Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Climate change deniers simplify the spectrum of possible scientific consensus into two categories: 100% agreement or no consensus at all. If it’s not one, it’s the other. …”
The thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial
Published: May 2, 2023 10.13pm AEST
Jeremy P. Shapiro
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve UniversityCold spells often bring climate change deniers out in force on social media, with hashtags like #ClimateHoax and #ClimateScam. Former President Donald Trump often chimes in, repeatedly claiming that each cold snap disproves the existence of global warming.
From a scientific standpoint, these claims of disproof are absurd. Fluctuations in the weather don’t refute clear long-term trends in the climate.
Yet many people believe these claims, and the political result has been reduced willingness to take action to mitigate climate change.
Why are so many people susceptible to this type of disinformation? My field, psychology, can help explain – and help people avoid being misled.
The allure of black-and-white thinking
Close examination of the arguments made by climate change deniers reveals the same mistake made over and over again. That mistake is the cognitive error known as black-and-white thinking, also called dichotomous and all-or-none thinking. As I explain in my book “Finding Goldilocks,” black-and-white thinking is a source of dysfunction in mental health, relationships – and politics.
…
Climate change deniers simplify the spectrum of possible scientific consensus into two categories: 100% agreement or no consensus at all. If it’s not one, it’s the other.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/the-thinking-error-that-makes-people-susceptible-to-climate-change-denial-204607
Do any of you seriously believe a single cold snap disproves global warming?
I personally support the premise that the world has warmed since the mid 1800s, and anthropogenic CO2 likely contributed. A single cold snap is not proof that global warming has stopped, that would be an absurd proposition.
But climate alarmists seem all too ready to promote the black and white thinking fallacy Professor Shapiro accuses deniers of embracing, they seem very ready to spin every heatwave as proof of the global warming end times.
For example;
3Q: Why Europe is so vulnerable to heat waves
Climate modeling shows that this summer’s devastating European heat wave may indeed be a harbinger of the future for that region.
David L. Chandler | MIT News Office
Publication Date: October 11, 2022This year saw high-temperature records shattered across much of Europe, as crops withered in the fields due to widespread drought. Is this a harbinger of things to come as the Earth’s climate steadily warms up?
Elfatih Eltahir, MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering and H. M. King Bhumibol Professor of Hydrology and Climate, and former doctoral student Alexandre Tuel PhD ’20 recently published a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists describing how their research helps explain this anomalous European weather. The findings are based in part on analyses described in their book “Future Climate of the Mediterranean and Europe,” published earlier this year. MIT News asked the two authors to describe the dynamics behind these extreme weather events.
Q: Was the European heat wave this summer anticipated based on existing climate models?
Eltahir: Climate models project increasingly dry summers over Europe. This is especially true for the second half of the 21st century, and for southern Europe. Extreme dryness is often associated with hot conditions and heat waves, since any reduction in evaporation heats the soil and the air above it. In general, models agree in making such projections about European summers. However, understanding the physical mechanisms responsible for these projections is an active area of research.
…
Read more: https://news.mit.edu/2022/europe-heat-waves-climate-change-1011
What about Professor Shapiro’s claim that President Trump thinks cold snaps disprove global warming?
Do any of you seriously believe President Trump thinks cold snaps disprove global warming? Or is it more likely he is poking fun at alarmists?
Did this humorous tweet get included in Professor Shapiro’s analysis? Was it part of his proof that climate deniers, and he specifically cited President Trump, are black and white thinkers?
If so, how could Professor Shapiro make such an obvious mistake?
My personal theory is most greens don’t possess a sense of humour, so they have difficulty recognising humour when they see it. I accept that Professor Shapiro genuinely believes Trump is being serious when he pokes fun at climate alarmist tropes.
Of course, I’m not an adjunct assistant professor of psychological sciences, whatever that is. Feel free to share your own theory, about what might have gone wrong with Professor Shapiro’s analysis.
If you ask me, the cherry picking cold is a refreshing change that acts as a balance to the constant barrage of heat apocalypse on the media. They’re hypocrites; cold is just weather, yet heat is climate change. Never mind that every time there’s record heat there’s usually record cold nearby.
Actually, folk who come on here seem always to point out that climate has always changed, does change and always will change.
So how come we are Climate Change Deniers?
Well, before that, we were Global Warming Deniers.
And, in the words of Jim Hansen, coal trains are actually “death trains”. And Coal fired power stations are “death factories”.
I wonder if this Professor of Psychology might be able to work out exactly what is going on here?
Or perhaps it is he that is joking.
Although in GangGreen circles they likely support Ayatollah Khomenie’s stricture “There are No jokes in Islam.”
Nor in Climate Make Believe.
Obviously.
Absolutely no joking allowed. This is grim stuff for them. Their being depends on this being taken seriously, as if when that happens they’ll begin to find some joy in life. (They won’t).
I think joylessness is at the root of all the rubbish ideology we’re seeing. The joyless see happy people just getting along in life and they don’t like that because they’re so burdened by every little thing. And they think that if we take their burdens seriously and make them ours as well, they’ll be happy (probably only because they suspect we won’t be happy any more).
(Here I’m equating “happy” with not feeling obliged to live by an ideology ALL THE TIME. I don’t think anyone can be happy for even a second with that kind of overlord.)
“Well, before that, we were Global Warming Deniers.”
Before that, I was a Global Cooling Denier. That was in the ’70s. Doesn’t seem that long ago.
Our friends on the left accuse others of what they do.
Hey, I was going to say that.
The Iron Law of Woke Protection never fails.
“Accuse your enemy of what you are doing, as you are doing it to create confusion.” – Karl Marx
Sounds like Groucho too!
