By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Commenters on my recent posting about using graphics as effectively as the Forces of Darkness do, but to use them to tell the truth, said they would like a smarter version of the 99.5% no-consensus pie-chart in that posting.
My large and able staff have burned the midnight o. The hi-res image below is the result. Attach it to every email. Send it to every news medium. Mail it to the White House. Make buttons out of it and wear them. Time to send the F. of D. sniveling into their noisome lairs.
Ø Legates, D.R., Soon, W. W-H., Briggs, W.M., and Monckton of Brenchley, C.W., (2013), Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’: A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change, Sci. & Educ., DOI:10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9.
Love it!
It needs to go to the talking heads who sit there with a blank look when they hear the 97% bit.
Hi. The “9”s in 99 aren’t very clearly 9s, at least with my eyes…
(Better, more articulated font needed)
I predict a catastrophic rise in double-takes. Fun! A button would be nice, for those with the wherewithal.
Agreed that the 9’s need to be reformatted, it takes a second or third glance to realize what the numbers are.
Nice idea and effort but TMI. Better…
Less is significantly more.
No problem. Nothing other than “9”.
Ditto on the Love it and 9’s comments!
First thing that came to my mind is a word search of the phrase “Most global warming since 1950 was man made” Sure what are the odds of that exact phrase coming up. Just a critique.
So validity in science IS determined by a vote.
Just as democracy is determined by salary.
He who controls the vocabulary controls the argument.
Anything you have to read over again to figure out what it’s saying is pointless as a notice or advertisement. So is using a negative. What did those papers say? That some ‘global warming’ was ‘manmade’? Did they even mention ‘global warming’?
/Mr Lynn
May I suggest, Your Lordship, that you send a copy of this to all the members of the APS panel now deciding whether to change that learned society’s statement on CAGW. They, art least, are in a position to move the debate in the right direction.
Low information readers are not going to “get” it. Consult a professional ad writer. Great premise, poor precis.
Seems a little bit weak, using a negative statement to make a point. I’d rather see a more positive statement to the effect that x% of papers demonstrate that natural cycles are the dominant forces for climate change.
Even if x is <50 it doesn't matter – it destroys the "consensus" lie.
Change the 9’s
Lord Monckton is a brilliant geezer but not gifted in industrial communication.
It is extremely unclear what the message of this graphic is – and I’m not just talking about to the hoi polloi.
The message is:
A) 0.5% is a mighty small piece of pie
B) That’s the proportion of ‘scientists’ who think that man did it all.
I think it’s a pretty good idea for the skeptics to have a logo though – we need an anti-panda.
The 9’s look like 8’s and the sentence makes no sense at all until one realizes that it is a pie graph with the segments being referenced, and this is not easily apparent.
Good idea, poor design. Start over!
Nope! not gona work.
9’s is 8t’s.
Till I was told it was a pie chart I didna know.
Please plainer for prats like me.
Like 0.5% cost 3trillion.
I read it 3 times and it wasn’t grammatical. I didn’t see it as a pie chart until davidmhoffer explained it. Clever chap David. I think it needs to be clearer if you want to engage simple people like me.
Perhaps something along this line (with apologies in advance to anyone who really knows what they’re doing graphic wise)…
http://imageshack.com/a/img541/9083/ojm7.jpg
Can’t figure out the meme being refuted?
Try: https://www.google.com/search?q=global+warming+since+1950+was+man+made
Lots of hits.
Reverse and spoof the message
97% of Climate Scientists believe the moon is made of green cheese
[img=http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/a5/52/e2/a552e21791c65d9dc28a09ed63972c2f.jpg]http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/a5/52/e2/a552e21791c65d9dc28a09ed63972c2f.jpg[/img]
I hope this image works!
Mann’s hockey stick was the biggest reason pols
believed agw. A picture tells a 1,000 words and our politicians can’t read.
link to my image
97% of climate scientists believe the moon is made of green cheese
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/34/87/c2/3487c21fca947b27ca37d83379afbc16.jpg
some people will understand the reference
Oh….it’s supposed to be a pie graph! Silly me.
