst the signers: their daily work implies accuracy. If they don’t, lives may be lost. In my (pre-retirement) job as good as for many of the signers’ jobs: I have been working with the practical appliance of computer models in a real factory. Some models did do an excellent job, some were disasters, costing a lot of money by product and production loss (lucky no lives). Thus I may be entitled to comment on the performance of climate models, even if I have not the slightest degree in climate related sciences.
And the climate models are in the disaster category: if the cruise control of your car was performing as good, you would drive 100 km/h with your control set to 50 km/h, heading for disaster…
Lord M,
Excellent analysis, as usual.
======================
mpcraig,
Re: your ‘interesting graphics’, there is a problem with that.
First, the vast majority of US scientists were never approached with the OISM Petition, which was circulated just prior, and in response to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. [The US never joined Kyoto, so the tens of thousands of scientists probably had a sufficient effect.]
Also, no group of alarmist scientists has ever been able to produce anything near to the OISM numbers. Therefore, their attempt to denigrate the OISM numbers is just sour grapes.
If you can produce a similar co-signed statement by thousands of alarmist scientists with similar qualifications, stating that CO2 is measurably harmful to the planet, please do so.
Post it here. I’ll wait. ☺
Thank you Lord Monckton .
I think a simple one glance graphic is a potent messenger. I like the
clip_image004 = http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/clip_image0042.png
Having some experience in communicating simple yet hard to communicate ideals, I might suggest a bar chart of the 11,944 vs 64. It places a relative scale in the forefront of the discussion.
Re: “don’t be a climate Nazi (© Roy Spencer, MMXIV)”
Please correct. Roy Spencer actually posted: Time to push back against the global warming Nazis
I”nevitably, there is a link to the discredited Cook et al. paper pretending there is a “97% consensus” to the effect that most of the global warming since 1950 was manmade.”
The warmists’ most powerful weapon…a supposed 97 percent consensus on CAGW…. is fraudulent. Without their overwhelming consensus myth, the warmist argument for draconian mitigation efforts becomes toothless. Imvho, this is where a major part of our fight should be focused…that is on relentlessly challenging all claims of consensus. If I were an ill-informed warmist (which i was just a few years ago), I would not be swayed by lofty philosophy of science arguments, no matter how eloquently framed…. about the pitfalls of scientific consensus. And in fact they are not…
We can play dueling papers from now until the next ice age, but nothing will put a stake into the beating heart of the warmist cause than demonstrating the falsity of the consensus claim.
Even if it could be proven that 97% of the entire Earth’s population believed in a fallacy, it would still be a fallacy.
At one time, if you had asked people if the Earth was the center of the universe, you would have gotten a resounding “yes”. Learned men in the Church and in the scientific community believed this, the average man on the street wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning it. It was still a fallacy.
I don’t buy the “consensus” theory now. “Consensus” proves nothing in and of itself.
Right now, the CAGW community will have a hard time convincing me if only because their methods are that of a cult, for want of a better term. “Get on the bandwagon, everybody believes this is true”– “There is no debate, we’re right and everybody else is wrong” and of course don’t forget the “kill the heretics” statements that have come out lately.
I’m still waiting for my share of the loot that is supposedly being paid to those who deny CAGW, by the way. When do I get the first check? Oh, I don’t? Pshaw, CAGW promoters told me I was being paid to say these things. No check, eh? Well, I guess I’ll just keep saying the emperor is naked anyway.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
February 26, 2014 at 12:02 pm
I have seen the graphics, my reaction was the same as from several commenters: you can’t count everybody who didn’t sign the Oregon Petition as being pro-consensus.
Um, if one could use that logic, then everybody who didn’t sign the Oregon Petition (unless they signed a paper stating they are not going to sign it) could be considered “scientists who haven’t signed it yet”.