Shapiro is guilty of the binary thinking that he accuses ‘deniers’ of committing. He can’t see that he is painting all those who don’t accept the paradigm, with the same broad brush and is therefore reducing the dissent and skepticism to denier or acceptor with no grey between. “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” But, then this was published in The Conversation.
Seems like binary is the key. Get a load of his other article from the “Conversation.”
https://theconversation.com/the-thinking-error-at-the-root-of-science-denial-96099
And: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227632098_Two_kinds_of_identity_crisis
The first mistake Shapiro, like every other Climate Fascist cheerleader, makes is assuming that “human induced climate change” is a proven factual concept.
There remains ZERO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that atmospheric CO2 “drives” the Earth’s temperature. AND there is plenty of empirical evidence that it does no such thing. In order for people who don’t agree with the Scriptures of the Church of Global Warming to be “denying” the existence of something, one must first provide EVIDENCE OF ITS EXISTENCE. “Hypothetical bullshit” is NOT evidence.
And yes, we climate realists love to poke fun by commenting about cold weather, extended periods where temperatures don’t climb despite rising CO2 levels, etc. because the Climate Fascists constantly point at every hot stretch of weather, storm, etc. as “evidence of ‘climate change,'” when it is no such thing. It is ALL JUST WEATHER.
How many alarmist articles have you seen recently that start “Just look outside your window…” counting on the power of suggestion (and the Begging the Question fallacy) to win their point.
“The first mistake Shapiro, like every other Climate Fascist cheerleader, makes is assuming that “human induced climate change” is a proven factual concept.”
Yes, Shapiro, and other climate alarmists are assuming way too much.
I would ask Shapiro to produce the defninitve evidence he thinks he has that proves CO2 is doing anything to the Earth’s weather or climate. His opinion must be based on something. What is it?
Mr. Shapiro, I’ve been looking for definitive evidence of a link between CO2 and the Earth’s weather for decades now, and haven’t seen one shred of evidence that CO2 is doing anything detrimental to the Earth’s atmosphere or anything else. At this point, we don’t know whether CO2 is net warming or net cooling. But here you are assuming net warming.
Help me out here. Give me a reason to stop being a climate change skeptic. (I’m betting Shapiro’s only “evidence” is a Hockey Stick chart).
And of course, we all know, that Mr. Shapiro could not provide such evidence even if his life depended on doing so because there is no such evidence. All climat alarmists have is speculation, and unsubstantiated assumptions and assertions. No evidence.
Climate Alarmists are invited to try to prove that wrong.
I predict we won’t hear a peep out of the climate alarmists on this topic. You ask a climate alarmist for evidence and suddenly they go quiet. That ought to tell you something. Here you have a climate change skeptic taunting the climate change alarmists, and we won’t hear a peep out of the climate change alarmists because the truth is they don’t have any evidence, so they remain silent.
Prove it. That’s all you have to do to change a skeptic to a believer.
See, no replies. We know why. They know why.
Yet they persist in being alarmists.
Shapiro looks uncannily like Leon Trotsky. Similar politics too.
It’s like someone who calls everyone and everything racist; that being defined where race is an integral part of everything. So, who really is the racist?
I am old enough to have had Freudian professors, so Professor Shapiro is engaged in projection. It is not that “deniers” make any doubt into something that disproves CAGW, it is that Green True Believers that equate any questioning of their current disaster claims with being morally equivalent to Neo-Nazis denying the Holocaust.
I have never been able to get an answer to the question…
What do we “deny” that they have solid, repeatable scientific proof for?
AGW is akin to a Grimm Bros fairy-tale when it comes to scientific basis.
It is like saying we deny the existence of the Big Bad Wolf, or Goldilocks, or the Easter Bunny.
Whatever warming is occurring is probably a combination of natural causes, as in the past, and ,to a smaller degree, human activity. The problem is that the so-called experts can’t put a number on either, though the alarmists try to convince us that it’s strictly due to the latter. The reality is that neither governments nor businesses, nor industries nor consumers are going to do enough about the issue because it will cost them too much money and/or inconvenience.
They put a number of 💯 % on human Causes because they don’t have the ability to differentiate the sources.
Don’t forget that, to some extent, all sorts of stuff has an effect on Climate.
Deforrestation. Building Dams and impoundig reservoirs, Urbanisation.
Then there are the effects of herds of elephants. Termites. Plankton.
But one thing is quite clear. The tiny increase in temperatures in the last 150 years and the tiny increase in a trace gas essential to all life on Earth that followed that trivial warming has been 100% beneficial.
Beneficial? It depends on your point of view. True, the increase in warming and the increase in plant food (CO2) have given us an increase of arable land in higher latitudes, and an overall increased greening of the planet as seen from space (https://bit.ly/3nr14Sp). Consequently the planet can sustain more human beings, and the burning of fossil fuels can be recognized as a net benefit, not at all evil.
I’m sorry, but there is a large, vocal contingent for whom all if this is quite intolerable.
yep – NA was actually in a mini-ice age period until about 1865 so it makes perfect sense that things would be warmer after the end of that period – in some of my old Texas history books there are notes about Trinity Bay, a salt water body of water actually freezing enough for people to walk across in the early 1800s – now that’s cold
“The reality is that neither governments nor businesses, nor industries nor consumers are going to do enough about the issue because it will cost them too much money and/or inconvenience.“. That’s true, of course, but it isn’t the problem. The problem is that governments are spending far too much on it for political not climate reasons, And they spend our money.
