Marc Morano writes:
A debate just finished within the hour here today. Cook interviewed me on camera and I audio recorded for my protection. He is going to post full video. But in meantime, anyone can post full audio. The entire global warming debate was discussed. 97% claims, etc. Richard Tol, Anthony Watts, Steve Goddard, Fred Singer, Michaels, Curry, Monckton and others were cited.
Full audio follows, video may be available from John Cook at some point in the future but this assures us an unedited record of the event: (54 minutes)
NOTE: some people report no audio, if you are using Firefox, that’s likely the reason. I’ve dumped it months ago as it has become buggy, unstable, and mostly unusable in current forms.
Try Chrome – works flawlessly, and is faster. -Anthony
UPDATE -TRY THIS: for those of you with browsers that can’t play audio, it turns out the problem was that it was in Apple m4a format and not all browsers support it. M4A is an audio file format that is very similar to MP4. It is a proprietary file format of Apple. iTunes store contains the audios as M4A format. It uses MPEG-4 codec to contain audio files.
So to fix that, here is the file format in a much better MP3 format, which doesn’t rely on Apple formats and is much more standards compliant.
Direct download:
working fine in fireox – which is far less of a processor hog than chrome btw chrome is incredibly slow
I conduct a lot of interviews and chair meetings. Here’s my take on what happened:
One or two points well made and hammered home might have been more effective. A snipers’ rifle versus a machine gun.
As it was, it could be construed that Marc overwhelmed Cook because he was reluctant to address specific questions. And the people who hear this will not be unfamiliar all of the arguments that Marc makes.
I wonder who the audience Cook’s video is. Be sure he and his chums, especially Lew will be going through frame by frame looking for ‘tells’ and even if they do the honest thing and put out the video with all of Marc’s diatribe there is nothing to stop them colouring it with commentary and subtitles.
Marc is an excellent salesman for scepticism and may well appeal to undecideds but the hard sell never works against those who ain’t going to buy at any price. For those you need a little more subtlety.
I wonder if, for part 2 of the series, Cook would like to try it with Steyn?
Clovis, I may be wrong, but didn’t this “debate” seem more like it was orchestrated by John Cook for the benefit of his class? Multiple times, Marc refers to the class. I believe he deferred to Cook for questions. Isn’t there a reference above to Cook possibly editing the video to his benefit? And at the end, he says he can take only 3 more questions before leaving when his alarm or ringer goes off. So it seems this Q&A was not meant for the general public, best I can tell, and Marc could only answer the questions asked as thoroughly as he could.
“I wonder if, for part 2 of the series, Cook would like to try it with Steyn?”
THAT would be so amazingly hilarious….Santa…I’d like to revise my list!
Something occurred to me this afternoon while all these posts came in, from “newbies” who seemed to instantly like/hate Marc or like/hate Cook. What if, the deliriously mental Cook et al and Co. DID meet in their secret little forum (after making sure it was secured this time…chuckle) and plotted this whole thing out?
Permit me to act like a rabid, skeptical, Lewandowsky-created, conspiracy theorist for one minute:
*********************RABID CONSPIRACY THEORY FOLLOWS************
Idea Person #1- Let’s have John Cook-the pastiest, calmest, least assuming one of all of us- appear to “interview” Marc Morano in Paris! Marc will be Marc-wild, talkative, throwing facts around in machine gun fashion and John will look so calm, and polite, and “sane” in comparison with his responses (Except THAT part didn’t go well for them!)
Idea Person #2- WOW! That would be fabulous! We probably wouldn’t even have to edit it! Just have John ask him specific questions, and let Marc answer them with his mindless propaganda. Then John can easily rebut him with facts! (Again…this part didn’t go well for them at all)
Idea Person#3- You know what else? We could also have fake “forum posters” set up and waiting for the interview to come out, and we could inundate places like WUWT with reasonable sounding comments that make Marc look bad, and Cook look good! Because Marc can be charming and appear informed, we can’t be TOO blatant about it….maybe compliment Marc but then say something like (someone actually said earlier) “Cook’s success here is that now he’s going to make me go out and find his arguments.” Put little seeds in their heads!
Idea Person #4- We could make this an experiment! Conduct a “study” on it! Publish another paper on how “normal skeptical posters at WUWT” (which will really be our fake plants) react when they are confronted with John’s facts. See if they believe him, or refuse to and cling to their previous positions. We could use it as “evidence” to support some of our colleges recent claims about “tribalism” and “core beliefs” etc!