Message too, too wordy and convoluted…like the Lord himself. Congrats Sir Chris, another damp squib
There’s no perfect message for the Believers. Here’s one I’d like to see:
CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL
CLIMATE CHANGE IS 99 and 44/100% NATURAL
BEWARE – COOLING AHEAD
Yes, the 99 and 44/100% is a reference to the famous Ivory Soap ad. It’s probably more like 99.99% natural.
TOO confusing! K.I.S.S.
Good idea, but how about redoing this in a format that can be used as a “signature” in a forum post, etc (think some type of rectangular banner would look great). I didn’t try it, but I think the smaller text would be difficult, if not impossible to read, if the graphic is shrunk down to a reasonable size.
Peter Maxx lives.
Color choice could be better. Red is associated with warming, therefore a different color should be selected.
Shades of blue to indicate cooling, with white lettering. Much easier on the eyes.
Font should be easily read, and not require a second or third glance.
Message should be positive: I suggest ” 99.5 percent of climate science papers say CO2 is innocent.”
Perhaps the good lord would consult a good trial attorney for the well-known ways to effectively convey a message to jurors.
In case anyone is interested, we recently wrote an essay on our Global Warming Solved blog about the scientific consensus on global warming: http://globalwarmingsolved.com/2013/11/is-there-a-scientific-consensus-on-global-warming/
In it we describe how there is actually a wide range of scientific opinion on man-made global warming theory from those who believe that global warming is almost entirely a man-made crisis to those who believe that it is purely a natural phenomenon.
As in the Yelloww Submarine. And apparently I’m adding exxtra letters today.
This looks like you are playing games with words. I suspect a poll of the papers authors would yield a different number, similar to the problems with the Cook paper. Is that really the route you want to take? Sorry, not impressed.
The best evidence we have is the lack of warming and the failure of the climate models. I realize this is more difficult to “dumb down”. Still, we have a situation where ~99.5% of climate models have now failed at the 95% criteria or worse. Since models represent the predictions of climate scientists, then something like 99.5% of climate predictions have failed would be a better story and would also be harder to dismiss.
The 0.5% is not needed and is confusing, also I see it more clearly than the 99.5% because of the font and the color in the 0.5% , the yellow really stands out., If you included the 0.5% put it at the bottom and us a much smaller font.
The message is too subtle and the font is to difficult to read.
Pretty good, but a bit too complex to take in easily.
Only thing I can think of off-hand is something like a graphic based on below:
There’s a 97%
N O N S E N S U S
on Climate Change
Kinda merges the concepts ‘nonsense’ and ‘no consensus’.
who checked the 11,944 papers
The 9’s are hard to read.
Actually – goodness, I’m going to agree with Roger Sowell.
“99.5 percent of climate science papers say CO2 is innocent.”
Idea is great, the image and wording feels muddled, it needs to be snappier and easier on the eye.
would love
A 99.5% Consensus of 11,944 climate papers find no evidence of man made global warming.
throw the word back at them.
The “badge” image is an interesting presentation idea. Backing up what is said is particularly important for addressing newbies. The best use of something like the “badge” image might be to spark curiosity, while linking to something covering much more. For that, the study reference alone is not enough. Also having a short URL to a website addressing the topic of global warming in general would be ideal.
Unfortunately, there is no site more than mildly and very imperfectly suitable for efficiently informing a newbie, one of the handicaps of the skeptic side.
In organization, perhaps the closest to what would be such is appinsys.com
WUWT has some good articles but spread out over years of archives without particular organization other than if digging around with keyword searches, while the reference pages are predominately reproducing CAGW-movement revisionist propaganda versions of temperature and climate history (not so much deliberately as just since those are what most tend to be published in slick electronic constantly-updated high-budget form; selecting graphs “current,” in the sense of constantly-updated, indirectly favors them).
Even the relative fundamentals of what I’ve learned over time* was not remotely learned in initial browsing of skeptic sites, not in the first few hours, and only a small portion of people develop enough dedication to the matter to spend longer investigating.
