Claim: Climate communication needs to be less optimistic, more ‘climate disruption’

Story submitted by Eric Worrall

Holdrens_new_nameDoug Sisterson, senior manager at the Argonne National Laboratory, thinks climate alarmists need to ditch the positive mental attitude when communicating about climate, that they need to make the message more frightening.

According to Forbes;

“… according to a climate scientist at Argonne National Laboratory who says it’s time to replace the term climate change, itself a replacement for global warming, with a new term: climate disruption.

“Positive mental attitude is a really wonderful way to deal with change,” research meteorologist Doug Sisterson told about 200 people at the University of Chicago’s International House Tuesday night. “We’ve learned that we want to be optimists and have a positive mental attitude, and the way we deal with that is by thinking ‘Not all change is bad.’ Well, talking about climate change, it’s not good. So maybe it’s wrong to portray climate change with a positive mental attitude.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2015/03/12/forget-global-warming-and-climate-change-call-it-climate-disruption/

It is a little difficult to see exactly how climate alarmists could tone down the optimism in their doom laden pronouncements. How do you reduce the optimism implicit, in say James Hansen’s boiling ocean / runaway greenhouse scenario?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/10/why-a-compelling-theory-is-not-enough/

Maybe Sisterson means that the message needs to be be more vivid. Instead of simply saying “the oceans will boil”, perhaps climate scientists could accompany this statement, with an artist’s impression of what the boiling oceans will do to the Easter Bunny.

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Eustace Cranch
March 12, 2015 8:01 am

Prove causation.
Otherwise, get out of my face.

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
March 12, 2015 8:13 am

Done, thanks to decades of research in a multitude of diverse scientific fields. Thanks for changing your mind.

jayhd
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 8:22 am

Explain the pause, please.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 8:23 am

References needed on that claim. Heck, last few years by themselves should cause doubt by themselves for correlation.

philincalifornia
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 8:24 am

Could you please summarize this proof in say 10 bullet points?

Alx
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 8:25 am

Most idiotic statement I’ve read today. Thanks for contributing.
Causation has not been proved, maybe you might want to look up the word.

Eustace Cranch
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 9:08 am

Well, that’s a pretty neat trick, especially considering there’s no defined baseline of an “undisrupted” climate.

rh
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 9:11 am

“Done, thanks to decades of research in a multitude of diverse scientific fields. Thanks for changing your mind.”
Someone orders his cool aid directly from the sks gift shop.

hunter
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 9:20 am

Sir HArry,
Only simple minds would fall for your simple argument.

Tim
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 9:31 am

Oh thank you for the enlightenment.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 10:25 am

Geez, you fart out a thirteen word sentence to a human being that you probably don’t know, or have ever met a day in his life, and gratuitously thank yourself for having changed his mind when you couldn’t possibly really know whether your thirteen word bloviation actually achieved such a thing, or could have. May I recommend that you at least make an attempt to grow up and recognize that other people have minds that are distinct from that little gray blob that you call your own and resides in your head, or wherever else it has migrated to in your body. What arrogance!

MarkW
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 10:28 am

The only causation that’s been proven is that a small portion of the extremely mild 0.7C warming over the last 150 years is due to CO2.

MarkW
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 10:29 am

hunter: That would explain why Sir Harry has fallen for it.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 10:34 am

Harry, if your statement was TRUE, then there would be no need to create any type of campaign, scarey or optimistic, to promote it. Just like if the statement “the science is settled” had been true, there would have been no need for “decades of (redundant) research in a multitude of diverse scientific fields. “

Janice Moore
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 10:54 am

Dear Mark W.,
NO amount of causation (of CO2 causing climate change) has been proven. NONE. There is speculation. There are extrapolations only (from highly controlled laboratory conditions that in NO WAY replicate the earth as a “system.”) about CO2 and climate. NO evidence.
I can tell that you are for truth in science, thus, I want to you to know that I am only writing to make sure that no one reading your comment is misled by it.
That CO2 MIGHT cause the earth’s climate to change to some infinitesimally tiny degree may be true (if the laboratory correctly predicts reality in the system “earth”). Just writing it, however, gives such speculation FAR more weight than it ought to have. Some (I’m not saying this is you) on WUWT apparently think that it makes them appear more reasonable and “scientific” to admit the possibility that CO2 might cause a tiny bit of warming in the system called “earth.” There is NO EVIDENCE that it can (only conjectured extrapolation) and there IS evidence that it cannot (e.g., CO2 up – warming stopped).
For the cause of truth in science, those who stroke their egos by asserting the fine point about CO2 properties in laboratory experiments do far more to mislead than to enlighten. REAL scientists deal in: observations, not speculation.
There are also those who persist in calling the no warming since about 1998 a “hiatus.” This is unhelpful (at best) terminology given the importance of the issue at hand.
Again, Mark W., this comment is not directed at you; it is directed at those who will take what you said and use it (mistakenly, I realize) to promote AGW.
Your Ally for Truth,
Janice

Jimbo
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 11:49 am

Doug Sisterson, senior manager at the Argonne National Laboratory, thinks climate alarmists need to ditch the positive mental attitude when communicating about climate, that they need to make the message more frightening.