***************END OF RABID CONSPIRACY THEORY******************
Whew…that was exhausting. I need to shower just to feel clean again. Of course I have ZERO problem being completely and utterly wrong (and/or labeled insane) about it. I even HOPE I am. Just wanted to point out that it doesn’t take an evil genius….to plot like these people can, and have before.
Very Good. How could it possibly be anything else ? That evil smirk says there’s a lot more going on than anyone’s saying.
The debate I would like to see.
I would like to see a live debate streamed and also televised without any time constraints. The debate would have to be moderated by an honest broker who should have some understanding of how science is supposed to work. Rules of the debate would be agreed upon and published before hand so all could see any moderator favoritism if that happened.
The debate would have to be technical at times but all involved should strive to make it understandable to the reasonably bright high school kid. Maybe the debate should be divided up into various catagries so that later the viewer could go to the topic of interest easily.
Since the alarmists work so hard to avoid debate, the skeptical side will have to make the challenge. Maybe we could issue the challenge to some government scientists who have a duty to respond to the public. Maybe a challenge to others, I just don’t know.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Sat here in our armchairs musing about this and that, what’s right what’s wrong. We owe a real debt of gratitute to the likes of Marc, Judith, Lidzen, and many others.
No one except Goddard and WUWT have done more to stop the AGW hype, so even though it appears Morano is now pals with arch enemy Cook, lets cool it LOL
Fete is not pronounced like ‘feet’ in English or French.
‘Fete’ is not pronounced like ‘pied’, who’d have thunk?
97% of all mainstream scientists as stated by The Global Warming Industry are more likely to ignore observational data and instead present findings that are as much as 20X the observed data.
Why the heck would anyone want to be one of the 97% mainstream scientists that are constantly wrong?
Why is it that a hair-cutter needs a government license and a member of the 97% of all Mainstream Scientists that effect the theft of the public treasury can go on and wreck havoc with impunity?
Anyone who wants to understand how SkepticalScience will attempt to misrepresent and thereby discredit its perceived “opponents” would do well do examine the following evidence.
Exhibit A – here is Muller discussing the exact meaning and implications of the late 20th century “decline” produced by the tree-ring proxy – and the “hiding” of the decline. In which he is quite clear that the “decline” is that produced by the proxy methodology:
And yet here is the SkepticalScience misrepresentation in which the idea is given that Muller interpreted the “decline” as meaning an actual decline in global average temps.
This is done very simply by pretending to refute Muller’s position with the explanation:
“The ‘decline’ refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature”.
Of course, Muller was completely clear on that point. But a reader of Skeptical Science would be lead to believe that such a simply clarification effectively destroyed his argument.
This form of misrepresentation is neither clever nor truthful. Nor does it contain any specific “lie” as such.
But it is clearly intended to deceive – and it is effective for all those who are guided to SkS by preferential Google search rating, and who then look no further:
So here is the pathetic SkS tear-down of Muller’s position (Exhibit B):
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Muller.htm
SkS writes about myths, not lies and especially Richard Muller sees himself as a converted skeptic thinking now that humans are almost entirely the cause.
There you go. Cook’s type of post. Comes in off topic. Changes the subject. Lies about it’s new subject, then crows like that’s a victory.
“Richard Muller sees himself as a converted skeptic”
Or does he?
“I was never a skeptic […] I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic.”
– Richard Muller, 2011
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/truth-about-richard-muller.html
Nor does it contain any specific “lie” as such.
Nothing was hidden in Mann’s “hockey stick”; “hide the decline” refers to tree ring data which was a very minor component of the “hockey stick”, and the “decline” was discussed extensively in the peer-reviewed literature – from the heading ‘what the science says’ at the Cook link.
That’s a lie. That’s the type of lie if you said it to the FBI you go to the federal penitentiary all day long.
That’s a three o’clock in the morning lie. A coyote ugly bite your arm off so you don’t wake it up while you sneak out of the hotel room lie. The truth doesn’t even nod it’s head if it happens to encounter Cook’s take on “hide the decline” in the hallway to give it a “whassup”. No. The truth glowers and sprays disinfectant when it accidentally passes Cook on “hide the decline”.
Erm…yes you are quite right. In line with the conventional definition of a “lie”. The SkS page was actually full of quite transparent lies.
BUT – also, some slippery deceptions which were not technically lies, only diversions and deceptions.