That may be the case now for governments and businesses, but as soon as the climate/energy financial penalties bite with ongoing policies that create more expensive energy, fueling inflation, reducing industry jobs etc you will see everybody complaining. They will put social media pressure on politicians, media and scientists to prove the alarmist case or give it up as a stupid bad idea that is not going to solve anything, never mind change any climate dials towards ‘normal’. We sceptics of human climate change have sufficient evidence now to blow away any orthodox belief in any kind of immanent climate emergency. The whole climate thing is only held together by the gravy train of massive funding in academia and renewable energy subsidies, once that is withdrawn by exposure of the real scientific data, the facade collapses. When lifestyle hardships and blackouts hit the middle classes voting for Greens, Teals and Labor, support for the climate drama will evaporate, they will finally realism their altruism has been misplaced, and they will be angry, taking it out on culpable politicians like Bowen and Co.
This amounts to a stated hypothesis with no data to support it. He states it as fact but explains it without any evidence other than his own supposition. The psychology professor flunks logic 101.
Is psychology really a science?
Its there with Economics, climate change as an academic pseudo-science
Has much more in common with marketing/advertising as academic study as they say with advertising in practice 50% is wasted but dont know which half
Almost as “Scientific” as Trans Gender Studies.
There are some who would class propaganda, as a science.
Yes. Some are called “the ‘leading’ climate scientists.”
I call projection, he is describing what the APGW do with any weather, good, bad or indifferent. It is amazing that they cannot see this…..
The professor doesn’t understand what trolling leftwingers is all about. That was what Trump was doing and what skeptics often do just to get a rise out of them. Skeptics don’t need a lecture about binary thinking. We see it every day when ever the warmists pop up.
I agree with all the above comments. The professor begins his argumentation by postulating a number of assumptions, with which I partially disagree. His primary assumption is climate change is true. I can readily agree with that, because climate is always changing. His second assumption is a whopper: Climate change is man-made. I and everyone else commenting disagree with that assumption. Neither he nor anyone else can prove the portion of change for which man is responsible. But when facts run out, faith intervenes. For the rabid followers (greenies), the matter becomes religious. For the lead greenies (AKA communists and socialists), the issue was always control of the masses. The lead greenies have seized significant power by preaching this religion. However, resistance is sharpening, as the Neanderthalic standard of living which accrues from the green agenda becomes apparent. Automakers are now planning on the continuation of the IC engine. The Brits are fighting the 15 minute city concept, and heat pumps in every home, and unaffordable utilities, and all the rest. A farmer’s revolt is brewing in the Netherlands. Americans see the destruction of the former destination states of California and New York, now leading the nation in emigration and population reduction.
We all believe climate is changing, and some portion is man-made (light a match, and you have warmed the planet to some immeasurable degree). But reasonable analysis indicates that our portion of the responsibility is small (read Steven Koonin “Unsettled”). However, the damage imposed by the immediate adoption of unworkable electric “cars”, elimination of natural gas heating and electrical generation, the incredible expense of solar and wind-generated electricity, the impossible expense of tripling our electrical grids and so on – these accumulated costs will bankrupt nations and decimate the middle class. The great masses are waking up to this reality. We need technologies, like fusion power, batteries and electric cars, to evolve and, when they are superior, replace current technologies. In the 20th century, we didn’t simply mandate an automobile industry – it grew by developing superior alternatives to horses and trains. Later in the same epoch, the Soviets did mandate an auto industry, and got the Trabant. Time to slow down, to wait a few ticks. Eating our bread before it is baked will only make all of us sick.
Agree with the exception that batteries will never “evolve” to the point that allows EVs to have equivalent utility and practicality of ICE vehicles.
The promising thing with the Dutch farming situation is that the opposition is being seen at the ballot box. Of course, the Dutch government is simply doing what its EU masters are telling it to do, but the rise of the Farmers Party can at least threaten how acquiescent the Dutch Govt will be to EU diktats. There are local elections due here in the UK, I don’t know if any ’15 minute city’ councils are up for grabs but if there are it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any backlash from voters.
Is’nt there a non binary oracle in a vapor filled cave somewhere that can settle this issue once and for all?
You can have a PhD and lack any common sense. Met a lot of profs like that in university days. That’s why they teach. Eltahir should be ashamed of himself for this level of sterotyping.
Hes an adjunct , seems to have a day job or something
His advice on couples therapy – probably his day job makes sense
https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/thinking-in-black-white-and-gray/202112/why-trying-fix-relationship-sometimes-makes-things
Im wondering if the editors at the Conversation cut important parts of his article before publication, as thats their schtick to use journalism techniques and editing
You forgot to add “and run the executive branch of almost every liberal led government including Brandon’s administration.”
The Ivory Tower % in the current US appointments exceed any ever from the past, and the % during Democrat administrations have increases consistently with every new Dem POTUS.
And the results are as would be expected.
Two fun comments from the article:
A 2021 review of thousands of climate science papers and conference proceedings concluded that over 99% of studies have found that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. That’s not good enough for some skeptics.
However, the current warming is on par with nothing humans have ever seen, and intense warming events in the distant past were planetwide disasters that caused massive
extinctions – something we do not want to repeat.
comment: 1) So much for the 97% consensus, it’s now 99% that all deniers agree with and are surprised it’s not 100% (and he accuses us of ‘black and white thinking”, and 2) the professor must not have taken Historical Geology in pursuit of his education having missed learning about the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warms.
Make it 110%.
I see your 110% and raise you 52.298%
“However, the current warming is on par with nothing humans have ever seen, and intense warming events in the distant past were planetwide disasters that caused massive
extinctions – something we do not want to repeat”
Too late. We’re already repeating warmth similar to the previous warmings that, before climate science was hijacked were known as climate OPTIMUMS for life that flourished because of them.
