Weepy Bill McKibben is fed up, because he says nobody is listening to the climate sirens any more. He says in an MSNBC editorial published on Tuesday April 1st, that we need a climate labor strike. I think it isn’t an April fools joke, but it’s hard to tell with Bill since most of his writings are borderline crazy even on regular weekdays.
He writes:
So at this point it’s absurd to keep asking the scientific community to churn out more reports. In fact, it might almost be more useful if they went on strike: until you pay attention to what we’ve already told you, we won’t be telling you more. Work with what you’ve got. We’re a quarter-century ahead – when you deal with the trouble we’ve already described then we’ll tell you what’s coming next.
Oh, what a GREAT idea!
- Imagine weeks without Michael Mann bloviating about his hockey stick, or his lawsuit, or how the #Kochmachine is funding opinion contrary to his, worldwide.
- Imagine weeks without Stephan Lewandowsky claiming climate skeptics deny the Moon Landing without actually ever having asked any of them.
- Imagine weeks without Gavin Schmidt thumbing his nose at people on Twitter that he thinks aren’t worthy of having an opinion.
- Imagine weeks without Kevin Trenberth having to search for his missing heat and offering excuses for why it has disappeared.
- Imagine weeks without Jonathan Overpeck lecturing us on Twitter about how we have to “tackle climate change threats”.
- Imagine weeks without Andrew Dessler saying “Skeptics should keep their mouths shut. Here’s why: Dick Lindzen talking about environmentalism”
- Imagine weeks without anyone referencing the new IPCC report as gospel.
- Imagine weeks without weepy Bill claiming that #divestment is going to stop fossil fuels from being used, when all it does is shift it somewhere else.
You get the idea. The world would be a kinder, gentler place if climate scientists and their fanboys went on strike. Personally, I’m all for it. I could use the rest.
While we are on the subject of weepy Bill’s MSNBC article, I note there is a poll at the bottom of it asking this:
Do you see climate change as a threat to your life or well-being?
And here is the poll result as of about 10:30PM PDT Tuesday evening.
No: 2,718 votes Yes: 947 votes I am not sure: 91 votes
With those kind of numbers, I don’t think WUWT readers need to weigh in.
When you can’t even get the ultra-left MSNBC crowd to agree with your premise of climate change being a threat, maybe a strike isn’t the answer; maybe it’s just time to just give up.
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They have clearly stopped taking votes, as the numbers are unchanged from a few hours ago.
83%no at 10:38PM Eastern Daylight Time.
Pet Peeve: Why do people still call it MSNBC? It was changed to NBC News years ago.
Wait, one of the pollsters at MSNBC, I think his name was Chad, said they are going into the back server room to check the mouse position records associated with clicks. Voters must have been confused about where to click, particularly the ones living in Florida. You can be sure they will come back with the correct results shortly. It doesn’t matter how many times they have to go back there, you can be sure they will count every click.
On the 107 Failed Climate Predictions…… I don’t see how the predictions made by these people are any different from the failed predictions that psychics make each year. No one pays much attention to them either.
PAT YOU MAY HAVE TO GIVE SOME DETAILS FIRST AND THEN IT LETS YOU INTO THE VOTING WHEN YOU GO BACK
[Avoid all caps. Mod]
FYI folks, the tick mark on the pie chart is just to indicate the poll winner (regardless of the position relative to the question.) Simple, yes?
Simple, absolutely, and if they only provided a key on the figure, or even a hover box (so that if the mouse hovers above yellow) the word “No” appears) it would be fine. But without a key, the checkmark is redundant, yellow is obviously the winner (that’s the point of the chart in the first place) so the natural tendency is to read the checkmark as “yes” — I did when I first looked and thought “Gee, Anthony is wrong, a lot of yes votes must have come in”.
Only when I clicked through to the numbers did I see what the colors meant and realized that No was indeed the overwhelming victor.