The granfather of global warming and super alarmist Dr. James Hansen said:

“…it gets warmer and warmer then the oceans begin to evaporate and water vapor is a very strong green house gas, even more powerful than carbon dioxide. So you can get to a situation where, it just, the oceans will begin to boil and the planet becomes, uhh, so hot that the ocean ends up in the atmosphere, and that happened to Venus…”

He later dialled it down when it was pointed out by one of the founders of the IPCC, Dr. John Theodore Houghton, that “There is no possibility of such runaway greenhouse conditions occurring on the Earth.”
Others have started the countdown clock to make sure we all understood that we had only years, months and days to save the planet. A recent UN sponsored global poll put ‘climate change’ right near the bottom of most people’s concerns.
Others have indeed tried to make global warming climate change more frightening.

AlJazeera America – March 30, 2014
IPCC: effects of climate change ‘worse than we had predicted’
…”Things are worse than we had predicted” in 2007, when the group of scientists last issued this type of report, said report co-author Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at Independent University in Bangladesh.
“We are going to see more and more impacts, faster and sooner than we had anticipated.”….
—————
The Conversation – 8 January 2014
How clouds can make climate change worse than we thought
…Perhaps our result can serve as a reminder that not knowing everything does not justify complacency. Uncertainty may mean the problem is worse than you thought.
[Steve Sherwood – Director, Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW Australia]
—————
Think Progress – November 26, 2012
Nearly 3 years ago, the late William R. Freudenburg discussed in a AAAS presentation how new scientific findings since the 2007 IPCC report are found to be more than twenty times as likely to indicate that global climate disruption is “worse than previously expected,” rather than “not as bad as previously expected.”
[William R. Freudenburg , University of California, Santa Barbara, CA]
—————
Guardian – 26 January 2013
Nicholas Stern: ‘I got it wrong on climate change – it’s far, far worse’
Author of 2006 review speaks out on danger to economies as planet absorbs less carbon and is ‘on track’ for 4C rise
[Nicholas Stern – Economist]
—————
Science Blogs – May 20, 2013
Why Global Warming’s Effects Will Be Worse Than You Were Thinking
The story of climate change has always been more of worst-case, or at least, worser-case scenarios developing and less about good news showing up out of nowhere and making us unexpectedly happy….
[Greg Laden]
—————
Independent – 21 March 2014
Letters: Climate change: it’s worse than we thought
Contrary to your headline “Climate change: the official prophecy of doom” (18 March), it would appear that the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is a masterclass in understatement.
[Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director, Grantham]
—————
Guardian – 3 February 2007
Worse than we thought
· Report warns of 4C rise by 2100
· Floods and food and water shortages likely
Average temperatures could increase by as much as 6.4C by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise, with a rise of 4C most likely, according to the final report of an expert panel set up by the UN to study the problem.
[David Adam – Environment Correspondent for the Guardian between 2005 and 2010]
—————
WWF – September 2009
The Arctic in your back yard
Arctic warming affects us all – it can cause extreme global weather changes, widespread flooding and big increases in greenhouse gas emission that will in turn make global warming even worse.
We’ve also just published a new report called Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications, which lists dire global consequences of a warming Arctic – far worse than previous projections.
[WWF]
—————
Metro – 31 Mar 2014
War, hunger, disease… and worse to come: The impact of climate change all over the world
…Friends of the Earth said: ‘Droughts, floods and famines are just some of the devastating effects people are suffering as a result of extreme weather. Unless we take urgent measures, they will get far worse.’….
[Friends of the Earth]
—————
Guardian – 31 March 2014
Climate change report: ‘The worst is yet to come’ – as it happened
• Climate change ‘already affecting food supply
• Great Barrier reef, native Australian species in danger
• The poor will suffer most from climate change
• Hellish monotony‘ of climate change report
[Helen Davidson – reporter and Adam Vaughan – editor]
—————
Science Daily – February 15, 2009
Climate Change Likely To Be More Devastating Than Experts Predicted, Warns Top IPCC Scientist
…”There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years,” said Field, a professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science at Stanford, and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “We don’t want to cross a critical threshold where this massive release of carbon starts to run on autopilot.”
[IPCC scientist Chris Field of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science]
—————
Dallas Observer Blogs – Oct. 14 2013
Climate Scientists Predict a Texas Drought “Worse Than We Imagined” And a Changing Coast
….state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon told TCN. “The latest IPCC report is mostly just an incremental update of something we already knew. The [continuing] drought of 2011-20xx has taught us something we didn’t know: Rather than being a thing of the past, Texas drought can be worse than we imagined.”
[John Nielsen-Gammon – climatologist]
—————
Columbus Dispatch – April 1, 2014
Global warming heads ‘out of control’
…Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued the 32-volume, 2,610-page report here early yesterday, said: “It is a call for action.” Without reductions in emissions, he said, the effects of warming “could get out of control.”…
[Dr. Rajendra Pachauri – Head of the IPCC]

AB
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 12:16 pm

Just what is a “disrupted” climate, Flashman?
Is it when for an undefined period we don’t have a climate at all?
Or is it manifested by mangoes growing in Siberia and cross country skiing holidays in Saudi Arabia?
Go on define it for us.
Give the world something to laugh about.