Medieval Warm Period
Roman Warm Period
Minoan Warm Period.
However, we have a ways to go in order to warm the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere up to Holocene Climate OPTIMUM temperatures between 9,000-5,000 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
Of 140 sites across the western Arctic, there is clear evidence for conditions that were warmer than now at 120 sites. At 16 sites for which quantitative estimates have been obtained, local temperatures were on average 1.6±0.8 °C higher during the optimum than now. Northwestern North America reached peak warmth first, from 11,000 to 9,000 years ago, but the Laurentide Ice Sheet still chilled eastern Canada. Northeastern North America experienced peak warming 4,000 years later. Along the Arctic Coastal Plain in Alaska, there are indications of summer temperatures 2–3 °C warmer than now.[9] Research indicates that the Arctic had less sea ice than now.[10]
Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heathttps://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/
History books and authentic climate science tells us with certainty that humans existed during all those previous warmings………..and they did much better because of it.
This guy tells us that following authentic, proven history and science is flawed thinking but his laughably extreme, manufactured junk science(fiction) is supposed to be proof of that?
The 2nd link above was not separated from the title.
Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat
https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/
I agree with what you have written Mike,
Those so called scientists pushing global warming are the deniers .
They will not accept the evidence that you have written about .
There is plenty of proof that this world has been warmer than it is at present at least 3 times since the last major Ice Age .
The world has warmed around 1.6C since 1850 which was when the earth started warming up from the Little Ice Age which was a cold cruel time in Europe and the northern hemisphere .
There is far more water vapour in the atmosphere that overlaps any effect that the trace gases CO2 CH4 and NO2 may have .
The theory of runaway global warming is that more CO2 will some how warm the atmosphere that will then hold more water vapour and the climate will go into overdrive.
We have already seen the Tongan volcanic eruption in early 2022 that threw an estimated 185 million tonnes of sea water into the atmosphere .
The effects are slowly dissipating as this amount of water and the heat that it held has to be expelled to the poles .
New Zealand has been in the path of the tropical cyclones and they are now talking about atmospheric rivers moving south taking this extra water vapour and heat to Antarctica .
“…burning fossil fuels warms the planet.” And Earth’s natural and generated radioactivity “warms the planet”, as do cosmic rays and meteor showers. The question is: by how much? Compared to the vast amounts of energy absorbed from the sun and radiated from Earth into space, and the wide variations in these quantities over both time and the Earth’s surface, are these other energy sources significant, or trivial? With the exception of natural radioactivity, I’d vote for trivial. The CAGW crowd has latched onto the possibility that a minute change in atmospheric composition can cause drastic changes in this complex and always changing. energy balance. Color me skeptical.
“My personal theory is most greens don’t possess a sense of humour, so they have difficulty recognising humour when they see it. I accept that Professor Shapiro genuinely believes Trump is being serious when he pokes fun at climate alarmist tropes.”
They are just miserable and looking for any excuse to portray others as stupid or ignorant.
And Trump said that back in 2012, before he was running for political office.
What might have gone wrong with Shapiro’s analysis?
The same thing that nearly always goes wrong when people try to denigrate others. The failure to perceive the failings of the person they see in a mirror.
Some good points here and in comments. The good adjunct assistant professor takes cagw as as self-evident, a given, and any dispute must arise from wrong thinking on the part of the sceptic. Presumably he is unfamiliar with the climate debate, else he would know that the claiming idiosyncracies of weather as proof of long-term climate trend is closely associated with climate cultists.
However I was startled to read that Eric Worrall believes that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of recent warming, rather than eg us emerging from the Little Ice Age.
I can’t speak for Eric, but I don’t think he said that. What I read was that it is warming and CO2 is involved. Like saying vinegar is involved in the enjoyment of a Fish Supper, a minor not measurable role and not everyone agrees
“Climate change denier” is a term that has no objective definition. That term is, in fact, an expression of unreasoned bigotry against anyone who uses science to oppose someone who has a distaste for the scientific method.
The first rule of Debate Club is that no one talks about Debate Club.
The second rule of Debate Club is: The first person to use ad hominems or other baseless categorization of their opponent loses the debate.
Professor Shapiro has lost the debate.
Professor Shapiro is hereby cancelled.
There is a high degree of non-critical thinking on both sides of this issue.
Vastly more from the alarmist side who are prone to swallow everything told to them by the establishment. Their knowledge of actual observations are scant and they rely more on the speculation of who they consider authority. General knowledge of climate related issues is much higher among sceptics
probably, but the side claiming absolute truth and that we must spend hundreds of trillions of dollars to solve the problem, and we must drastically change everything about our civilization to get “climate justice”- meaning social revolution- that side is the crazy and dangerous one
Almost EVERY DEMOCRAT I have ever known will agree with the premise that “All politicians lie”.
But they will never agree that Dem or Lib politicians who lie should be removed from office or NOT re-elected.
But MOST Republicans/conservatives who are caught up in their lies are NOT re-elected, and generally removed in the primaries.
Where is Case Western Reserve? Sounds like a cattle railway line to me. He’d better get some grants so he can fly private around the world to study the issue. Just guessing that that’s what he’s hoping for.
Cleveland . Western reserve is just an old name for Ohio before it became a state
Thanks for that. I guess we never get to old to learn something. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I didn’t know that, especially since I live next door.
At one time it was part of the original Connecticut charter, who eventually ceded it to the Federal government. (Note the separation caused by NYS and PA.)
“This became its Western Reserve. In 1795 it sold most of this land to a group of investors who had formed the Connecticut Land Company and in the following year the company began the survey of the land to prepare it for sale. The survey party was led by Moses Cleaveland, the namesake of Cleveland, Ohio.”