It’s basically total bullshit from start to finish. Sadly I have encountered many leftist/liberal goons who have accepted all these distortions and now consider that “climategate” was a hoax, which they call climategategate. It’s very sad to witness. Very few people understand MacIntyre’s critique.
So the wool has now been pulled very firmly over the majority of eyes.
It was all amazing to witness.
I certainly learned a lot about the politicization of science. And what it means to live in an age of delusions.
Oh….my….word. I am laughing SO hard! The following is absolutely priceless writing:
“That’s a three o’clock in the morning lie. A coyote ugly bite your arm off so you don’t wake it up while you sneak out of the hotel room lie. The truth doesn’t even nod it’s head if it happens to encounter Cook’s take on “hide the decline” in the hallway to give it a “whassup”. No. The truth glowers and sprays disinfectant when it accidentally passes Cook on “hide the decline”.”
Again….hilarious perfection!
I have always believed the power of an argument comes from the concessions one can extract from an interlocutor, such that an objective observer would be convinced of the merit of one’s stated position as reasonable and willingly accept the stated facts. The persuasive power of the concession is determined not only by the absolute degree of the concession statement, but by the accessibility of language of that concession to the widest possible audience.
By this measure, Morano has not extracted very much from the discussion. Cook conceded very little.
For clarity: I’m a huge fan of Morano and I’m not being critical of him personally. I think many sceptics have been goaded into this communications trap by the Alarmists Appeal To Authority and the Peer Review meme.
Most of the points Morano made were based in jargon and required of the listener, a significant personal investment in study to land the intended blow. Many people will simply tune out because of lack of knowledge in the science behind the jargon and judge Morano poorly because of his aggressive demeanour (Which is SO effective for the 4 minute TV debate) less so, contrasted with Cook’s passive demeanour in a long format interview. Already disconnected, many will judge whether the criticism was valid by the concessions in Cook’s response. The “True Believers” will not have heard any concession from Cook that punctured the beliefs they took into the exchange.
Like so many sceptic’s arguments, in this forum, Morano’s style brings a complicated communication strategy of “Machine-Gunning” from the “Bottom Up”, instead of easy to digest “Top Down” sound bytes that can be defended with incrementally expanded, coherent explanations of increasing and comprehensive detail, within an established context to persuade the observer.
Without first establishing an agreement with the interlocutor of the specific issue at question and what evidence would be required for them to concede the point, they are under no pressure to concede. It’s like holding a debate and expecting the audience to guess the proposition in question after the closing arguments.
Hence, Cook was forced to concede very little.
Even when Morano exposed the weakness of the ludicrously small number of scientists that constitute Cook’s 97% meme. Sceptics with a deep understanding know this talks to Cook’s poor methodology. To the less educated, less engaged, warmists, students and casual listeners heard Cook’s plausible rebuttal: That’s how science is done!
The meme is “97% of scientists agree…” Some alternate questions could be:
Exactly, how many Scientists constitute the 97% in your study?
Where have you published a List of their Names?
Why don’t you publish their names whenever you invoke the 97% statement?
Do you believe 75 Scientists constitute 97% of Scientists in the World?
Was Barack Obama wrong when he said 97% of Scientists in the world believe in CAGW?
The Alarmist position is based in politics, so they take their communication strategy straight from politics:
Top Down Sound Bytes based on layers of Half Truths and Plausibly Deniable Deceptions. In order that they can be incessantly repeated by their proponents!
Consider an eight year old processing the following Alarmist Arguments:
– We have known for a century that Co2 is a Greenhouse Gas!
– More Co2 means more Warming!
– 97% of scientists agree the world is warming and Mankind is the cause!
Sceptics, often fearing the “Not a Climate Scientist” meme, respond with the most comprehensive, detailed, technical, complex dissertations to refute these simple statements. (Such as we heard in the audio)
How did we get here?
Alarmists have boiled down their message so that advocates can be indoctrinated even before they develop critical thinking skills, at primary school. (Hard to convince someone later of a question to which they think they already know the answer)
Sceptic arguments, as they are generally constructed, require a middle school or better command of English and a many hundreds of hours study into complex technical material, across multiple disciplines. That is a serious barrier that makes enlightenment inaccessible for millions of the people, most grievously affected by the policies of Alarmists. (e.g. A valid metric is: How many hours of study would be required to understand every point raised by Morano?)