Brute
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 1:20 pm

@Sir Harry Flashman
I appreciate your trolling but, unfortunately you’ve got nothing but empty claims.
Please prove me wrong by listing and then explaining in a coherent, scientific manner every single failed “climate change” prediction. You will then have earned, and only then, the credibility with which to make claims based on nothing but your word.

AndyG55
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 1:27 pm

Not Done.
Causation never has been proven, and never will be.

AndyG55
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 1:30 pm

Even the correlation is now destroyed.
pure coincidence for a very short period of time using heavily adjusted data.
so not even a coincidence, but a fabrication.

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 2:03 pm

I think this is what is called thread hijacking

ferdberple
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 4:33 pm

The only causation that’s been proven is that a small portion of the extremely mild 0.7C warming over the last 150 years is due to CO2.
==============
no, that has not been proven.

Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 5:36 pm

Ok…seriously. This troll is WAY over his cookie quota for the day.

Eamon Butler
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 6:37 pm

SHF ”thanks to decades of research in a multitude of diverse scientific fields.”
and Billions of Dollars pumped into this research, and there’s still no empirical evidence to support the CAGW nonsense.
It’s unfortunate your mind is so closed and unable to change, despite the obvious failure you so desperately cling on to.
Eamon

philincalifornia
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 7:43 pm

Come on then you science moron, how about three bullet points? Everyone, i.e. the entire readership is sniggering at you because it’s zero, as proven by your no-show.
When he shows up on another thread, would someone please remind him that he has some unfinished business with me over here?
…. and if there are any other climates science w@nkers reading this, feel free to have a go. I’ll enjoy ruining your day.

Brute
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 13, 2015 3:17 am

I don’t know why some of you guys get upset by the trolling. It has no substance whatsoever, no merit or worth of any kind, and it is instantly shot down from a dozen directions. The warm-monger Illuminati are making fools of themselves with these trolling tactics.
If they really had the arguments, they would use them… and they would use them on us, not because we are “deniers” (what does that even mean?) but because we actually give a damn about the subject, unlike most of humanity.

philincalifornia
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 13, 2015 2:33 pm

Brute, if that’s directed at me, don’t worry, I’m not upset. I just went into “goad mode” as a tactic. It’s not about him, and it’s not about me. It’s about the thousands of readers who can see that, despite the plethora of warmist propaganda sites from which to cut and paste 10 bullet points, if such existed, he can’t.
He’s a blowhard with nothing to back it up.

Jimbo
Reply to  Eustace Cranch
March 12, 2015 12:00 pm

The alarmist above who wants us to make ‘climate change’ more alarming is Doug Sisterson. Here is a little bit about where he works. Is he trying to get more money? Prevent funding cuts?

Doug Sisterson is a senior manager at Argonne for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The ARM program is the largest federally sponsored climate change research program in DOE and the ARM facility provides the world’s most comprehensive 24/7 observational capabilities for obtaining atmospheric data specifically for climate change research……
http://www.anl.gov/contributors/doug-sisterson

Janice Moore
Reply to  Jimbo
March 12, 2015 12:13 pm

GO, JIMBO! #(:))


Thank you for more great information.

Reply to  Eustace Cranch
March 15, 2015 12:04 am

Janice Moore March 12, 2015 at 10:54 am
OUTSTANDING comment Janice!!
We all kind of want to “admit” that CO2 at least does something. But what do we gain from doing that? Nada. Let the fear mongering warmists fight for every inch of ground. And on CO2, Janice, you are right, there is ZERO evidence that CO2 does anything, see the classic 3 minute video on that topic showing Al Gore’s lies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg&info=GGWarmingSwindle_CO2Lag

Janice Moore
Reply to  Eric Simpson
March 15, 2015 6:04 pm

ERIC SIMPSON! #(:))
Glad to see you are still around. Your both- (or all 4, heh)-barrels enthusiasm is missed around here. THANK YOU, so much, for your affirmation. That really made my depressing day bright! Wow. Really glad I just happened (God, I think!) to scan this thread to copy the link to my apology to Eustace C — I just spotted him on another thread! — gotta go… hoping THIS time, he will see it).
Keep on posting!
Janice

icouldnthelpit
March 12, 2015 8:03 am

(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)

Reply to  icouldnthelpit
March 12, 2015 9:58 am

That was back when there WAS some global warming. Not so much any more, which is why that particular doom does not invoke the necessary gloom… Sounds like “climate change” is no longer in vogue either. Such exciting science these days, researching new vocabulary.