Moses, dividing up the promised land.
See the map here.
 
Note the connection to Connecticut.
It seems to me that The Conversation is an easy way for liberal academics to meet their quota of publications. It helps if the submission supports the agenda of editors who have publicly stated that they will remove comments that do not toe their editorial line. I have personally had comments removed for making the author look incompetent.
The New Left are the people they warned you about…
Do any of you seriously believe a single cold snap disproves global warming?
About as much as every hot spell drought bushfire or tree ring pointed to hysterically by the usual suspects proves catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. It all just goes to demonstrate the null hypothesis that the climate is always changing.
Following the lead of the main TV News channels available in the UK I blame everything on the Climate Emergency. Everything from burning the breakfast toast, it’s made the bread more susceptible to burning, to running out of milk for the tea it’s affected my memory.
If it happens it’s the Climate Emergency don’t you know.
Since the weather must change for 30 years in order for climate to change, where are all the weather change deniers?
Since the (extreme) weather has not changed in over 100 years, what is this climate change we are talking about? The slight warming the Earth has experienced has not caused weather to change over multi-decadal climatic time intervals. Climate change as envisioned by alarmists has not been occurring. We need to keep pointing out this fact.
”Cold spells often bring climate change deniers out in force on social media, with hashtags like #ClimateHoax and #ClimateScam. Former President Donald Trump often chimes in, repeatedly claiming that each cold snap disproves the existence of global warming.
From a scientific standpoint, these claims of disproof are absurd. Fluctuations in the weather don’t refute clear long-term trends in the climate. ”
You see here. This is the quality of thinking from a professor. He can’t even differentiate between real arguments and popular musings on social media. This bloke should not be allowed anywhere near someone’s head.
The “clear long-term trends in the climate” are zero.
I have mentioned this before, but it needs said again:
“Adjunct Assistant Professor”
… is a secondary sort of position usually assigned a low level class and paid a bit less than the local dog catcher. Such a person often has more than one of these positions, maybe at a different institution. Or, perhaps, there is a spouse or partner involved; or the parent’s basement. Within the academic establishment such a person has no standing. A dog catcher is only called “mayor” in jest. Jeremy Shapiro might be called “Mister” if introduced by the Department Heat to other folks.
He likely has psychological issues that cannot be determined from afar.
They made one certain assistant adjunct law professor president once. And I think he may still be president.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie Patton when Patton is talking to an aid and he says (paraphrasing) …you know how I know they are done out there? The carts, they are using carts to move their equipment…
I see psychologists adding their excuses for deniers the same way Patton saw the Germans using carts.
And in the nearly 40 years since he got his PhD – he’s finally made it to the kindergarten playground.
(It’s not an intrinsic fault within himself, I am not launching Ad-Hom as he is.
He’s got the same thing Brandon has, just not as advanced.
It was ‘something he ate‘ that brought it on – and myriad tiny things he’s not eating.)
PS How much (generic) Tylenol does anyone consume – I have a hideous trufax story about that stuff too.which impinges directly here.
I wonder if our friendly local adjunct has come upon it, it doesn’t appear so.
“I personally support the premise that the world has warmed since the mid 1800s”
I don’t think that position is supportable by data. But it’s an artefact of presenting “global temperature” as a single number on all the graphs we see. Even when it’s “anomalies”. they give the false impression that every temperature regime moves as one. Simply not true.
It is truly unfortunate that all the early weather stations didn’t also record wet-bulb temperatures to thereby calculate relative humidity.
Sent to Jeremy P. Shapiro, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
Subject: Your field, Psychology …
… not physical science.
From a scientific standpoint, claims of proof of AGW are absurd. Yet many people believe these claims,
One would think that a psychologist would know the danger of declaiming from ignorance. Evidently not.
“Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full
Climate models have no predictive value. The air temperature projections of the IPCC are physically meaningless. See the attached.
“Are Climate Modelers Scientists?”
https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.34218.70083
Climate modelers are not competent to evaluate the physical reliability of their own models.
45 MB of evidence on that score: https://ufile.io/f5luc
You should have stuck to your competence, Jeremy. Instead, you argued from the misplaced confidence of agreement with authority.
Always a bad move. It’s the thinking error that makes people susceptible to “climate change” assertion.
Yours,
Pat
Patrick Frank
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
These things are, we conjecture, like the truth;
But as for certain truth, no one has known it.
Xenophanes, 570-500 BCE
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nice. I look forward to reading his reply……
don’t hold your breath 🙂
That made me laugh! 🙂
Not a peep, as of today.
I made similar criticisms of him at Microsoft Start, which republished The Conversation article a couple of days ago.
Rarely a reply and nothing ever changes, but I feel a bit better for awhile.
I’ve accumulated quite a crop of intellectual/moral cowards, though.
I do wish that there was something that we could do that was more effective.
I have observed that when commenting on Yahoo and MSN news sites about gun control, the response degrades as I add more comments. I suspect that my bandwidth is being throttled to discourage me. The only consolation is that I might actually be viewed as a threat to their agenda.
Our only recourse is to keep on plugging, Clyde, and hope the message gets out.
I recently uploaded “Are Climate Modelers Scientists?” to Researchgate. In less than a month, it gathered 100 reads.
One step at a time. 🙂
It’s obvious from every single interview with an alarmist, that they see things totally in black or white. Look how they routinely pillory anyone who disagrees with them, even if said person 100% believes in man made climate change but just doesn’t think it’s quite as serious as the zealots believe. Ironic they are trying to project their failings onto the opposition.
“It’s obvious from every single interview with an alarmist, that they see things totally in black or white.”