Rather than complex dissertations on the failings of Computer Models, talking about Model Runs, Parametrisation, Boundary Problems, Resolution Problems, Lack of Fundamental Physics, Lack of Computing Power etc. (which immediately excludes the majority from engaging)
Sceptics should be confident enough to use a simple message. For example:
“It is IMPOSSIBLE to predict the Global Temperature a 100 years into the future!”
From that position, the Alarmist has to establish the skill (or lack thereof) of the Computer Models relied upon by the IPCC. Now 99% of the public are incapable of mounting the complex argument to validate their previously held beliefs. For those with the motivation to try and educate themselves in the attempt to do so, they will be exposed to the myriad of failings of the Alarmist use of modelling.
The point isn’t that it IS possible to make a poor prediction, (it will just be very wrong). The point is to level the playing field when fighting for the hearts and minds of the audience and causing them to enquire. The trouble with the status quo is that Alarmist have created a web of plausible statements that satisfy the information needs of the many for responding to the sceptic arguments. One key is simple statements that provoke people to make enquiries, that lead to enlightenment.
Until the Sceptic position on Global Warming can be communicated to an eight year old and BY an eight year old, there will be hundreds of millions of people in the world that will be held captive to the over simplified sound bytes of the Alarmists and inactive in the fight against politicised science.
WUWT has some great communicators, with a wealth of knowledge. I believe there is a great opportunity to craft those messages to increase the accessibility to the average person. The key is defining the pivotal propositions that expose the over reach of the Alarmist argument. Then develop the incremental layers of evidence that establish the salient arguments.
Anthony, I know most people with an idea want to leave it to “Someone” to do the work, so I’m happy to offer time and energy towards exploring these issues. if you believe WUWT could accomodate the content, great.
Either way, I offered a simple example. It would be interesting if any of WUWT’s great communicators had any thoughts on the opportunities of opening up new communication paths to the truth, for the masses.
You make a very good point Geoff. Skeptics are too ready to play by the rules. Cook is only looking for sound bites he can use. Remember he sees himself now not as a scientist but as a psychologist. He has learned how to let the other side talk and use it oh medicalise dissent later.
Geoff, we sing from the same songbook !! I’ve been traveling down this path for some time,
1st realising that I was being scammed,
2nd learning about the subject/s,
3rd trying to put it into some sort of understandable format (for me)
4th passing that info on when & where ever the opportunity arises.
Although I’m NOT one of WUWT’s great communicators
I would be happy to assist
I’m in UK.
Yes. I get the impression that Mark has demonstrated how not to conduct the debate, if the aim is to change the minds of people who accept the alarmist story For a start we need to explain that the consensus appears to be about the reality of warming over the last century and the likelihood of some human influence (however small).
We have to talk TO people, not AT them. We have to find out what they think and WHY and what would count for THEM as a reason to think differently.
We need to promote the attitude “You may be right and I may be wrong, and by making an effort we may be able to get nearer to the truth” which is Karl Popper’s critical rationalism in a nutshell.
Rafe Champion-
Well I’ll be darned. And here all this time I’ve thought that Karl Popper would have openly and loudly proclaimed the “consensus” to be as pseudoscience as anything ever was! You see, Popper vehemently opposed the traditional “inductive” views of the Scientific Method and proposed empirical falsification instead.
This means that Karl Popper abhorred the idea that someone could say that “this scientist believes in AGW” and “this scientist believes in AGW” and so on until a universal statement of consensus was declared! It would be so obviously deductively invalid, because unless one has asked “every single scientist” that exists, it’s certainly very possible that there are scientists who do NOT believe in AGW. Popper made “falsifiability the demarcation criterion, such that what is unfalsifiable is classified as unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory to be scientifically true is pseudoscience.”
You got closer to quoting Billy Joel than Karl Popper.
“I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth.” Karl Popper
That “effort” according to Karl Popper-was critical thinking, using reason critically, and valid deduction and falsibility of arguments, NOT inductive reasoning.
Aphan, I was responding to Geoff Connolly’s suggestion about effective communication that is designed to change the minds of bystanders by forcing alarmists to reveal their assumptions, and to challenge them with evidence and arguments that the bystanders can understand. I am not aware that I was making a case for induction. That is most unlikely because I have a letter from Karl Popper, jokingly descrbing me as his “champion in Australia”.