Reply to  icouldnthelpit
March 12, 2015 10:31 am

It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s busted.

Wado
Reply to  A.D. Everard
March 12, 2015 5:30 pm

They’re using models to come up with these terminology changes for describing what their models are not predicting

Reply to  A.D. Everard
March 12, 2015 5:39 pm

Hi Wado. Sounds about right. 🙂

Bob Boder
Reply to  icouldnthelpit
March 12, 2015 12:00 pm

Icouldunderstandit
I think you should go back to sleep.

rh
Reply to  icouldnthelpit
March 12, 2015 12:04 pm

Do you seriously think some small time republican pollster initiated the switch from CAGW to CC? If you could give up the Republican vs. Democrat mentality, and just think objectively, you wouldn’t seem to be so anti-science.

rw
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 1:01 pm

Yes. If one reads issues of Science magazine from around the year 2000, one runs into the phrase “climate change” all the time. It may have been picked up by the media when the global warming meme started sounding a bit ridiculous, but it’s been out there for a long time.

David A
Reply to  icouldnthelpit
March 12, 2015 10:21 pm

Global Warming. If they want more pop they could call it “CAGW” Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. (Of course when the C, the G and the W are all MIA, they must revert back to climate change.
The truth is many of these folk want the A” to disappear excluding themselves of course.

hunter
March 12, 2015 8:04 am

It is time to ditch faux scientists like Doug Sisterson.

March 12, 2015 8:07 am

What world do these people live in? Clearly it’s not the real one

Sir Harry Flashman
Reply to  David Johnson
March 12, 2015 8:14 am

You’re talking about this site, right?

Ken
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 8:16 am

Flash man. Name one extreme weather event that is unprecedented.

hunter
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 9:20 am

Actually you should take a look in the mirror and there will be the answer.

Bob Boder
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 12:01 pm

Flashy
no actually he was talking about you.

PiperPaul
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 12:36 pm

No, YOU are.

Billy Liar
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 12:58 pm

When are you going to answer the question from ‘philincalifornia’ above?

rd50
Reply to  Sir Harry Flashman
March 12, 2015 3:22 pm

To Sir Harry Flashman:
You can look at the real world on the graph below about the evidence for global warming and if it has anything to do with CO2 increasing atmospheric concentrations since 1959, a little after major increase in fossil fuels burning in the industrialized world. Extremely reliable monthly CO2 concentrations results from Mauna Loa (showing expected seasonal photosynthesis as you can verify from the data sets available from the internet site of Mauna Loa Observatory) plotted against monthly temperature anomalies until January 2015. Yes, there is correlation between the increase in both for a while. You can decide, spurious or not.
Whether or not temperature anomalies will continue to very slowly increase stay about the same or decrease, I have no idea, but obviously things have changed between 1959 and January 2015.
As far as CO2, it looks like it will continue to increase, but I am making no prediction. Mother Nature will decide. You can get the CO2 data plotted vs. year directly, showing the almost constant increase with year from the Mauna Loa Observatory, no slowdown in the increase like for temperature.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20VersusCO2.gif

rw
Reply to  David Johnson
March 12, 2015 1:08 pm

My thoughts exactly. After years of breathless doomsday-is-just-around-the-corner reports from the media, from UN officials (like “50 million climate refugees by 2010 [I think it was]”), and from scientists themselves, saying that “We’ve learned that we want to be optimists and have a positive mental attitude, and the way we deal with that is by thinking ‘Not all change is bad.’ ” is almost surreal. This really does qualify as some kind of dissociation phenomenon.

rd50
Reply to  rw
March 12, 2015 8:44 pm

True. IPPC makes a lot of claims but they NEVER produced a graph showing any kind of correlation between CO2 increase and temperature increase for any period of time after industrial world increase in fossil fuels burning.

csanborn
March 12, 2015 8:10 am

Faked “Boiling oceans” imagery as opposed to the actual Arctic landscape – huge blocks of ice – imagery on Cape Cod.

Stephen Rasey
March 12, 2015 8:17 am

senior manager at the Argonne National Laboratory

from the About Us of Argonne National Labs
Focused, mission-driven research
Embracing the nation’s greatest challenges, Argonne’s world-renowned scientists and engineers conduct pioneering research that advances America’s scientific excellence and leadership and helps pave the way to a secure nation with a plentiful supply of safe, sustainable energy, a healthy environment, and a competitive economy.

Well if the science isn’t on your side, put your manager’s hat on and try marketing.

Don V
March 12, 2015 8:18 am

What’s “dusruption”? (title) Is that a new word that combines dust and corruption?