(* Some of it is in http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg , although that partial summary is not designed for utter newbies, while too short on space to cover other key aspects like the vastly more significant effect of CO2 increase on plant growth than temperature)
The monstrous lie that is AGW is exposed.
Since the heavy lifting has been done, I’m sure the graphics guy could make 10 or 12 or more versions of this, taking onboard some, or all of the above comments.
I rarely eat ice cream but, when I do, It’s usually vanilla. I do note, however, that my compatriots really do like a choice of about 20 flavors !!
Looks to me like it was done on an Apple MAC.
Didn’t you get the note from CEO Tim Cook to stop supporting Apple unless you pray to the CAGW gods and pledge fealty to Pope Gore?
Given that a lot of Sceptical Scientists were included in the 97% figure, and that has now been reduced down to the .5% as per Monkton Pie. Just exactly how few ”experts,” are there, who believe that, man made global warming, with catastrophic consequences into the distant future because of our contribution of Co2 from burning fossil fuels, is a proven fact?
Poorly done. It will confuse some.
The placement of the portion in brackets makes the message too complicated. Most people won’t bother trying to understand it.
Why don’t all those people just stop using oil and everything made from oil?
I agree with most here. The graphic is confusing, but the intended message is even more confusing.
Something far simpler is needed, along the lines of “99.5% find mankind innocent” or “Innocent: 99.5%; Guilty: 00.5%. Spread the message first, then make the button.
For example, if you see a button with a toasting earth on it and simply the number 97%, you would know what it meant because the message is out there.
The background on the one proposed here could be a paradise setting, for example, or any other graphic that suggested lack of concern, peace, etc.
If someone made a button that simply said “Rush: 99.7% Accurate” with a picture of a golden microphone every Rush Limbaugh listener on the planet would know what the reference was. A similar reference in this case could be, for instance, “Man: 99.5% Innocent” with a picture of a lush earth for a background.
That should be the goal here too. First build the case, spread the word, then design the button/logo. It should prompt awareness, and/or a discussion of the facts; it should not attempt to explain, as the one here does.
The 9s look like 8s at first glance.
Too many words, Chris, on the badge.
Me, I’m a ‘swatter’: “So What!” – on the principle that what ever rise in warming is being predicted (Hah!!) is very much to be preferred to any fall in warming (ie: COLD) that is (ignoring models) on the cards.
“Brevity is the essence of wit”
Lot’s of wit and wisdom in this long video.
richard says:
March 9, 2014 at 6:55 am
would love
A 99.5% Consensus of 11,944 climate papers find no evidence of man made global warming.
throw the word back at them.
——————————————————————————
+1
I had no trouble with the 9’s or the pie chart but it required a few seconds to decipher because of the intervening 0.5% message. I’d say it would be confusing for the lay person who don’t necessarily understand pie charts.
My version of a summary graphic has a few more words, but I think more clearly defines a position of many on here which is not clearly understood by the general public. This isn’t perfect, and doesn’t include the play on “97%, but this is generally how I need to start discussions with coworkers to get their attention. http://postimg.org/image/h6rthuair/
Do you have a link to a pdf of the Legates, et. al. (2013) paper?
CAGW.
An INTELLIGENCE Test.
You FAILED
Thats the version for future use, on the fools and bandits currently warming desks inside our bureaucries.
bureaucracies.
eve,
maybe one day, in the meantime where oil is used
http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
somebody should have just asked. Graphics, that’s my thing 🙂
@Rod Everson
…A similar reference in this case could be, for instance, “Man: 99.5% Innocent” with a picture of a lush earth for a background…
I would prefer a picture of cell bars, with the wording:
“Mann: 99.7% Guilty”
The video that Chris B posted.
Is Dope!
I just agree with it 97%.
I still like Banana’s.
That doesn’t seem a very useful statistic. How many of the papers even address the question?
I think I have better design. Just much simpler.
http://imgur.com/eXsgp5p
http://s30.postimg.org/ujegujwo1/simple.png
Thanks.
Yes, bad typeface.
