Scientists To Fight Climate Change Skeptics With Organized Campaign

Los Angeles Times:

The American Geophysical Union plans to announce that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. Other scientists plan a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[James Mangan]

01:17 PM on 11/24/2010

Since when does legitimate, consensus, indisputable science need an organized campaign?

Sounds to me like maybe, just maybe, we should be paying attention to the fact that data showing the fraud of anthropocentric global warming was deleted and manipulated to further the "green" agenda.

[ObjectiveRealist]

04:50 PM on 01/02/2011

Since "David Koch and his brother Charles have quietly funneled" $50 Million which they inherited from their daddy's oil companies "to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming."
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

James Mangan:
"Since when does legitimate­, consensus, indisputab­le science need an organized campaign?"

Yeah, I know you didn't really want your question answered, but tough luck. The truth is no longer out there, it's at our fingertips.
http://www.thescienceisstillsettled.com/climategate

[ObjectiveRealist]

04:52 PM on 01/02/2011

CORRECTION

How do you claim to have gotten data that "was deleted"?

James Mangan:
"Sounds to me like maybe, just maybe, we should be paying attention to the fact that data showing the fraud of anthropoce­ntric global warming was deleted and manipulate­d to further the 'green' agenda."

You ... *do* know what 'deleted' means, don't you?

[LetsGoSteve]

12:30 AM on 11/22/2010

The real cost of renewable energy.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/05/a-renewable-electricity-standard-what-it-will-really-cost-americans

[ObjectiveRealist]

05:09 PM on 01/02/2011

The real cost of getting your "information" from corporatist "think" tanks is that everything you "know" is a lie.

[tresluv]

05:45 PM on 11/20/2010

Possibly the best available source for information on good science and combating bad (paid for by special interests) science and debunking the flat earthers: Union of Concerned Scientists.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

[mothergrace]

05:50 PM on 11/20/2010

These are good too.

http://climateprogress.org/

http://www.realclimate.org/

[Richard2]

01:34 PM on 11/16/2010

Here is another organized campaign. This one was in Great Britain. It was a PR campaign that sounds similar to what is often heard here in the U.S.

"In August 2006, the IPPR produced a thirty-page report entitled Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? which developed Futerra’s recommendations. This concluded that:

Many of the existing approaches to climate change communications clearly seem unproductive. And it is not enough simply to produce yet more messages, based on rational argument and top-down persuasion, aimed at convincing people of the reality of climate change and urging them to act. Instead, we need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement. To help address the chaotic nature of the climate change discourse in the UK today, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won, at least for popular communications. This means simply behaving as if climate change exists and is real, and that individual actions are effective. The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken."

[Publicola]

02:05 PM on 11/19/2010

Here is another organized campaign. This one was (and is?) in United States. It is a PR campaign that is similar to other PR campaigns here in the U.S. and worldwide.

----------------------

Global Warming Skeptics: A Primer

Guess who's funding the global warming doubt shops?

Posted: 19-Dec-2006; Updated: 28-Aug-2007

In 1998, Exxon devised a plan to stall action on global warming. The plan was outlined in an internal memo that promised, "Victory will be achieved when uncertainties in climate science become part of the conventional wisdom" for "average citizens" and "the media."

The company would recruit and train new scientists who lack a "history of visibility in the climate debate" and develop materials depicting supporters of action to cut greenhouse gas emissions as "out of touch with reality."

While there is no indication that ExxonMobil paid the climate skeptics directly and the scientists may have their own motivations for participating, the company poured millions of dollars into spreading its message worldwide.

http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?ContentID=4870

[mothergrace]

06:00 PM on 11/20/2010

"And it simply not enough to produce yet more messages, based on rational argument..."

They could have gone on to say-

"Because deniers such as Richard2 are irrational in their need for 100% certainty or at least pretend to be so they can deny, mislead, obfuscate and confuse the issue to a public that may not understand the scientific method or statistics and that 100% certainty does not occur."

You see, some of this came about because scientists were trying to be scrupulously honest about the degree of statistical certainty which while it is very good, will never achieve 100%.

Unfortunately, the moment anyone admits to the least degree of less than 100%, people like you leap up and claim the science isn't settled.

Of course, if we say it is settled, you say science is never settled.

Tell me R2, is this how you deal with doctors and plumbers and accountants and any other expert in your life?

Or you just save it for climate science?

[xyzzy02]

05:57 PM on 11/13/2010

Logic and reason, for the most part, do not work. The reason why Republicans have so successfully sold their agenda in the US (to the detriment of the American population and the rest of the world) is that they understand marketing, advertising, salesmanship. That is what they do. That is what they are good at. Liberals think that if they tell people the truth, they will do the right thing. Well, we've been doing that for decades, and the result is that the corporate power Republicans have promoted is more entrenched than ever.