March 12, 2015 8:18 am

“A rose is still a rose …”

Janice Moore
Reply to  Wayne Delbeke
March 12, 2015 9:10 am

And a rat a rat. 🙂

Jimbo
Reply to  Wayne Delbeke
March 12, 2015 12:10 pm

Australians have a saying: “You can’t polish a turd.” [feces]

AndyG55
Reply to  Jimbo
March 12, 2015 1:36 pm

but you can sprinkle it with glitter. 🙂

Gaia is Not Pleased
March 12, 2015 8:21 am

In simplified English . . .
We need to hype, exaggerate, fear monger and create false hysteria if we are to keep our First Class seats on the R&D funding $Gravy $Train

DMA
March 12, 2015 8:22 am

I think the truthful term is anthropogenic global warming. We now have politicians that believe that driving an SUV creates carbon which controls climate and causes everything from floods to prostitution. We have school kids indoctrinated into this nonsense to the point they are being used to harass the politicians that don’t believe. Many don’t even know the discussion is about CO2. Most haven’t thought about how the magic “carbon” will cause floods etc. without causing a temperature change let alone how to measure the effect. Its just “they told us it will be bad”. without truth in the conversation there can be no mutual understanding and no progress toward knowledge.

Paul
Reply to  DMA
March 12, 2015 10:03 am

“We now have politicians that believe…We have school kids indoctrinated…don’t even know the discussion is about CO2…”
Sounds like mission accomplished to me.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Paul
March 12, 2015 11:09 am

Politicians believed (or, at least asserted they did) in race supremacy… and school kids were indoctrinated … . Yet… .
Truth won.
Politicians believe (or, at least assert that they do) in Mao’s communism… and school kids are indoctrinated…. . Yet… One of those kids grew up and did this…

(man and tanks in Tiananmen Square)
Thousands of those kids are fleeing China every year. They still love liberty. They still love truth.
Truth is much older and more powerful than Communism.
(and than Envirostal1nism)
Truth will win.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Paul
March 12, 2015 11:12 am

Here is the video link {with gaps to prevent the dud control window from appearing here} the owner refused to activate (sigh):
https: //www. youtube. com/watch?v=q q8zF LIftGk

David A
Reply to  DMA
March 12, 2015 10:23 pm

Do not leave the C” off of CAGW Without it, they have no case for post normal science.

RiHo08
March 12, 2015 8:29 am

To make a story really scary, one has to invoke “tugging at the heart strings” types of mental images. Usually this means including grandchildren ala Hansen and nature with a personal note as well, such as what I posted at Climate Etc.:
“I am truly sorry that my capricious and wasteful ways means that my grandchildren will suffer the consequences of my conflagrant ways. What it means of course is that from our cabin on the shores of Gichi-gami we will see the forests burn, the waters go dry, the air will be foul, and people will fight for the last insect, snake and vole as food.”
There. Doesn’t that description make for mind altering images?

March 12, 2015 8:30 am

We live in the “Twilight Zone” of climate science.
If we based the term on the most powerful effect to date from CO2, it would be called “Global Greening”
Seriously.
http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx

Reply to  Mike Maguire
March 13, 2015 11:14 am

Strange that this link is not working now. Try this one:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/09/17/greening-the-worlds-deserts/

Reply to  Mike Maguire
March 13, 2015 11:23 am
ConTrari
March 12, 2015 8:30 am

Welll they tried changing focus from doom and gloom to “countless green jobs” and “new business opportunities”, it may look as if that did not work out as planned. So now it is back to brimestone again? Good luck.
BTW, “Climate Disruption” is already old, old, old! Is it not “Climate Weirding” that is the new catchphrase these days?

Alx
Reply to  ConTrari
March 12, 2015 8:35 am

I still think the way to go is from “Climate Change” to “Climate Mange”. Us humans and all being a blight on the planet kind of like mange.

Reply to  ConTrari
March 12, 2015 8:42 am

Quite right, Science Czar John Holdren was pushing “global climate disruption” in 2010, and “global climatic disruption” back in 1997 during his associations with an ozone depletion activist group. Please see:
The Curious History of ‘Global Climate Disruption’ http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/10/the_curious_history_of_global.html

Reply to  ConTrari
March 12, 2015 10:40 am

How about Climate Contortions? That’d be apt.

jimothylite
Reply to  A.D. Everard
March 13, 2015 2:07 am

Climate Climax. Mother Earth is in heat.

Jimbo
Reply to  ConTrari
March 12, 2015 12:26 pm

ConTrari is correct. ‘Climate Disruption’ is old hat!

The Energy-Environment Connection
edited by Jack Hollander
Beyea, J. 1989.
Is there a role for nuclear power in preventing climate disruption? Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, 1 5 March.
[page 169]
http://tinyurl.com/omnsf24

Robert Westfall
March 12, 2015 8:32 am

There is an old trial lawyers’ saying “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.”
It is way past time for the alarmist to pound the table

Janice Moore
Reply to  Robert Westfall
March 12, 2015 9:57 am

Indeed. 🙂
They are now pounding the floor:

(WWE wrestler throws tantrum – youtube)
Pitiful.