B&W would be better for most people. (Big Oil has not sent me money to buy a colour laser printer, yet. :-P)
I’m sorry Lord Christopher – we don’t need you as the the clown prince we need you as the Laudable Lord. – cheap graphics don’t cut it – precise statements backed up by credible references do.
I think it would be more effective to cite the
Only 60 (.5%) out of 11,944 scientific climate papers in the last 21 years said ‘most’ global warming since 1950 is man-made.
That would serve as a good conversation starter as most people are totally unaware that this is a fact.
If it won’t work as a highway billboard it will not work as a message on a button or a tee shirt. You are given less than 2 seconds to get the message; any more than that and it is a wasted message. Start over with a more apropos staff.
Although clever, I never did notice the pie chart until I read about it in the comments.
That’s sure is a cluttered graphics job. Did they have to use every graphics gimmick?
it should be a forest of trees in chorus shouting , “thank you to the 99.5% of climate papers that say our food is safe”
Strap lIne, ” don”t be mean, feed a forest, create co2″
Doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid.
IMO, it would be more effective if you stated the actual number. ie :
“11884 of 11944 of scientific papers issued in the 21 years 1991-2011 did not say that most global warming since 1950 was man made.”
Congratulations on your first peer reviewed publication.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-advanced.htm
Bosh.
The “Did Not” needs to be in a larger point so that it stands out more. It’s not clear at first whether the 99.5% means they did or didn’t because those words are not emphasized. (just my two cents it’s just not clear at a quick look which is all it will get as a bumper sticker or button or even on an email. It’s too wordy. Over thought.
Should just say: 99.5 % (at the top as it is)
Then repeat the 11,944 Scientific papers
DID NOT . . . .
Leave the .5% slice unexplained.
KISS
needs brevity to make a bigger impact.
Appreciated, but not my style.
Perhaps, the thin wedge on the right should be non-yellow because it now appears topologically part of the background and not part of the circle.
—–
This does not follow, but:
I have this image of a bunch of chickens running around cackling “The sky is falling” with each wearing a tiny hat saying “Global Warming” with a name under it (Gore, Hansen, Mann, and so on). In about 4 or 5 frames of a cartoon an increasing snow falls and accumulates, eventually burying these cAGW critters.
Suggestion: Only the pie graph and this text:
‘Most warming since 1950 man-made? Half a percent of 11944 scientific climate papers say so’.
It would be simpler, more dramatic and effective to just show the shape of the recent RSS satellite temperature graph. The present graphic is hard to read and the message is negative and confusing.
Here’s a button-suggestion I just posted in the thread, Will global cooling continue in 2014. It’s grade A+, IMNSHO:
Image—A hockey stick with its shaft slanting upwards & to the right and its blade flat.
Caption—Who’s in Denial Now?
As an alternative, I propose that those among us who are labeled “denier” should wear a simple black arm band emblazoned with a big yellow D.
When I suggested this to a victim of the brotherhood at Watching The Deniers (talk about Stazi) their response was highly entertaining:
mike says:
February 15, 2012 at 2:10 am
Maybe a big yellow stripe down your back would be better, after all, wilful ignorance is akin to cowardice. You and your ilk are afraid of the facts but moreso, you are afraid that when everything the real scientists you casually disregard says comes to fruition you will be forced to admit you were wrong. The narcicists worst nightmare. You will have to dig the hole a little wider to fit your shoulders in too.
By the way, derision is all you will get until you actually bother to educate yourself in the area in which you are commenting. First step would be to familiarise yourself with basic scientific conventions. Only then will you be taken at least a little bit seriously.
Not to be put down, I replied:
Farmer Dave says:
February 15, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Lovely response. Full of nuance, logic and grace.
Poor deluded boy, you really have to do better than that if you want to be thought of as being clever or, by a long stretch, intelligent.
Anyone who creates a blog such as yours, with all the credibility that a BA can bring to the table on issues of science, is probably crying out for the attention that they believe they deserve. Association with the currently adored is no substitute for interdependent thought based on reason.
Bow to the masters of the universe little fella and you shall be thrown a bone from the table…. should your pitiful existence be acknowledged by the mighty.