I applaud these scientists for getting involved politically, and they'll be a great help in tackling the enormous problems we face. But we need to understand how big business and its allies in the media and government so successfully push peoples' emotional buttons so that they'll support policies which call for the end of democratic government, the transfer of all wealth to the uber-rich, and the destruction of the natural environment for enrichment of those same few.

It's emotion people use to make decisions, not reason.

[ObjectiveRealist]

06:13 PM on 01/02/2011

Not me!

xyzzy02:
"Logic and reason, for the most part, do not work... It's emotion people use to make decisions, not reason."

I'm not like that and nothing you say will ever convince me! ... Oh, never mind.

[Dogs And Cats]

02:11 PM on 11/13/2010

The warming trend is unambiguous. NASA shows the trend lines quite well at:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36699

The deniers were all excited when we had subtle settling from a major uptrend in 2008, but even then, most of the globe was well above the climate averages. For example, Asia, Scandinavia, and Africa's warm anomalies more than offset the closer to neutral conditions experienced elsewhere.

By the way, 2005 was the warmest year in over a century globally. 2009 was about the firth warmest year measured globally. And 2010 is on track to be close to that.

Both 2008 and 2009 experienced unprecedented heat in the Northwest U.S. and on the west coast of Canada. All-time summer temperature records fell both years in both rural and urban areas.

[Dogs And Cats]

02:01 PM on 11/13/2010

The global average land surface temperature for July and January-July was warmest on record. The global ocean surface temperature for July was the fifth warmest, and for January-July 2010 was the second warmest on record. 2009 was about the fifth warmest on record since records began in 1850.

The decade of the 2000s was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s, which already shattered warming trend records established in the 1980s.

From the World Meteorological Organization: "Arctic sea ice extent during the 2009 melt season was 5.10 million square kilometers, which is the third lowest on record after the 2007 record (4.3 million km2) and 2008 (4.67 million km2), since satellite measurements began in 1979. The past five years have produced the lowest sea ice extents on record."

[Dogs And Cats]

01:45 PM on 11/13/2010

We've had several decades to watch global warming in action and what we're seeing is a retreat in glaciers just about on every mountain range in the world. It's not just about snowfall in those locations, but nighttime temperatures which have been climbing as well, making it hard for snow cover to sustain through the year. With the loss of snow and ice cover in the arctic regions, the earth's reflective properties are changing. The ground is absorbing more warmth.

In the most basic college science course, one learns that infrared heat doesn't escape into space as readily when greenhouse gases, CO2 among them, are increased. It's energy budget 101. So more CO2 means net warming. There might be offsets, such as more cloud cover, but there never enough to completely offset the warming. It's basic stuff. Relying on offsets is foolish, because there's other types of feedback too, such as the release of methane when tundra melts. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.

Deniers continue to look for one excuse after another. Their arguments aren't event consistent.

[tresluv]

05:16 PM on 11/20/2010

F&F Dogs and Cats, thanks for the excellent comments.

[freespeech2]

06:47 PM on 11/12/2010

This is a good strategy, but it must make the case clearly and understandably.

[raechel]

02:14 PM on 11/12/2010

Climate deniers are proof that humans are not the end point of evolution. We've been here a relatively short time, and we'll be gone soon enough due to these nincompoops, and that's that. Insects and microbes win. Of course.

[MGhamma]

11:35 AM on 11/11/2010

ROFLMFAO!!!
Saw this first on Daily KOS. Came over here to see how the resident deniertrolls would react.

Over 5000 comments.

Desperate.

Even brought gluefumes out from under his rock.

Classic!!!

[SoCalHotOne]

09:18 PM on 11/14/2010

First it was 700, then it was 39. Then it was none...

“In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,” says Christine McEntee, Executive Director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union. “AGU will continue to provide accurate scientific information on Earth and space topics to inform the general public and to support sound public policy development.

[DocSkull]

08:19 PM on 11/15/2010

"First it was 700, then it was 39. Then it was none..."

How many times have you misread the article? The article is correct.

"The American Geophysical Union plans to announce that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. Other scientists plan a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions."

[susankhbelen]

07:48 PM on 11/10/2010

Boehner said that CO2 is NOT harmful. I say we put him in a room with only CO2 for a few minutes and see what he says then.

These people are scary stupid.

[PlinytheYounger]

07:59 PM on 11/10/2010

Hyper-f'ing-capnia.

[freespeech2]

06:50 PM on 11/12/2010

CO2 is a necessary component to the ecosystem.By the same token if we put you in a room with only O2, you would not be here to write a rebuttal.

[Shan Wells]

12:09 AM on 11/15/2010

True, and true. What is your point re: global warming?

