Josh writes:
There have been a few tweets about this guy, John Oliver. He got Bill Nye to come on his show to debate a skeptic but then said he would need 96 other people alongside Bill to make it representative.
On the other hand, as we know, [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/02/friday-funny-industrial-strength-skeptic-in-a-can/] the alarmist arguments are so weak Bill Nye probably does need that amount of back up.
According to Einstein, one is sufficient, if the facts are there. If you need 97, perhaps you don’t have a lot of facts to work with.
The British are renowned for their self-aware sense of irony. Unfortunately Oliver displays none of that in the idiotic quotation at the top. In the first part he rightly states that many a person makes “strident” statements about climate change without any reference to facts. In the second part he then stridently claims that “the world will be a complete ball of fire”. Thats irony you can’t even buy.
Do keep in mind that the Oliver / Nye / skeptic vs 97 other people had to have a FAKE skeptic in the skit. No real skeptics were harmed in the recording of the video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/john-oliver-climate-change-debate_n_5308822.html
Nye is a mechanical engineer…you know…like Pachauri. Bill worked on planes (at Boeing) while Rajendra got to work on trains at India Railways….makes you wonder who worked on automobiles…
I wonder if Bill Nye will be doing any debates when the Mann-Steyn trial finally starts. He wrote the forward for the new paperback version of Mann’s book. I’d like to see him try going against Andrew Montford or Ross McKitrick.
John who? Could have put any number of names instead of John Oliver’s: Josh has nailed many alarmists, completely.
Saltspringson – you missed a great presentation by Tim Ball the other day. A bigger venue would work if you want to chat
“…need 96 other people alongside Bill to make it representative.”…OR More
“the 97 percent or so of climate scientists who say we have a big manmade problem…” at
http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/05/how-the-climate-debate-was-overtaken-by-spin
Don’t know if it has been noted here yet, but WSJ had and article on the 97 percent by Roy Spencer and Joe Bast. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136
Michael Snow –
i posted the Spencer/Bast WSJ piece on an earlier thread, but anyone who missed seeing it should read it. it took such a long time for the MSM to allow space for such an article. of course, it hasn’t taken long for the Guardian’s Climate Consensus crowd to condemn WSJ & everyone else in the article! i just came to comment here because of the “Oliver” reference:
28 May: Guardian: Dana Nuccitelli: The Wall Street Journal denies the 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming
The Rupert Murdoch media continues to deny the reality of human-caused global warming
This week, they published an editorial denying the 97% expert scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming. The editorial may have been published as a damage control effort in the wake of John Oliver’s brilliant and hilarious global warming debate viral video, which has now surpassed 3 million views…
The Wall Street Journal editorial was written by Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institutepolitical advocacy group of Unabomber billboard infamy, and Roy Spencer of “global warming Nazis” infamy…
For example, in order to reject the findings of the paper my colleagues and I published last year finding a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature, Bast and Spencer referenced a critical comment subsequently published by David Legates et al. in an obscure off-topic journal called Science and Education. That paper was based on a blog postwritten by Christopher Monckton, who’s infamous for calling environmental activists “Hitler Youth.”…
If Murdoch’s The Wall Street Journal keeps publishing editorials that flat-out deny reality, especially from people who compare those they disagree with to terrorists and Nazis, it will lose credibility and fall by the wayside as the rest of the world moves on to debate how to best solve the problem.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/may/28/wall-street-journal-denies-global-warming-consensus
Perhaps three competent climate scientists should accept Oliver’s challenge: 97 questions from 97 climate change disaster proponents versus 3 questions from 3 climate change disaster skeptics. Each side submits questions three months before the live broadcast event. They go first, and they don’t see our questions until 48 hours after we see theirs. We get 97 minutes broadcast time to answer 97 questions; they get three minutes to answer three questions. Ya’ll may have better questions, but here are my three.
1. What will be the 30-day running average temperature at Mountain View, Arkansas, for next five years, beginning now?
2. On July 22, 2020, how many more watts energy supply than the total power consumption of Britain could have been produced by all the wind turbines installed in Britain at peak power output on July 22, 2013?
3. What total volume of water will pass through the Three Gores dam, Fort Peck dam, and Aswan dam during the 5 years beginning 5 years after now?
I can’t stand that guy Oliver, he’s a smarmy, arrogant, condescending propaganda mouthpiece for the Globalist, liberal Communist, eco-fascist brigade.
He relies on ridicule as an actual argument as opposed to real facts.
VIDEO: 28 May: Newsmax: John Fund: Media Plays Up Global Warming Despite Hits to Ratings
Coverage of so-called global warming by CNN and other news outlets is driven purely by agenda without regard for ratings, according to John Fund, a Newsmax contributor and national-affairs columnist for National Review Online.
And that includes playing down a Wall Street Journal report that debunks Secretary of State John Kerry’s warning about 97 percent of the world’s scientists believe climate change must urgently be addressed.
“I don’t think you’re going to see CNN and all these other networks that love to talk about global warming talk about the hoax of the 97 percent,” Fund told Dennis Kneale, guest host of “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.
“They’re going to keep talking about this until frankly, no one is watching. Now Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, is an honest man.
***”He said last week at a major journalist dinner in New York … look I know these things don’t get any ratings. I know no one is watching. We’re going to have to find new ways to get these stories on the air so people will finally watch it.”
But that approach is not about reporting the news, according to Fund.