Isn’t that the truth!
It’s the catastrophic part of the debate that matters. Without the projected catastrophes the whole debate is one of scientific interest and inquiry but the politicians and associated money boys just love them some of that catastrophe stuff. Bait and switch always empties the pockets of the rubes into the hands of the spins.
Spivs, sorry.
He is an adjunct Professor. That means he can’t get a steady Professor job with tenure. Anybody know why?
Adjunct Professor is an honorary title. In some cases, it is somebody with qualifications in the field who is supervising students in off-campus placements. This tends to be a requirement of many /universities. It’s nice to put on the CV, but is usually unpaid.
Assistant Professor may be something like our Associate Professor, which is between a Senior Lecturer and Professor in the academic pecking order.
actually, very few universities now offer tenure- more and more of teaching at American colleges are adjuncts- a great way to save money in order to pay the tenured people and administrators far more than they’re worth
Back when I was teaching as a full-time, tenured, Associate Professor at Foothill College (Los Altos Hills, CA) in the ’70s, there was already a trend to hire part-time instructors. I knew people who had as many as 5 different teaching positions, probably spending more time driving to their jobs than they actually spent teaching. This allowed administrators and unfunded positions for diversity programs to be paid more. I’m sure the situation has gotten worse in the intervening years.
Not necessarily. I have had adjunct professors who were very very good, and the reason they were very very good is that they had a day job in which they actually did the work they talked about in class.
This guy’s real problem is that he is a psychologist, which is a pseudo-science in many ways, and he is trying to lecture us about our feelings on a hard science subject he knows nothing about.
The direct contribution to surface temperature from CO2 is unmeasurable.
Convective instability that causes the monsoon to form persistent cloud that limits open ocean surface temperature to 30C is only sensitive to atmospheric mass. Sensitivity is close to 1C for a 5% increases in atmospheric mass around the present mass. So adding 0.028% mass to the atmosphere corresponds to 0.0056C rise through doubling in CO2 from pre-industrial level. I regard that as unmeasurable on Earth’s surface.
A while back we saw the calibration curve for the Pirani vacuum gauge. That spurred me to think about how a simpler device could make the same point in a more readily understood way.
My simple test was to compare a vacuum sealed light bulb with just the filament in an identical globe – I got hold of two 15W/240V globes and cut the glass off one of them with a small diamond wheel. At the identical temperature, measured by doubling the filament resistance from the cold state for both the globe and filament alone, the power loss from the globe was 13mW compared with 760mW from just the filament; proving the radiation component is negligible compared with the sensible heat loss.
Anyone can do this test to prove that long wave radiation energy is negligible in the heat transfer at ground level. The radiation diagram shown on page 934 of WG1 is fantasy. There is no back radiation and negligible radiation at surface level. Heat transport is all via convection and conduction..
Hmm, at a surface temp of 288 C, the surface emits about 390 W/sq.M and the mosaic of cloud bottoms at freezing, outerspace at -270C masked by greenhouse gases at many different temperatures and emissivities averages out to appear to be at 277 C…..for net upward IR emission of about 55 watts/sq. M. Since conduction and convection total about 100 W/sq.M daily average (with a wide day to night and wet surface to dry surface variation) you can’t really say radiation is negligible.
Rick, study some radiative transfer in a bit more depth. Let us know when you get to equation 10-10…Engineers use this stuff to calculate how hot electrical equipment is going to run, and design space shields for the James Webb telescope. It works and it’s correct.
https://wiki.epfl.ch/me341-hmt/documents/lectures/slides_10_Radiation.pdf
The radiation heat emission from the surface at ground level is negligible. My experiment proves that.
If you want to think about back radiation then you should also think about back convection – same stupid concept. And the back convection also swamps the back radiation.
Most of the short wave radiation is absorbed in the first metre. So your back radiation to the surface is from ground level air temperature not cloud bottoms.
Any claimed power measuring instrument sensing EMR that relies on the S-B equation for calibration is not measuring power. It is a power inference meter.
“I’m a socialist,” Hinton added. “I think that private ownership of the media, and of the ‘means of computation’, is not good.
Explains a lot.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/04/bernie-sanders-elon-musk-and-white-house-seeking-my-help-says-godfather-of-ai
I wonder if the Psycho Genius has ever heard of the periods of extreme cold that occur in Mongolia.
They are called by the locals “Zud” or “Dzud”.
Notable ones were in 1944/5 and 2009/10, i well remember the latter because it was just after the Copenhagen CoP Global Warming Fest where Climategate was brushed under the carpet, Robert Redford said “It is Time to Act”, we Brits had the Climate Change Act 2008 to celebrate and the Danish prostitutes gave their serices free to Delegates. ( No Jokes. And never a mention by the MSM).
The Dzud sported around 50 days of minus 50 degree C, and killed around 2.2 million grazing cattle, goats, horses etc. Pretty bad for a Country which then and now was heavily based on nomadic grazing.
How many people on here remember? How much reported in the West? At a time when a hot day in Benidorm gets reported? Or a 60 second temperature spike beside a concrete runway when a Typhoon jet takes off is headline news (with zero explanation) as Hottest UK temperature EVER!
What does Genius Adjunk know about Dzuds? Is he aware of the 2015/16 one? (17% Livestock then Deadstock).
The warning of another one in 2022/23?.
Is he aware that “Climate” is supposed to be measured over at least 30 years. And that even Dzuds are just weather?
What is it with these psychology majors opining on “climate change” as if they know what they’re talking about? John Cook, Jeremy Shapiro, what do you know about the relevant data and science that makes you an expert and able to declare with authority that “climate denialists” are deluded? I am a proud climate denialist in possession of far more facts about the lack of evidence for any of the claims made by the climatistas than you are. You are the ones who are so utterly deluded that you refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that there is no imminent—or even distant—apocalypse.