It is unlikely that climate science would have deteriorated to its current state if Karl Popper’s philosophy of science was accepted as the norm but that is not the case because he has been sidelined and misrepresented by the philosophers. It is apparently possible to spend a career in philosphy without encountering a straight feed on Popper’s ideas. I have addressed this situation with a set of guides or cribs to Popper’s books.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=rafe+champion
Geoff-with all due respect, you couldn’t even introduce your post in a manner that an 8 year old could understand or communicate to another 8 year old. I blanked out almost immediately and I understood every word.
“Until the Sceptic position on Global Warming can be communicated to an eight year old and BY an eight year old, there will be hundreds of millions of people in the world that will be held captive to the over simplified sound bytes of the Alarmists and inactive in the fight against politicised science.”
“held captive? “hundreds of millions of people”? WOW! Good thing you’re here to save us Captain Arrogance! You see, you just showed up here, attempted to establish a terrible catastrophe in the world of climate science communication, and then offered yourself as the humble hero we’ve long needed need to solve it! And that was AFTER insulting Anthony by saying that you “know most people who have an idea” (even though this isn’t Anthony’s idea at all) “want to leave it to SOMEONE to do the work”. People can identify cow crap by how it smells, they don’t have to swallow it to be sure.
The problem is not communication. The problem is that the “average” person does not care. The “average person” will never see the interview (which although called at debate by Marc himself-is clearly NOT a debate in any sense of the definitions of that word known to mankind) and thus cannot be affected by it in any way. Currently, the “sound bite”, slick slogan, easy to spew gimmicks are NOT working for the AGW crowd-as evidenced by poll after poll of US citizens (and other countries) showing that the number of people who doubt the AGW mantra is GROWING not shrinking. Wanting to adopt propaganda tactics that are FAILING to convince people that the Earth is at risk, on THIS side in an attempt to convince people that it’s NOT is ludicrous.
Your “simple example” was 20+ paragraphs long. You’re clearly not qualified for the job you posted yourself.
“Currently, the “sound bite”, slick slogan, easy to spew gimmicks are NOT working for the AGW crowd-as evidenced by poll after poll of US citizens (and other countries) showing that the number of people who doubt the AGW mantra is GROWING not shrinking. Wanting to adopt propaganda tactics that are FAILING to convince people that the Earth is at risk, on THIS side in an attempt to convince people that it’s NOT is ludicrous.”
Their goal is not to convince people. Their goal is to mollify people enough with sound-bite science that they won’t RESIST the major actions they have been orchestrating for decades.
In that context, simple doubt isn’t enough. If people are uncertain about whether global warming is real, etc, then they can rationalize letting “the experts” hash it out. We need to push back back against the sound-bite science so that people are armed with enough contradictory knowledge to motivate them to resist.
Yes, global warming is very low on the list of concerns in some polls. But those are lists of items that people think we should take action against. My guess is that if you asked the poll in reverse, to see which subjects people feel strongly about being on the right track or that proper action is being taken, global warming would again end up near the very bottom. People just don’t know enough to have a strong opinion, to take action or to oppose it.
These actions are coming, the Warmists are on the march, if we can’t arm people with enough knowledge (or at the very least win the sound-bite war) to motivate them to resist these actions, they will be enacted sooner or later.
If we engage in their tactics, the average person will STILL not understand the science, and will hear and see no difference between the sides at all. You cannot force feed people knowledge. You cannot educate someone about our climate system with sound bites. If you could, atmospheric physics would be one semester long. People FEEL it when they are patronized. The SENSE when someone is attempting to manipulate them. And the moment you make them feel either one, they stop listening to you at all.
Our current society is the result of us “dumbing down” everything. Making everything “easy” for everyone. No expectations. No effort. No morals. No responsibility. And now you want to put science on the chopping block too? Where does it end? You can actually BE a communist in America today without hanging your head in shame. You can support eco-terrorists and radicalized religious terrorists in America today and your neighbors won’t stand up to you! They will most likely just ignore you. Or move themselves. Do you actually think that when push comes to shove that the average American citizen will even know WHY the grid went down? Or why there are tanks on their street? Or what One World Government even means? No way!
BUT…you talk down to someone or act like they are stupid….and they will get “all up in your face”…because even at the most basic level, humans recognize condescension. Suspicion is easily triggered. You want people to “feel” and “sense” the marketing when skeptics like they do AGW or CAGW propagandists? then just do the same thing they do! But if those tactics are NOT working FOR the AGW side, why on Earth do you think they WILL WORK for ours?
I’m not interested in responding to your personal attacks and vitriol Aphan. I think your comments do more to clarify what you represent than I could ever hope for.