“That is driving an agenda. And I credit Jeff Zucker for being an honest liberal because he’s admitted he’s not about reporting, he’s about shoving things down people’s throats,” he said…
http://www.newsmax.com/NewsmaxTv/media-bias-global-warming-cnn/2014/05/27/id/573602/
Lindsay/Salon’s two cents worth:
28 May: Salon.com: Lindsay Abrams: WSJ’s shameful climate denial: The scientific consensus is not a myth
97% of scientists agree that man-made climate change is happening, and a transparent Op-Ed fails to argue otherwise
PHOTO CAPTION: Rupert Murdoch
First things first, we should be extremely skeptical of any argument this article is trying to make, even despite its appearance in the hallowed pages of the Journal. It’s bylined, after all, by two prominent climate deniers…
They’re right, of course: The “97 percent” statistic was never meant to establish a consensus on the dangers of climate change. (They’re right, too, that in it’s decontextualized state, it’s sometimes used to mean more than it should. When President Obama tweeted “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous,” that last clause wasn’t technically accurate.)…
Writing in the Washington Post, Jason Samenow said as much last year:
– What the consensus study does not address is the level of concern about the human role of climate change expressed in the studies surveyed or by the studies’ authors. Nor does it provide a sense of what the studies say about how severe climate change will be, and the consequences. –
What they’re really trying to do is keep us from moving on to the actual debate, which is no longer about whether scientists agree that climate change is happening: it’s about whether the world should continue to barrel down the highway at breakneck speeds without the benefit of seat belts. Bast and Spencer believe we should. No wonder they don’t want to make that argument — it’s hard to imagine how they could even begin to defend it.
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/28/wsjs_shameful_climate_denial_the_scientific_consensus_is_not_a_myth/
(Lindsay Abrams is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on all things sustainable.)
John Fund didn’t make it up!
21 May: Huffington Post: Jack Mirkinson: CNN’s Jeff Zucker: Climate Change Coverage Bores Our Audience
Capital New York watched New York Times reporter Bill Carter quiz Zucker on Monday at an event for the Deadline Club. Carter pointed out that the network has received quite a bit of criticism for its climate coverage, which has often been found to be either paltry or problematic.
Zucker candidly said that climate change “deserves more attention,” but that he was merely following the ratings.
“We haven’t figured out how to engage the audience in that story in a meaningful way,” he said. “When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part.”…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/cnn-climate-change-coverage-jeff-zucker_n_5364275.html
20 May: CapitalNewYork: Jeff Zucker talks CNN’s post-plane plans
Carter asked if the network, which has been criticized for its oversight of climate change, might devote more live airtime to the subject.
“Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about,” Zucker said, “but we haven’t figured out how to engage the audience in that story in a meaningful way. When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part.”…
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/05/8545669/jeff-zucker-talks-cnns-post-plane-plans
Hmm. Anyone got any ideas of what the rough percentage of climate scientists who disagree with the mainstream view on global warming would be? I certainly haven’t seen much of a flood of dissenters showing up here. Where are all these other climate scientists who agree with the view round here? Am I really to believe that out of all the climate scientists out there, that only a few show up here because of the worldwide ‘spiracy?
I think Philip that is the old story of reductionism. There are of course dissenters to a greater or lesser degree, most scientists I know believe the vast majority of what is considered main stream science others believe most of it, some believe less, I know of none who reject all of it. There is no such thing as a believer or a denier, there are just shades, most of which tend towards belief. I think if a scientist or academic did have some misgivings, they would have to be very brave to post on this site. I’m not sure such an action would do their careers a lot of good. Mavericks in science can sometimes achieve much and become very famous, but for every successful maverick, there are many who are just plain wrong. The other difficulty is that in debating o this site you end up fending off a substantial amount of detracting personal attacks which can derail the debate, which to be honest many people with something useful to say would rather just avoid.
Philip Schaeffer actual no one knows how many climate scientists there actual are , partly because there is no actual agreed definition of what a ‘ climate scientists’ is agreed definition of what a ‘ climate scientists’ is .
Worth remember that the next time the 97% BS claim is made . How you can claim with any degree of accuracy worth a dam what percentage a sub-group is when you don’t have any idea of the size of the whole group it’s a sub-group off , remains a mystery to me. Still it is has valid has claiming nine out of ten cats prefer.
sabretruthtiger says:
May 28, 2014 at 8:28 pm
“I can’t stand that guy Oliver, he’s a smarmy, arrogant, condescending propaganda mouthpiece for the Globalist, liberal Communist, eco-fascist brigade.
He relies on ridicule as an actual argument as opposed to real facts.”
He’s a leftist, and a troll, but I repeat myself.
…and I think it will become helpful to characterize leftist media trolls as such; just as many leftist / statist talking points are based on simple trolling techniques. I would go so far as to say that most of TV news consists of trolling, and nearly all what goes for “debate” amongst politicians.
When we recognize the trolling (and in TV boradcasters, that’s the equivalent of click bait, to drive up viewership through manufactured outrage / 2 minute hate) for what it is, we can easily dismiss it entirely and separate it from factual arguments – which are few and far between, though even the left might once in a blue moon have one.
It is time to build spam filters for MSM content. They produce 98 % spam.
Following John Oliver’s logic an atheist should be presented with a similar crowd assembled from different religions.
And when CAGWers, as they are wont to do, set up a straw man to knock down he often wins on points*.
*That is, on points unconsidered or disregarded.
Was this the idiot who said that it is ridiculous to cite surveys of opinions on facts, and then hosted a live poll of “scientists” to demonstrate that their opinion must be true because more scientists believe it? I recall thinking while I was watching it whether he had ever heard of publication bias and epicycles.
Meet the new Piers Morgan same as the old Piers Morgan
I hope people on Twitter poked fun at this idiot’s math. He would only need 96 other people if he had THREE skeptics on. If he only had one skeptic on his show, then he’d only need 32 other alarmists alongside Bill Nye to get the proper 97 to 3 ratio. How can people that are so obviously clueless about math and science dare to laugh at skeptics?