Craig
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 1:56 pm

Hahahahaha, ah Christian, he was a great wrestler, loved his stuff and he loved us back!

rh
Reply to  Robert Westfall
March 12, 2015 10:08 am

Yeah, they’re pounding something alright.

Janice Moore
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 10:15 am

Thus, “warren lb.”

rd50
Reply to  Robert Westfall
March 12, 2015 3:51 pm

Old trial layers know better.
A good old trial lawyer knows how to pound the law.
A good old trial lawyer knows how to pound the facts.
A great old trial lawyer knows the judge.

Alx
March 12, 2015 8:34 am

How do you reduce the optimism implicit, in say James Hansen’s boiling ocean / runaway greenhouse scenario?

I have a suggestion.
How about in addition to planetary doom, we all are certain to end up in hell suffering an eternity without any charging source for our cell-phones.
I imagine internet and cable TV would be a problem too, even though you’d think with all that fire and heat down there they’d have figured out a way to convert heat to electricity. I guess they don’t get the brightest bulbs in hell.

johnofenfield
Reply to  Alx
March 12, 2015 8:47 am

Be careful what you wish for. I understand the Pope is about to pronounce on this issue shortly.

Janice Moore
Reply to  johnofenfield
March 12, 2015 8:59 am

And (thank You, Lord), his congregants will follow his “CO2 is ev1l” dictate just like they do their church’s ban on birth control, heh.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Alx
March 12, 2015 8:57 am

lol.
Re: last clause: Oooo, I dunno, Alx. Ol’ Stal1n wasn’t exactly a dimbulb… and then there’s… .
😉

March 12, 2015 8:36 am

I have a novel suggestion to Doug Sistern and his ilk: How about telling the truth for a change.

Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 8:46 am

A Little Vignette
*** Dedicated to all our loyal opposition (a.k.a. “trolls”) without whom this site would be far less entertaining. ***
#(:))
Easter Bunny (nice one, E. Worrall): Hey, Doug Nephew! How’s i —
D. Sisterson: SISTERSON!! Why — do — you — keep — calling — me — that!!! You and Santa (head shake)… misses me every year!
Bunny: (chuckle) — oops. Okay. Hey! Do you want extra peeps or extra hollow chocolate rabbits in your basket this year? Ya know, what with gloooobbbballl waaaarrrrming (wink, wink), might be a good P. R., er, EXAMPLE to set to ask for peeps. They don’t melt as easily. Meh. As you thuthtainability (barf) guys like to say, “it’s all good.” (eye roll)
Sis: … Well, talking about CLIMATE CHANGE {– get it right, Bun –} it’s not good.
Bunny: Windmill sca — er investors are doing pretty good…. for now… — what’s the problem?
Sis: It’s just this: CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Bunny: Well, duh. Like tell me something I haven’t known for over a decade.
Sis: Bunny! Listen to me!!! We — are — doomed!….. unless……… we can find some way to really, really, REALLY, scare people. They just aren’t scared anymore. They need to be horrified. They’re more frightened by the thought of losing their job due to high energy costs than by climate change. Which is real! It is real! REAL, REAL, REAL REEEEEEEAAAALLL!
Bunny: Chill.
Sis: NOOOOOOOOOOOO! (ahem) No. We are going to do something calm and rational about this.
Bunny: What?
Sis: We are going to Las Vegas. We are going to throw you into the pool at The Mirage with 20 slot-machine addicts (they will not let go of the machine nor stop stuffing in quarters and pulling the handle — great turbulence!), throw red light on you, and you will cry out in a blood-curdling voice —
Bunny: Here comes Peter Cottontail! Hoppin’ down —
Sis: No! You will scream (like you’re dying): I AM BOILING TO DEATH IN THE OCEAN!
Bunny: Hooo, boy, Nephew. I don’t know. I don’t know… . That’s just not really me… .
Sis: Just think “James Hansen.”
Bunny: Not Al Gore?
Sis: Too dead. Hysterical Hansen is your man.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 8:50 am

**Note: The term “climate change” as used by the majority of Envirostalinists and Enviroprofiteers means: “climate change caused by human CO2 emissions.”

Eustace Cranch
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 9:20 am

I looked real hard at the words “climate change” and I didn’t find “human”, “CO2”, or “emissions” anywhere in there.
I looked real hard, honest.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 9:32 am

Well, dear Eustace Cranch, what a pleasure to hear from you.
And I suppose when your boss said to you: “Fired!” you came back to work the next morning and responded to his or her angry glare with: “Oh, my boss, my boss, I looked eeeverywhere for “You are” and could not find it.”

Janice Moore
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 9:34 am

Seriously, Mr. Cranch, it is in the “Definition of Terms” section of your manual, that is usually the FIRST section. You skipped that one didn’t you? Tsk, tsk.