I’m really not sure if Aphan is a parody account, but thanks for the amusing reply.
I will treat the reply as if by the typical Alarmist (May contain traces of sarcasm.. and nuts!)
See Aphan, you telegraphed your motivation in the opening sentence. The rest was just more of the same straw man arguments, projections and nastiness.
I’m sorry you can’t differentiate between analysis and an example of communication (If you understood the topic at hand, you’d recognize that a comprehensive Communication strategy requires several layers of targeted messaging. (Your straw man argument falsely proposed I intended to target the example message to an 8 yr old.) I promise you, when Nike’s agency created their slogan, they provided analysis to justify the rationale behind it. They didn’t just send off a three word email that said “Just Do It” I was writing about the objective of talking to Eight Year Olds, I didn’t realise there was a danger I would be.
Apparently, you don’t think the poor of the world being forced into inferior, higher priced, or harmful energy sources by UN politicking can be deemed as being “held captive” to legislative frameworks they can’t control. Many would beg to differ.
Seriously? I apologise if I didn’t RSVP to you before commenting. Somehow, after many thousands of visits to WUWT and my various previous comments, I was unaware of that obligation. Many are content to visit WUWT or other sites and not comment. They don’t feel the need to see their ideas in comments, whether to just say the same thing again (and again), or derail a discussion of the science. Many people understand, the worth isn’t tied to the volume of posts but in the merit of the idea. The majority offer them with a great sense of community and goodwill. They expect a discussion of the ideas, not projections and personalized attacks. Your reply breaks down the community and discourages participation of any sort. While you’re speaking for Anthony, is that one of his goals for WUWT?
I’ve often found when someone wants to create a straw man argument, they might try inject absurdities into your point through use of hyperbole. But I’m happy to give you the benefit of the doubt with the use of “terrible catastrophe” .. “humble hero”. Neither of which appeared in my comment.
Apart from the absurd logic fail (Clearly, the person I was referring to with the idea was me), do you often feel the need to speak for someone else when that party has an even greater opportunity to speak for themselves. I have the utmost respect for Anthony, as I do for the vast majority of contributors on WUWT.
Interesting phrase. I googled it, but couldn’t find a reference. I will have to defer to your experience. Just a thought. It might be helpful to the reader to identify a specific point of fact before improvising such a classy metaphor.
Oh, really? So, in the absence of, (or contrary to) hard physical evidence and by utilizing dubious methods, Global Warming activists managed to convince billions of people of a completely fanciful story that Co2 threatens the future of Mankind, but YOU don’t think that is evidence of the superior communication strategy? The fact obvious to many, as the group with the weakest argument, all Warmists have is their superior communication strategy. Through that strategy, people now correlate any unexpected natural event with Climate Change caused by Co2: Hot, Cold, Drought, Flood, Snow, No Snow, Fires, Dead Animals, Too Many Animals, Too Many Insects, Not Enough Insects, etc.. Despite the fanciful pseudo science and ample evidence for alternative explanations.
Sorry if it bruises your ego Aphan, that epitomizes a problem that can only be solved through communication!
The degree to which people care has more to do with “the Pause” and evidence such as Climategate than does an imaginary surge in the effectiveness of combating the superior messaging of Warmists. Warmists rely on slogans. They are rarely pressed to justify their positions with a traceable connection to objective science.
Oh, the irony! Finally, we come to some agreement. That is my point. Regardless of the value of one form of communication at connecting with a segment of an audience, there are others for whom the message will be completely lost. To argue otherwise, is to argue against the existence of Demographics.
Sceptics are very good at talking to other scientists and the highly motivated, citizen activist. The rest of the community (Billions) are substantially vacated to the Warmist Politicians, Educators, MSM, NGOs and activists all specializing the messaging to their particular audience, BUT always based on the same Framework of high level messaging and false attribution. Simplicity and Repetition is the key!
The various information sources for objective Climate Science are great. Scientists talking to scientists and highly motivated citizens is essential. Recognizing that form of exchange represents only a small percentage of the global population, leads one to ask: What are the information needs of the rest of the population? Remember, unless you’re considering imposing a Scientific Autocracy, even the best scientists will need the majority of the population to vote for appropriate Climate Policy to avoid Alarmism.
et tu Marcus!
I note that you have also found the need to correct others. It must be very busy policing the Internet. I’m flattered to be in such esteemed company.