There are lots of ways to lie and mislead (as well as lots of ways to be merely incompetent) in a graphical presentation of data. A pie chart/circular chart without a legend decorated with an unnecessary checkmark is certainly one of them. Whether it is deliberate or malicious or simply incompetence at work is impossible to say from the outside, but either way every addditional click on a website to new depth is “effort” and fewer and fewer people proceed. Of all the people that voted, some percentage didn’t look at the second page. Of all the people that spent time on the second page and saw the confusing chart, a (probably significant) fraction saw the check and large yellow area with its big-text label, interpreted it as “yes wins”, and didn’t click through to the actual results. By putting the results two steps removed from the poll, they guaranteed that over half of the voters will never look at the actual results.
What never happens is somebody sees the chart and assumes that the checkmark labels the No vote. No is “the wrong answer” according to the biases of the poll creators and the way the question was framed and its context. There are all sorts of subtle cues that you are supposed to vote Yes in order to be a good citizen (after all, they’re covering the IPCC meeting trumpeting doom as “fact”).
rgb
I think it’s likely the climate psychics drummed up the troops to astroturf that poll, too.
Would be funny if the no votes do get to 97%. It would be a tipping point for mockery.
RGB,
“What never happens is somebody sees the chart and assumes that the checkmark labels the No vote.”
Actually, you are wrong. The check-mark doesn’t always fall on the no. The check-mark marks the segment that the user voted for. This has already been tested. If you vote yes, the check-mark will be on the smaller yes segment.
Ah, no kidding. Well, that still sucks. Why not just provide a legend? Are these people idiots?
Don’t answer that.
I commented directly in the discussion following to that effect. Grrrr.
rgb
“richard says:
April 2, 2014 at 2:49 pm
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/poll-how-should-we-address-climate-change
this is one they will be touting.”
Richard, how do you square the large difference between the two poll results?
So here is a thought guys – What if it is a setup and they announce that the poll was intentionally biased by those climate deniers over at WUWT, playing with the poll?
Maybe its just time to just give.
They never will, to many folks have wallets to fill.From researchers to civic bureaucracies . Besides its becoming the UN’s favourite Religion besides Islam.
To many governments see this as a reason to pillage the middle class for tax dollars to feed themselves. True or false, they couldn’t give a hoot. Its the money they want.
The UN sees it as Marxism in action by transferring wealth from those Nations who produce it. To those who don’t or ever will, from religious to medieval cultural practices that bring poverty.
This has nothing to do with science & all to do with socialism along with a pseudo-science of climatology. Trying to squeeze the World for funds with a bogus theory.
Hahahah, up to 85% now.
Hey, I’d vote for the scientists McKibben means going on strike (given the context he means the alarmists) – they’d shut up. 😉
Others would probably get more money for real research, at least they’d be able to work in peace to develop predictive methods.
RichardLH says:
April 2, 2014 at 2:10 am
No
3,069 votes
Yes
996 votes
I am not sure
95 votes
And rising
—————————————-
Don’t you find it amazing 4160 even read the blog?
The fabulous part is every single one of the 4160 voted.
cn
Chris Wright says:
April 2, 2014 at 3:26 am
To be honest, if there were no climate science at all the world would be an infinitely better place…
But what can you do if even the President of the United States is so delusional that he thinks global warming is actually accelerating?
Chris
———————————–
Chris, you know damn good and well that the power brokers not only don’t believe their lies they don’t care as long as you believe them.
Our POTUS doesn’t believe in CAGW although he is trying to help build a crisis that he can “keep from going to waste.” I think these are Chicago’s Godfather’s words?
They’re not stupid…only criminal.
cn
Mindert Eiting says:
April 2, 2014 at 4:08 am
Go on strike while the world is ending? We have two kinds of strike, refusing to work for a while in order to get more wage, and hunger strike. The latter is done by people who are desperate. So McKibben simply can stop eating today if this is what he wants.
———————————–
In the past, people with deep, deep belief in their cause would go on a hunger strike until their demands were met. Dick Gregory went on a hunger strike to demonstrate against racism. You can bet that will never happen with the CAGW crowd like NGOs and government employees. Hell, you can’t even get these guys to stop their hypocritical lifestyles.
cn
There going to stop wasting money by producing even more flawed and biased studies.
There’s a downside here?
Alarmists on strike. That means, hopefully, we’ll see some sceptical scabs.
The poll is still open on April 9th, It is now 12K and the vote is 82% NO! (9,976 votes)