Eustace Cranch
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 9:41 am

Surely everyone knows I jest.
But it’s toward a serious point of the Orwellian misuse of words.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 10:13 am

Dear Mr. Cranch,
Yes, indeed, I mistook you for a troll. Please forgive me. After your fine comment here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/12/claim-climate-communication-needs-to-be-less-optimistic-more-climate-disruption/#comment-1881152 , written with admirable brevity (something to which I aspire… sigh…), there is no excuse for my mistake. Just a bit oversensitive after so much mischaracterization of the accurate view: “CO2 has not been shown to cause climate change” as: “climate does not change.”
I’ll try to read your comments with more care in the future.
Janice

Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 11:23 am

“Eustace Cranch
March 12, 2015 at 9:20 am
I looked real hard at the words “climate change” and I didn’t find “human”, “CO2″, or “emissions” anywhere in there.
I looked real hard, honest.:
Yeah, but Eustace, the climate didn’t change until we human’s began emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, so it must be our fault.
/grin

rogerknights
Reply to  Janice Moore
March 13, 2015 6:12 am

Eustace Cranch March 12, 2015 at 9:20 am
I looked real hard at the words “climate change” and I didn’t find “human”, “CO2″, or “emissions” anywhere in there.

There are several shorthand terms used in discussions on this topic. “Climate d*nier,” for instance. The denotation of such terms doesn’t spell out their connotation, which is what Janice was commenting on.

David Koresh
March 12, 2015 8:47 am

I think the correct term should be “Global Hellfire and Brimstone, Raining Down on Deniers Heads and Creating Hell On Earth For All the Apostates and Non-Believers”
IMHO. Have a nice day 🙂
David

rh
Reply to  David Koresh
March 12, 2015 9:58 am

Now that was funny.

Reply to  David Koresh
March 12, 2015 10:20 am

You forgot to mention Hiroshima bombs.

Bob B.
March 12, 2015 8:49 am

I think Global Climate Adjustment would be most appropriate for two reasons;
1) It is what we need to do when the climate does change, up or down
2) it is what was done to the data to get us to this point

Reply to  Bob B.
March 12, 2015 9:10 am

Correct. The discussion can then continue with differing accepted definitions/meaning of the terms and everyone “is” still happy have an argument they can be involved in. Although, for slow pokes like me, it gives me a significant disadvantage; I still can’t even understand the distinctions between the various definitions of “is”.
My choice had been “Climate Morphing”. Seems a more apt description of what has been done to the data and the initial premise.

Janice Moore
Reply to  DonM
March 12, 2015 9:16 am

“Climate morphing” is good, but… it would make them think of too much of aliens and then they’d look up Arrhenius (sp?) on panspermia and it would just confuse them… .

Bob Boder
Reply to  DonM
March 12, 2015 2:22 pm

how about climate dis-harmonization

Reply to  Bob B.
March 12, 2015 11:24 am

“Global Climate Adjustment” better?
Why, is Global Climate BS already taken?
/grin

March 12, 2015 8:56 am

Here’s my contribution to Thursday Funny.
I created a new, less optimistic poster for the climate alarmists, per their request.
Grave Concern
http://www.maxphoton.com/grave-concern/

Janice Moore
Reply to  Max Photon
March 12, 2015 9:05 am

Well, lol, Max Photon — very clever, heh, heh, heh. All saavy promotion/sales people know that “a confused mind says, ‘No.'” So…… that just took their target audience from:
“Oh, boy, Mither Hanthen, YES — human CO2 is bad,”
to:
“Oh. ?? …. Will I buy this?……. mmmmmm… ‘No.'”
Definitely less positive.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Max Photon
March 12, 2015 9:06 am

And, Max P. — nicely done graphics — you are talented.

hunter
Reply to  Max Photon
March 12, 2015 9:31 am

Max,
Excellent.
Thanks,

ACDFrench
March 12, 2015 8:57 am

“He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.” ~Joseph Conrad

Just an engineer
March 12, 2015 9:26 am

I guess in “finding the right balance of effectiveness and honesty”, he’s recommending honesty be removed from the equation.

March 12, 2015 9:27 am

The warmunists are in panic mode.
Because there hasn’t been a global warming trend in almost 19 years, the “global warming” meme has fallen out of favor because warmunists don’t like being eye-rolled and snickered at…
The new ploy is to use the term “climate change”, and blame everything under the sun on CO2 emissions. This has been met with eye-cramp inducing hyper-eye-rolling and outright peals of laughter to the consternation of the warmunists…
Acordingly, they must now fabricate a new meme to scare the aggressively ignorant and young children…
Climate Disruption is even more pitiful… It sounds like something you get when you drink too many cheap tequila shooters, and has the same effect on all thinking (though very drunk) adults; including the projectile vomiting…
They need to come up with a more sinister meme like…. Death Spiral Climate, or perhaps CO2 Death Ray Armageddon X…
CAGW has become a joke.