Black and white thinking?.. No, the professor sees everything as black.. black.. BLACK!
Accuse the other side of that of which you are guilty. Always.
30 second head spike at the end of a runway on a hot summer’s day = Climate Emergency.
No doubt he thinks there are 2,345 genders.
With a few notable exceptions, like Jordan Petersen, the whole field of psychology is rotten with junk scientists. This fellow, in his most woke spectacles, had an idle notion which he expanded into an essay without one iota of data. He manufactured a myth to to bolster the already swollen egos of the righteously afraid. Without regard for multiple surveys which confirmed that climate realists generally have a much greater understanding of the mechanics of the greenhouse effect and a much more nuanced understanding of the likely effects of increasing greenhouse gases, he blundered on with his concoction. Meanwhile, perhaps we can be forgiven for pointing out conspicuous gaps in the MSM reporting such as coverage of the current exceptionally cold spring in the N. A. Northwest.
Psychobabble is about right. The replication crisis that is gripping all science makes that term even more applicable.
Another alpha pontificating on how betas think. The gentleman wouldn’t recognise a diffusion equation if his life depended on it but clearly believes he can know what moves in the mind of a physicist or mathematician. In the process he overlooks the obvious and ubiquitous real reason for our lamented skepticism: professional expertise.
A logical mistake I see every day is the use of “climate change” as a force of nature. “Climate change” causes increased flooding; “climate change” causes increase drought; “climate change” causes . . . You see my point.
“Climate change” is the RESULT of increased rainfall, drought, hurricane activity, etc. It’s like saying wet sidewalks caused the rain.
Well, it can be. Of course, not the way the alarmist idiots mean it (to them, it’s “human induced”).
If the mostly external forces that are the real drivers of “climate” (like solar activity, orbital and gravitational effects of the Earth and other Solar System planets, wobble/tilt of the Earth’s rotation, galactic cosmic ray activity, etc.) increase or decrease the amount of solar energy being received (by varying the distance from the Sun, changing the amount of cloud cover in the Earth’s atmosphere, etc.), that can have a big impact on the weather experienced on the Earth’s surface.
Most psychologists I have met, don’t have the remotest clue how to think rationally. !
It all just fantasies. !
Adjunct assistant professors of psychological sciences have to come up with something (anything) to justify their existence on the payroll.
“My field, psychology, can help explain – and help people avoid being misled.”
Translation – “I should be on the CAGW gravy train.”
The sense of humor has been programed out of many people these days, foremost among them are the alarmists. Without a sense of humor everything is a disaster. Is that not a black and white mindset, or is that just a permanently grey outlook?
Every single thing these people hear MUST prove that their theory (any of their theories) works. Mind you, I see proof of my theories everywhere but I don’t expect anyone to be forced into a life of servitude to make me feel better. I feel fine now.
“black-and-white thinking”
idiotic! there are many perspectives among the skeptics- all that idiot had to do was read WUWT to see the various perspectives
psycologists are barely more scientific than astrology- though I ended up as a forestry major – I had switched majors several times- for one year I was a psych major- took 7 courses then realized that they know nothing- completely zero- so I thought time to get into some very real- like forests, managing timber stands- I’ve been a realist ever since compared to my early days as an idealist
There was a time when I was in high school that I thought that I might like to be a lawyer. As I thought about it more, I decided that I should pursue honest work. That also left out becoming a psychologist.
Maybe Mr Shapiro, just have titled his book “Finding Unicorns”.
100% = Consensus … 99% <> Consensus
Consensus is black and white …
Scientists are alarmed as ocean surface temperatures have continuously set new record-breaking highs over the last month.
According to data analyzed by the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, daily ocean surface temperatures breached historical record highs since at least 1982 in April.
story tip
https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-horrified-sea-surface-temperatures-spike
I was searching for that article this morning, and did a search on “overheating ocean” and was presented with example after example of this kind of climate alarmist scaremongering over the years about the ocean.
Every headline screams the Earth is on the verge of disaster from an overheating ocean.
But then you realize they have been making these crazy claims for many years, and none of them have amounted to anything detrimental or unusual.
Wolf! Wolf! But there is no wolf.
What happened in 1982 that is different from today that so “horrified scientists?”
nobody denies any facts, what is often denied is the pseudo science of the climate change cult … and usually what they label as “denial” is simply questioning the underlying facts/science … which of course they never have any answers too …
My Theory
just trying to plug for sales for his book
funding goldilocks, selling to those black/white thinkers who would buy the book.It got colder today in South West England, winter must be coming
The point of the exercise is not to present a logical argument or convince anyone. This is Soviet style coercion and confirmation.
The coercion part is if you disagree with the narrative you have mental issues.
The confirmation part is that the people who buy this do in fact think in binary, 0 or 1, right or wrong, left or right, and it makes sense to assume your opponent operates in the same simplistic way.
I assume this article was meant to be ironic. Climate change catastrophists take every heat wave and drought is proof of runaway warming that will end all life on Earth.
Every night on ABC they have a weather disaster bit with a meteorologist standing in a flooded river or out in a snow storm or on the side of a mudslide. Every night! The implication is that this is part of the existential emergency of climate change! To me it’s just freakin weather. Now who is the one with the thinking error?
“From a scientific standpoint, these claims of disproof are absurd”
What is truly scientifically absurd, is referring to model projections of drier European summers due to rising CO2 forcing (+NAO), when some regions have seen on average wetter summers since 1995 due to lower indirect solar forcing (-NAO).