Extreme Sarcasm Warning:
Well, I was only saying the same thing to Obama the other day. Just before he and 40,000 world leaders act with the sovereign authority of 190 countries lead by the United Nations, contemplate the terms by which they wish to redistribute $Trillions in wealth DESPITE the pseudo science and the fact the majority of people “evidenced by poll after poll of US citizens (and other countries) showing that the number of people who doubt the AGW mantra is GROWING not shrinking”. At least we can be sure it isn’t a communications problem and draw eternal comfort that some people talk to each other on the Internet about the injustice of each successive COP, in the highly jargonistic language of science!
I am only too grateful that you are here, Aphan, to provide the standards and police them as vigorously as you have done. What could go wrong?
Let’s be clear, I didn’t post a job for anyone, least of all myself. I talked to the limitations in the M&C exchange that many other people also raised. I chose to provide a detailed analysis to make a positive “CONTRIBUTION” to an existing line of discussion.
I clearly deferred to what I called the “great communicators” of WUWT, but as is customary in my upbringing, you don’t suggest work be done by others unless you are prepared to DO some of the work yourself. Otherwise, you are leaving it to “SOMEONE” else. See the context, Aphan?
The assertions in your reply brings to mind the writings of Edward DeBono. To paraphrase for brevity:
Critical Thinking is the simplest form of Intelligence.
It doesn’t take much to tear something down, but it is much harder to create ideas.
Looking forward to your solutions, Aphan.
But please, don’t reply to me! The questions were rhetorical and I don’t have any interest in the manner in which you engage with people.
Geroff said:”But please, don’t reply to me! The questions were rhetorical and I don’t have any interest in the manner in which you engage with people.”
Don’t worry Geoff. No reply is really necessary. Of course the questions were rhetorical, because both of your posts here are nothing but pure rhetoric. You also provide ZERO evidence to back up any of your claims, and you engage in almost all of the tactics used to identify propaganda. (http://www.rbs0.com/propaganda.pdf )
I know that WUWT readers are intelligent and logical enough to see the flaws in both of our arguments all by themselves. And I’m not just saying that because in all my years posting here, not a single one of them has ever been mystified by one of my “fancy, non-googlable metaphors” either. 🙂
I’ve often wondered how Warmists can assert that they can predict the temperature of the earth 50 or 100 years hence to the nearest degree without getting immediately laughed off the stage.
Not only do they claim this, they say they can predict the future temperature with very high confidence.
They can’t stand being laughed at, and this particular statement should always elicit raucous laughter from skeptics. The rebuttals are very low hanging fruit, with “the pause”, the obvious failure of models, the obvious failure of past predictions (NYC and DC underwater by 2000, major world cities underwater by 2020, Arctic ice-free by 20XX, Snow a rare and exciting event, etc). The Warmists have a VERY POOR track record of making predictions if you look back. The only reason they continue to assert high confidence in predicting the future is that they aren’t challenged often enough or effectively enough.
As temps stay flat and this AGW meeting fails I reckon AGW will end this year, next year. Also you have to factor in that the MOST ardent Warmist’s tend to become the MOST ardent deniers in older age. I reckon we are beginning to see this phenomenom across the spectrum
You are right, BUT I think your time scale is a bit short.The process wont start while obarmy is around & there’s a lot of face saving to be done & scapegoats to be found, I predict that Mann, Jones & Hanson will be sacrificed, the likes of Gore will be protected.
Fundamentals:
1) The amount of CO2 in reservoirs, (45,000 GT) and the fluxes (hundreds of GT/y) cannot be determined with certainty and mankind’s contribution (8.9 GT/y gross & 4.0 GT/y net thanks to the magically appearing sequestering sinks) cannot be differentiated from large naturally variable source/fluxes.
2) A CO2 RF of 2 W/m^2 (RCP 2.0) is trivial in the overall magnitude (ToA 340 W/m^2 +/-) and absorption/refection fluxes of the overall atmospheric power/energy flows (W = energy/time = 3.412 Btu/h) and high energy water cycle.
3) The pause/hiatus/stasis/lull has proven the GCMs are total failures.
I was most intrigued by the questions and statements of the female assistant or whoever she was. Marc and John Cook (mainly Marc) are discussing various claims that make up the case for CAGW. She seemed most interested in responding about the psyche of researchers and how they are humans that can’t be unbiased and must have an agenda. It had overtones of all the politically correct controversy going on at college campuses, which makes me think she is a younger generation individual.