[Publicola]

09:39 AM on 11/10/2010

Fumes (to Dragonmaster's noting that atmospheric CO2 is rising): "not into the science eh?"

I love science denier irony.

fumes: "w/o the commensurate rapid rise in infrared re-radiation.. who cares about that rapid rise in CO2 as reported?"

Hey Fumes,

I know you don't understand basic physics and thus deny the existence of downward ir radiation, so I you probably won't understand this either, but:

Here is one of multiple papers demonstrating that as atmospheric CO2 is rising commensurate ir radiation is being retained in the atmosphere.

------------------------------------------------

Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006

Abstract

Previously published work using satellite observations of the clear sky infrared emitted radiation by the Earth in 1970, 1997 and in 2003 showed the appearance of changes in the outgoing spectrum, which agreed with those expected from known changes in the concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases over this period. Thus, the greenhouse forcing of the Earth has been observed to change in response to these concentration changes. In the present work, this analysis is being extended to 2006 using the TES instrument on the AURA spacecraft.

http://www.eumetsat.eu/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf

[lbsaltzman]

02:40 PM on 11/10/2010

You might also point that the greenhouse gas effect from CO2 was discovered in the mid 19th century and is an elementary part of radiative physics. But then I doubt these deniers have been within a hundred miles of a physics class in their lives.

[freespeech2]

06:51 PM on 11/12/2010

There are deniers and there are skeptics. They are not the same thing.

[jimboy71]

02:41 PM on 11/10/2010

You lost them at "spectral"...they're busy with "The 13 ghosts of Scooby Dou//che" and the Sta-puft Marshmallow Man.

[fumes]

07:55 PM on 11/09/2010

weird..

why a campaign?

[Publicola]

08:26 PM on 11/09/2010

to counter disinformation from science deniers like you, fumes..

[sonofsamphm1c]

08:55 AM on 11/10/2010

weird... Why a kangaroo court?

Why not science? Why can't you guys write papers that stand up to scrutiny? Why go the purely "preservation of the flat earth" route (hanging on the the belief the Earth was flat until the last possible moment?)

Don't tell me. I know. Al Gore. Your hatred of Al Gore drives you to deny science. You need to see a shrink on that one.

You could rip out all of the "Climategate" papers - strip them out of the evidence pile; you could strip the hockey stick paper out of the evidence pile; guess what, you still have a mountain range of science that passes muster and establishes a rock-solid case for AGW.

Just waiting for you to knock any of it down with science. Waiting. Tick tock. Waiting. All alone here. Just waiting for you (YOUR SIDE) to do science. Tick tock. Nothing but silence. Let's see what's in today. National Academy of Scientists (plus all the other National Academies of other countries {well, maybe not Iran}) has fallen for a hoax. Wow, that's a novel argument. 98% of active climate scientists have bamboozled themselves. Ditto. Climate modelers have rigged the results and NONE of the world's computer scientists have been able to figure out how they did it. (sigh) Yet again, not a single scientific paper that has passed scrutiny and become the first little rock in the mountain range of science that refutes the theory of AGW. Tick tock.

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

12:16 PM on 11/10/2010

Why a campaign against science? Could it be that science is the arbiter of fact that works against a worldview founded on ideology?

[KatK]

12:49 PM on 11/10/2010

Which of course is what they want. They get power by manipulating ideology to manipulate worldview to manipulate behavior. Facts and science are harder to manipulate. An educated electorate that bases decisions on facts is much harder to control.

[dragonmaster]

04:12 PM on 11/09/2010

At he rapid rate C02 is rising- and its increasing dark effects on our climate- these scientists better start do do something, and fast.

They should join James Hansen- and get arrested, have massive demonstrations to get their point across- truth is it might be too late.

[fumes]

08:00 PM on 11/09/2010

you must own one of those new ir-readers drag..

by pointing it at the sky you can watch that rise in CO2!

every day more new radiation is being trapped and re-radiated back at us..

[Publicola]

08:25 PM on 11/09/2010

fumes: "that rise in CO2! every day more new radiation is being trapped and re-radiated back at us.."

That's exactly what satellite observations tell us Fumes, your science denier sarcasm notwithstanding..

however to understand that bit of reality..

you Fumes must first understand that downward ir radiation exists..

your denials to the contrary notwithstanding..

[dragonmaster]

05:45 AM on 11/10/2010

No Fumes

I get my monthly readings at the NOAA-as measured at Mauna Loa Observatory in HI- its based on the 'Keeling Curve' also see http://co2now.org/

C02 rose nearly 3ppmv from October 2009- Oct 2010- on a year to year comparison- I do not think its ever risen that rapidly. We could reach 395ppmv by spring next year- and reach 400ppmv in 2013 or 2014.