But taunting alarmists with cold extremes which the model projections suggest should be less frequent is kind of funny, but that’s not based on real science either as both major heat and cold waves are discretely solar driven and not ‘climate forced’.
Right. The man is:
Jeremy P. Shapiro
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
Ok. If this was not the reputable site I know it to be I would have laughed and forget about it.
This man is an Adjunct Assistant Professor. In my country anybody can call himself Professor. It is not a protected title. But he is an Assistant Prof. So not even a self claimed Professor but an Assistant one. How odd and who does such a thing to themselves?
But it gets weirder. He actually is an Adjunct etc. so he is basically a helper to the helper of a professor which in itself can be anything.
He then claims to be that in the Psychological Sciences. I only know of Social Sciences or Psychology. Very very curious indeed. BTW both are not science. There are merely a string of opinions and a lot of talking about those opinions. I call that happy hour.
Furthermore he claims to be from a “Reserve” university. Ok that’s enough.
April Fool’s is late this year just like spring . Must be all that Global Cooling that I don’t believe in
How odd and who does such a thing to themselves?
You self identify and wherever the journey takes you didn’t you know?
Lesbian woman of colour ‘holding up the mirror’ to the Left (msn.com)
Do keep up with woke science.
Isn’t “Psychological Sciences” an oxymoron?
They actually make more money than other social sciences and econ because their services are often covered in the health insurance plans from employers and Medicaid Plans of “free” state coverage for the poor. They are also enriched by schools as child psychologists–so they can make a lot more money working multiple positions with adjunct academic as one of several. Ka-ching $$$
It’s your basic strawman argument. When you can’t assail your opponent’s valid arguments, you make up arguments that you can assail and attribute them to your opponent.
Apparently they don’t teach the concept of “logical fallacies” in psychology classes.
“I personally support the premise that the world has warmed since the mid 1800s, and anthropogenic CO2 likely contributed. “
Yet, looking past this psychologist’s personal beliefs, atmospheric CO2 levels did not increase significantly until the mid 1900s. So what’s up with that initial 100 years of warming?
And what’s up with those cooling periods in between the warming periods.
The professor seems to think the temperatures have steadily climbed but in fact they have climbed and fallen again and again. So which portion of this warming is he talking about?
Climate change deniers simplify…
IMO, greens simplify “deniers” and their thinking into caricatures that are easy strawmen to attack. This article is a perfect example.
I’m 97% sure that there isn’t a 100% consensus and that “the science” isn’t settled.
The “progressive greens” are the ones who invented “climate change denier” to denigrate all those who do not support their war on fossil fuels and a centralized world government with full control of the world’s economy.
When does ChatGPT or other more advanced AI systems replace Adjunct Assistant Professors of Psychological Sciences anyway? I’m ready.
seems to me climate deniers suffer from only one thing – common sense
When are these idiots going to learn that consensus is NOT science.
The real error is in thinking that consensus has anything to do with science.
May I suggest that Professor Shapiro is the one suffering from thinking errors. This difficulty in thinking arising from a deep seated bigotry toward those who do not support his views, which is evidenced by the use of such pejorative terms such as “climate change denier”.
If he had done any research on the subject he would know that the “Deniers” do not deny that the climate changes, we know it is in a constant state of change seeking a balance it will never achieve. We also know that the climate has gone through numerous cycles of sharp increases in temperature followed by declines in temperature over the millennia having absolutely nothing to do with CO2 levels. As a consequence we question the claims of the “Warmists”, after all questioning/skepticism is at the core of science, who use computer models that fail to accurately portray the climate and insanely demand policies that will kill millions of the most vulnerable, from cold and starvation, if implemented.
Shapiro uses the perjuritive “climate change deniers” term for skeptics. That immediately disqualifies and discredits his opinion as being anything worth considering.
He belongs to the “climate can also cool”-denier school of lunacy.
Great Trump tweet. Shows more than just a sense of humor.
He’s not just playing on the constant eco-communist propagandizing over every bit of hot weather, pretending it is a manifestation of global warming.
I think it shows Trump to be aware that the actual danger is global cooling, not global warming, and that cooling really is bad, while warming (if we are lucky enough to have it continue), is good.
We really do need global warming! Good on Trump for saying it.
The extreme irony comes from the following statement in the article
Either he is making a strawman argument by insisting he’s targeting people who deny climate is changing or he has no clue what arguments are being made.
I guess that rules out the first option.
Implying he has made close examination of the arguments is disingenuous at best but taken at face value, an outright lie
But the irony is that he is implicitly categorising people as scientists who know climate and are correct about their analysis vs people who are deniers who know nothing about climate and are wrong about their analysis. What ever that analysis might be.
Psychology is barely science, and any article that starts by conjuring up Donald Trump is for children.
We have just entered a grand solar minimum, and this man like so many others will learn the hard way.
This comment thread provides rich material for Dr Shapiro, should he consider writing a new book.
What is the evidence that CO2 contributed to warming/ climate change? Physics doesn’t support that claim: CO2 infrared absorption – Climate Auditor
Is Shapiro’s article the best example of gaslighting ever posted on this site?
The entire 97% consensus is grounded in simplifying the spectrum of possible scientific consensus into two categories.
Nothing but a strawman from the prof. And you know he’s serious by looking at his glasses. No one who wears glasses like that has any sense of humor by the way. They all got sticks up their butts
“Jeremy P. Shapiro
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences”
I think if you have to add the word science into your discipline name then it’s not self evident and in fact is reaching. What science is, has been allowed to expand to the discipline’s detriment.
“Jeremy P. Shapiro
Philosophy”
Would be more accurate.