If so, it’s a bit disconcerting that the next generation going into science thinks that biases are okay, and that people should not be expected to set aside their personal, social, and political biases when it comes time to communicate or evaluate science.
It’s alarming that James Hansen is a radical environmentalist agitator in his spare time. It’s alarming that scientists in this field are compelled to kowtow to the orthodoxy to such an extent that if they publish anything contrary to the narrative they have to go to elaborate lengths to reassure everyone they are a true believer and not a heretic. This stuff has no place in science, period, and if the next generation thinks it’s not a problem or perhaps is even desirable then the future of science is bleak indeed.
Since Marc asked John Cook a couple of questions along the way, I would have loved it if he asked him what it would take to change his mind.
That’s a key part of the debate that is often overlooked. If someone believes that the science is rock solid and convincing, then naturally the should be able to discuss what sort of evidence would disprove it. If the global warming hypothesis isn’t falsifiable, it’s not scientific. Based on one of John Cook’s responses, it sounds like his primary evidence is that atmospheric CO2 is high and continues going up. If that’s the foundation for his belief, it is quite weak and could easily be rebutted by pointing out the clear lack of correlation between CO2 and temperatures, the issue of climate sensitivity, etc. But unless you pin them down and make them explain their own criteria as a scientist, you can’t engage them in an effective way.
Absolutely agreed. Climate sensitivity is the warmers Achilles heel. Attached at the hip to “global warming potential”. Try and find a straight answer to the question, what is the “global warming potential” of co2?
It’s an undefined property. What’s worse warmers use it as if it were a real property, describing other substances as having a multiple of the global warming potential of co2.
The ‘global warming potential’ of CO2 is based on physics. It’s been discussed here often.
This chart makes it clear that adding more CO2 to the current ≈400 ppm will not cause any measurable global warming:
Even if CO2 was doubled, the warming caused by that additional trace gas would be too small to notice. Just extrapolate from the graph, from 400 ppm to 800 ppm. How much warming would result?
[Reply: ‘Chaam Jamal’ is a sockpuppet. Also posts under the name ‘Richard Molineux’ and others (K. Pittman, etc.) As usual, his sad life writing comments has been completely wasted, as they are now deleted. –mod]
This is what you get: Royal Society: It will take another 50 years without warming, before we admit we were wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/16/royal-society-it-will-take-another-50-years-without-warming-before-we-admit-we-were-wrong/
(That without a similar basis to proving warming, of course.)
The video will be published after much cutting and pasting and distributed widely through the warmist network. As per 97% the audio will be John’s [inserted] questions and analysis ., while all remaining audio response from Marc will be lost in the 3% fraudulent transcript.
The mere phrase “consensus” makes me cringe.
Fascinating to see Cookie’s people come on here in support of him.
Very informative to see them build their positions on the flawed (and already debunked) 97% consensus. The rigidity of their thinking is a great clue to why they’re losing the argument. They simply repeat their Creed over and over again…louder and loude…as though that will succeed in getting their message across when years of propaganda and millions on PR have failed to do so.
Quite touching really.
Churches have used that method for yrs
I just posted this at Clmate Etc.:
Cook represents the problem with the whole climate change cause. The whole process has been flooded with one sided studies and opinions, it’s hard to convince people the apparent minority view is right. It’s not by accident they keep repeating ad nauseam this 97% number, effectively delegitimizing descent. The real honest objective science, along with honest journalism, have been intentionally drowned out by this tsunami of created disinformation, and all this paid for at public expense.
Climate Deniers Anthem — Slick expensive parody paid for by Climate Truth. Laugh your socks off.
http://www.funnyordie.com/…/climate-change-deniers…
or
http://www.funnyordie.com/…/climate-change-deniers-anthem
‘Funny or die’?
R.I.P.
[??? .mod]
For the moderator who is confused by my post; it is a reply to the post immediately above. That may give you a clue. I did press the ‘reply’ button when posting, so assumed it would relate to the post.
(The above post is by someone who has linked to an extremely unamusing site, and particularly a video supposedly parodying ‘deniers’). Hence my retort.
How can atmospheric CO2 possibly cause selective ice loss of the Western Antarctic? CO2 blankets the globe, ie, it is constant. Also, how could atmospheric CO2 cause the ocean to warm in specific spots?
This clip highlights the political nature of the IPCC. They don’t even try to hide what they are doing. It is a disgrace that a “scientific” organization would use such biased and unscientific methods to make their case.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=29m37s