Joe Civis
Reply to  SAMURAI
March 12, 2015 12:46 pm

Perhaps they should use “Marvin the Martian” and instead of his “space modulator” weapon they could use a CO2 powered “Climate Disruptor”…… “Mr. Bunny you are making me very angry I will use my CO2 Climate Disruptor and annihilate you!” hmmmm might make a good cartoon! 🙂
Cheers,
Joe

Janice Moore
Reply to  Joe Civis
March 12, 2015 12:59 pm

Heh. Good one Joe Civis 🙂 — Now they’re down to a time frame of SECONDS until the earth explodes!
Marvin the Martian and Bugs Bunny (youtube)

Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 9:28 am

Well, lol, you WUWT commenters are better at writing than the Sistersons of the world (and more up-to-date, too, (cough)).
The bottom line is, they used “global warming” for too long and now
they are STUCK with it. Like any ad jingle — after awhile it is “forever.”
Like….
“My baloney has a first name.
It’s _ _ _ _ _ .”

(Oscar Mayer hot dog ad — youtube)
“How’s that?” (a–NNOYING — lololol)
(that little kid is about 50 years old, now)
GLOBAL WARMING.
GLOBAL WARMING.
GLOBAL WARMING.

Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaa!

Reply to  Janice Moore
March 12, 2015 12:33 pm

John Holdren singing:
“My baloney has a first name,
it’s C – L- I – M – A – T – E.
My baloney has a second name,
it’s C – H – A – N – G – E.”
(ed note: it’s actually spelled “bologna”, but who cares?)

Janice Moore
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
March 12, 2015 12:41 pm

lol — I did that for the announcer — but (shrug) as you could hear, he pronounced it “balone-ya” anyway. 😉

rh
March 12, 2015 9:28 am

You don’t see the other “settled sciences”, like gravity, evolution, the big bang, electronics, magnetism, quantum physics, etc., needing to update their slogans to get people to believe in them. There was a paper recently questioning the big bang, but I don’t recall Wilson and Penzias taking to the blogs to rebrand it as the Huge Hit, Super Slap, Catastrophic Clang, or any other stupid thing.

Dave in Canmore
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 10:17 am

Brilliant!

Janice Moore
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 10:18 am

Great point, rh.

William R
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 10:30 am

Good point, but I wouldn’t throw the big bang in that group though, as it’s definitely not settled. It’s just an extrapolation of relatively recent trends…and we all know how well that worked out in climate science, right?

Colin
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 10:46 am

I would like to borrow this if I may.

rh
Reply to  Colin
March 12, 2015 11:47 am

Of course you may, I’m humbled.

Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 11:29 am

“…the other “settled sciences”, like gravity, …”
Wait, would gravity be settled science
or
science on the rise?
I mean, seriously, what is the attraction to the science of gravity?
I think too many scientists have been pulled into it.
/grin

rh
Reply to  JohnWho
March 12, 2015 11:51 am

I’m literally LOLing out loud. /obscure Monk reference

Jimbo
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 12:46 pm

The new slogans / branding are for public consumption – the public no longer cares.

The Year in Climate Controversy
WHEN WALTER LIPPMANN (1889–1974) wrote his masterpiece The Phantom Public eighty-five years ago,…..
Hence the paradox that Lippmann summarized in this stunning and famous passage about the great disputes of the day “between nations, between sectional interests, between classes, between town and country, between churches”1:

Yet it is controversies of this kind, the hardest controversies to disentangle, that the public is called in to judge. Where the facts are most obscure, where precedents are lacking, where novelty and confusion pervade everything, the public in all its unfitness is compelled to make its most important decisions. The hardest problems are those which institutions cannot handle. They are the public’s problems.2

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
March 12, 2015 12:47 pm
Tom Crozier
Reply to  rh
March 12, 2015 1:33 pm

Gravity is poorly understood. We know how to work with its effects, but not how to manipulate them. I wish they would hurry up and figure it out because all sorts of cool stuff would follow. 🙂

Reply to  Tom Crozier
March 12, 2015 8:04 pm

That gravity is poorly understood is an understatement.
Have you ever picked up the 1215 page ‘physics’ (*cough*) text titled Gravitation?
Best I can tell, that monster is the very source of gravity itself. (But it must be correct because it’s so thick, right?)
http://www.graphene-lda.com/_Media/image-69_med.png

David A
Reply to  Tom Crozier
March 12, 2015 10:31 pm

Max, to be honest, understanding such things is well beyond my simple rational mind. When folk tell me space is expanding, I always want to ask “What is it expanding into?” And if I am in a detailed mood I ask, “What is this space, and what is it expanding into?” I think it is all suspicious.

Reply to  Tom Crozier
March 13, 2015 12:41 am

David A.
Don’t get me started on the problems with mainstream science in Cosmology! You think cronyism, groupthink and making stuff up to rationalise contrary observations is bad in Climatology!? Just take a quick look at the comet they just crash landed on and tell me that’s a dirty snowball and not a great big lump of rock!

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