Ben Webster in The Times writes:
Alarmist claims about the impact of global warming are contributing to a loss of trust in climate scientists, an inquiry has found.
Apocalyptic language has been used about greenhouse gas emissions as “a deliberate strategy by some to engage public interest”. However, trying to make people reduce emissions by frightening them has “harmful consequences” because they often respond suspiciously or decide the issue is “too scary to think about”.
The inquiry, by a team of senior scientists from a range of disciplines, was commissioned by University College London to find better ways of informing the public about climate science.
Public interest in climate change has fallen sharply in the past few years, according to a survey last month which found the number of Google searches for the phrase “global warming” had fallen by 84 per cent since the peak in 2007.
Confidence in climate science was undermined in 2010 by the revelation that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN scientific body which advises governments, had falsely claimed that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.
Scientists have also been accused of exaggerating the rate of loss of Arctic sea ice by claiming the North Pole could be ice-free in summer by 2020. Other scientists say this is unlikely before 2050.
Claims were made a decade ago, and later retracted, that the snows of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, could disappear by 2015.
The inquiry, led by Professor Chris Rapley, former director of the Science Museum, concludes: “Alarmist messages that fail to materialise contribute to the loss of trust in the science community.”
The report says climate scientists have difficulty “delivering messages that are alarming without slipping into alarmism”.
It says the media is partly to blame for seeking “a striking headline”.
However, the report says there was also a “preconception that communicating threatening information is a necessary and effective catalyst for individual behaviour change”.
It says the “climate science community” is quick to challenge those who downplay climate change but less willing to question “alarmist misrepresentations” of climate research.
Doom-laden reports may make people feel anxious but their concern does not last.
“Over time this worry changes to numbness, desensitisation and disengagement from the issue altogether.
“The failure of specific predictions of climate change to materialise creates the impression that the climate science community as a whole resorts to raising false alarms. When apparent failures are not adequately explained, future threats become less believable.”
The report says the 30,000 climate scientists worldwide are at the centre of an intense public debate about key questions, such as how we should obtain our energy, but are “ill-prepared” to engage in it.
It adds that this difficulty in communicating their work is “proving unhelpful to evidence-based policy formulation, and is damaging their public standing”.
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Wolf!!!!
No, I really mean it this time!
“This gold mine has played out. It’s time for Big Green to come up with another cash cow disaster scenario to keep that money flowing in. Fracking, anyone?”
Jim said it right. This is Big Green’s doing. It’s really they who have contrived this hysteria to fill their coffers. Climate Science’s sin is acquiescing to their hysterical browbeating and going along with it. It is climate scientists that will suffer for it in the long run. The green running dogs like Suzuki are never held accountable and they will move on to the next hysterical money-maker leaving those who went along isolated and discredited.
The problem is that it is and always was about how we generate power. The environmentalist movement in the 1970’s decided to campaign against the use of carbonaceous fuels (let’s call them what they are) and looked for a basis to do so. They noted the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and revived the 19th century observation of the mechanism by which this and other gases could cause retention of heat in the atmosphere. They put two and two together and a scapegoat was born. They then set about demonstrating their hypothesis and through inevitable confirmation bias believed that they had proved an anthropogenic cause of climate change. Because of the underlying ideal, variation from the theory could not and still cannot be allowed, but credibility is finally waning.
Sure, blame the public, the media, big oil, scientist’s, inept governments, aerosols, flat earthers and probably aliens for not getting the “message” . Everybody gets the “message” , its just that fewer and fewer believe it. The problem is the message.
“The report says the 30,000 climate scientists worldwide…”
Really? Thirty thousand? Does anyone have a list of names? I don’t believe it. More of the same exaggeration. And this 30,000 produced only 12,000 papers for the Cook survey? Excuse me for having a doubt.
“However, trying to make people reduce emissions by frightening them has “harmful consequences” because they often respond suspiciously or decide the issue is “too scary to think about”.”
….or because they get mad and start voting the scam directors out of office!
Good, let’s shake out the amateurs & rascals and get down to business. I’m a former consultant to BOC Gases (now Linde), and we harvest carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to use in beverage carbonation, water treatment etc. See: http://www.boconline.co.uk/en/products-and-supply/speciality-gas/pure-gases/pure-carbon-dioxide/pure-carbon-dioxide.html
Carbon dioxide is a very valuable substance, and we shouldn’t be blowing it into the atmosphere. Just emphasize the use of the stuff as a raw material, give some incentives, and let industry take over. The plants will be gasping for CO2, we’ll pull so much out of the air.
Well, this made me want to take the Lord’s name in vain. IF the message you want to communicate is actually alarming, then some alarmism can easily be excused. The problem you have with your FUBAR communications is that the science is incredibly weak and tendentious, and reality is not behaving in an alarming way. This combination makes you out to be, at the very least, mistaken, and at worst, liars, propagandists and totalitarians. THAT’S the money quote, even if the study folks and Ben Webster don’t have the brains or stones to say it.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” – The late Stephen Schneider. Schneider later complained that this statement is often taken “out of context” but it seems to provide plenty of context for most anybody to understand what he was advocating.
He was not shouted down by other climate scientists for making such an idiotic, anti-science statement, and even today that statement is actively defended by well known climate scientists… that fact alone is quite enough reason to have enormous skepticism about everything that climate scientists do and say. The implication is clear: many really DO believe pretty much the same sorry rubbish as Schneider did.