Of course the idea of the yellow “D” would provide the correct perspective on who is being persecuted.
Cheers,
Dave
Umm the time frame mentioned is 20 years, not 21, so for arguments sake you do not want an obvious miscalculation when trying to argue the merits of a more complex but less obvious calculation. just an FYI
Great idea Lord Chris, but implementation pathetic. The populace at large will only absorb one – liners, even the pollies know that. A series of bumper stickers/badges released over time, building on the message as they go, may be in the realm of possible with the right kind of help.
A number of commenters are misinterpreting the finding. Most climate science papers say nothing specifically about the cause of global temperature change since 1950 one way or another, neither saying it is primarily manmade nor saying it is primarily natural. Usually they are on narrow topics.
Some examples (where I haven’t double-checked that the following nowhere so comment on global temperature but probably don’t):
“Driftwood in Svalbard as an Indicator of Sea Ice Conditions”
“The role of summer surface wind anomalies in the summer Arctic sea ice extent in 2010 and 2011”
“Palaeoclimatic and archaeological evidence for a 200-yr recurrence of floods and droughts linking California, Mesoamerica and South America over the past 2000 years”
The badge image makes a valid point in implicit counter to the CAGW movement claim that 97% of papers are for their dogma when of course they are not.
But let’s not misinterpret it.
The bulk of climate history (including the actual double peak and not hockey stick temperature history of the past century) is very predominately natural, as in the usual link in my prior comment ( http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg ), but not every paper on, say, molluscs in the sea of Japan is going to directly weigh in on the matter, to say the least.
Eve says:
March 9, 2014 at 7:59 am
Why don’t all those people just stop using oil and everything made from oil?
Like the plastics in your computer, the fabrics in your undies, unless they’re 100% cotton (delivered by horseback). When you have disposed of EVERYTHING you own that uses oil in any way; material gathering, manufacturing, transportation, and post pictures of your log home and your fully organic garden, I’ll consider it. Until then, I’m not freezing in the dark.
Oops, Mods please make the first sentence a question.
“””My large and able staff have burned the midnight o. “””
Burning the midnight oil? Do you know what that does to the atmosphere? How could you do such a thing?
Climate science has been politicized and therefore this battle will eventually be won/lost at the ballot box. I’m all for badges/bumper stickers, but it must be remembered that a huge percentage of voters are dummies and wouldn’t/couldn’t read a blog like this. They don’t know their Arctic from their Antarctic. Its North Pole and South Pole and even that is a stretch for many. Their eyes glaze over at the very sight of a decimal point or the percentage sign. This is where Gore & Co are winning hands down. Show the dummies a picture of a polar bear on a little piece of ice and you’ve got ’em. When you talk about published papers they think newspapers, they have not got a clue, but they vote. We must talk the language of the buyer, i.e mono syllables with pictures. Politicians believe in one thing only and that is the vote.
Daniel Boguszewski says:
March 9, 2014 at 9:21 am
I think I have better design. Just much simpler.
http://imgur.com/eXsgp5p
http://s30.postimg.org/ujegujwo1/simple.png
——————————————————————
Excellent ! That leads to no confusion. It gets my vote.
Poor readability of 99.5 – there are fonts that reduce well. This is NOT one of them.
What a shame that this debate has been reduced to this nonsense !
Well when you live in “Silicon valley”, and you want good clean unadulterated “stuff” to work with, we normally think of “six nines”, or “seven nines” purity for our stuff; as in 99.9999% or 99.99999% purity.
But heck, Lord Monckton, we’ll cut ya’ some slack, since your staff did this on the back of an envelope with a tar brush, and we’ll say , two nines, isn’t anything to sneeze at, when it comes to scientific consensus.
So 99.5% looks like near certainty to me ! Right on.
A bit too much text, but a clear message. I love it.
The most climate real one would say, “The Atmosphere Obeys Ideal Gas Law”
Or “Ideal Gas Law: LEARN IT.”
Just to rub some salt into their wounds:
http://bitly.com/SkepticalScience
which redirects to: http://wattsupwiththat.com/