Their ‘stories’, whether published in journals or informally presented, continue until today to follow Schneider’s unwise advise: rich in conjecture and poor in substance, with conclusions which are overstated compared to the scientific content, and filled with weasel words (may, might, could possibly, etc.) which provide for a future escape, so that no projection, no matter how absurd, can ever be proven plainly wrong by evolving reality. And of course, one of the conclusions in most EVERY publication is that it is ‘worse than we thought’, even when a sleepy 6 year old could see clearly that it is often actually quite a lot ‘better than we thought’.
Can climate scientists drop the policy agenda, stop exaggerating their scientific work, stop the scary scenarios, and play it straight with the public? I suppose in theory they could, but I have seen very little evidence they even want to. Until climate scientists stop acting like a bunch of lobbyists working to advance a public policy agenda, their science is never going to be considered by the public to be accurate. And the public will almost certainly be right in that assessment: advocacy has absolutely no proper place in science, and almost certainly distorts it and introduces bias. The issue is NOT a lack of communication, it is policy advocacy which discredits that communication. Public policy is not being inhibited by a lack of information reaching the public, it is being inhibited by a lack of credibility of climate scientists and their projections.
The report says the 30,000 climate scientists worldwide are at the centre of an intense public debate about key questions, such as how we should obtain our energy, but are “ill-prepared” to engage in it.
They are confused. The only group of “30,000” scientists [there are not “30,000 climate scientists” in the world] are the 31,487 scientists and engineers who co-signed the OISM statement:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.
Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
Those 31,487 scientists and engineers — every one of them possessing a degree in the hard sciences, among them are more than 9,000 PhD’s — had to physically sign that statement, and mail it in. No emails accepted. They went out of their way to take a stand, and the names of every one of them are available online.
That shows the true ‘consensus’, for whatever that is worth. The alarmist clique has never come anywhere near those numbers. Truth be told, not very many scientists would disagree with that statement, because there is no evidence to contradict it.
Personally I don’t see the number of google searches to be that good a metric on interest in climate change. Really, how often do YOU google ‘global warming’ these days? I’ve got a list of Climate related blogs and news sources I check every day and leave it to them to find the interesting new stuff.
Didn’t someone say –
“Those that live by the sword, die by the sword.” or something to effect?
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
Can climate scientists drop the policy agenda, stop exaggerating their scientific work, stop the scary scenarios, and play it straight with the public? I suppose in theory they could…
I don’t believe they can, even in theory.
Which field of science allows scientist to become a celebrity and a hero, provide them with unlimited adoration of actors, politicians and media? Who’s better known to general public – a “generic” Noble Prize winner in physics or Jim Hansen? This stuff is worse then crack – there is no way climate scientists can stop exaggerating and drop policy agendas.
NPR did their part to promote alarmism again this morning. I was only half awake, but I know parts of Florida and S. Carolina are in danger of rising sea levels. A naval base will soon be under water, I think. They even interviewed two people who were not concerned at all, which is a first, far as I know. The tone was ‘matter-of-fact’, global warming is happening now and we are in for it.
I wonder if some climate scientists might consider saving their last shred of credibility for when the time comes to warn us all about the onset of glaciation.
This is why I love Cook and Lew so much. Their stupid dramas (and bomb widgets) will always come home to roost, and yet they stand surrounded by feathers scratching their heads and wondering aloud ” Why doesn’t the public believe us?” I’ll say it again, idiots like Lew and Cook and Nutterelli have done more to discredit AGW than any of us could ever hope to!
Udar,
The average person couldn’t name a Noble Prize winner, much less tell you who James Hansen is. I promise.
As an alumnus of UCL (BSc, PhD and former assistant lecturer) I am appalled that a college with a history founded on Jeremy Bentham and Nobel Prize winners like Ramsay should stoop to this example of deliberate mis-information. What a sorry state of affairs
Tony Berry
@Aphan
Good point on the useful idiots
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
If you scream “the sky is falling” long enough, and yet the sky doesn’t fall, people eventually stop listening.
WOW, who could have guessed that ….
How can there be 30,000 climate scientists when we rarely seem to hear from more than a few dozen who claim to speak for all??!!
… and then there are the survey studies which narrow down the number of relevant climate scientists to under 80……
Look at the insurance company ads on TV today. They learned a log time ago that fear does not sell. That has been known by motivational psychologists for decades.
Actually that speaks well for the general intelligence of people. While they do not do so consciously, most do evaluate risks versus rewards subconsciously. And when they see the risk declining (by not materializing) they shift into reward mode.
So the more doom and gloom, without fruition, that the alarmists proclaim, the less the general populace will react. The low brow and religiously faithful will bound the table. But the rest of the guests will just go home.
Didn’t Carl Sagan say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. When the people making the claims refuse to publish their proof and then when the proof is stolen and the proof turns out to have been manipulated it’s hard to maintain your facade if “scientific objectivity.” This “global warming” religion is clearly agenda driven by governments seeking to expand themselves.
Consider, we all know that environmental research conducted by private sector businesses most especially oil companies is biased. If this bias is factual then how is it that environmental research conducted by a government not biased?
We should all thank Al Gore. He has provided the world with more climate skeptics than the alarmist world can contain. He peaked into Pandora’s Box and all his bad data escaped into the hands of the scientific realists.