Two weeks after Michael Brune took over as the Sierra Club's new executive director, he released one of his signature videos. In it, he discussed a new iPhone app being distributed by the coal industry. The clever application was designed to provide coal spokespeople with the right vocabulary to advance their cause. "Mountain removal mining," for example, became "overburden relocation." "Global warming" was transformed into "atmospheric rhythm."
I was stunned by the industry's shamelessness -- and then chagrined at my own gullibility. For, alas, the date on the Brune video was April 1, and the Carbon Complex had not actually released a climate misleader's killer app.
But truth, it seems, does imitate fiction, with only a few month's lag time. For this week a prominent climate-cynics site, Watt's Up With That, promoted a climate-misinformation iPhone app that contains far more damaging Orwellian language than the Sierra Club's coal industry spoof. The app, called Our Climate, does indeed treat global warming as, perhaps, just the result of natural atmospheric rhythms. But then again, maybe the globe isn't warming at all. Indeed, Our Climate is, in its own words, a "bite-sized" guide to how climate cynics argue -- and as a result rarely have so many contradictions been encompassed in so little space: Climate is highly variable on its own, so people can't be causing it to change . Then again, climate has self-correcting feedback mechanisms, so it can't change, regardless.
But there is one consistent theme to all of the material contained on the Our Climate app. Taken in isolation, each bit of data is designed to send your brain the message, "There's nothing to worry about (and no reason to stop burning coal and oil)."
It's such a simple message that you could put it on the cover of MAD magazine. Maybe we need an app for that!
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this post claimed that Watt's Up With That released the iPhone app "Our Climate". The app was released by Aeris Systems, and not Watt's Up With That.
Follow Carl Pope on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlPope
Drama is easy, comedy is hard...especially when you raise expectations to this degree.
Didn't it originally state, "For this week a prominent climate-cynics site, Watt’s Up With That, released a climate-misinformation iPhone app that ....."?
I know the distinction is a bit slight, but if you're going to lend the appearance of being reputable, the correction should be noted. I'm wondering, did the change occur at Mr. Pope's behest, or was this something done without his approval? At any rate, I realize this is simply an opinion piece, but the wording of the article shouldn't simply morph without explanation.
Thanks
Why when the word 'released' was changed to 'promoted' didn't HuffPo change the date stamp to admit to a change being made?
I mean admitting a mistake is a sign of integrity. Oh wait I just answered ny own question.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/07/ma_pol_warming_skeptics_should_move_to_ice_island/?comments=all&csort=desc
However, “always pan outâ€, there is plenty of $ for environmental racism aka ‘soylent green is other people’ aka predicting only free lunches. “Cardinal Pell Says Green Party Like Watermelons: Green Outside, Red Inside†(By Kathleen Gilbert; lifesitenews.com, 8/11/10). From Esso-Koch’s Mo-tee, “Climate Astrology: ... Predictions of UN IPCC are not specific enough to be falsifiable ... will always pan out. How totally useless can you get?' (home page T-GOP soundbites written by Marc ‘av. corp. whorror’ Morano - peerless container model for EssoMassingill and Comm. for a Con. Tomorrow with Slavery Today; climatedepot.com, found on 8/12/10). For example of Morano’s “sciency methodâ€, T-GOP’s awful-icial website that still does not sell winter clothing - “Story #2: Dr. Spencer and Dr. Limbaugh's Hurricane Predictions ... official climatologist at the EIB Network, Dr. Roy Spencer ... " ... knowing the winds of Mother Nature I wouldn't venture an actual predicted number of storms ... †... I'll make a prediction. ... hurricanes ... zero and 40 who wipe out a city. ... more accurate than anybody else's out there†(“Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Pageâ€; rushlimbaugh.com; 6/17/10).
I'm pretty sure the app was written by an Australian company that has nothing to do with the "Watts Up With That" website. So you can be sure that the app is not associated with Mr. Watt and whatever agenda he might have.
All of the information is the best scientific information available, without any filtering by Mr. Watt.
In Nepal with condolences, “Situation summary ... winter crop production of wheat and barley were severely affected by localized natural disasters ... rest of the country is in general food secure due to: normal level of winter crop production of wheat, barley and potatoes ... pockets ... severely affected by late and insufficient rainfall. ... Flood and landslide disasters have affected ... across the country†(“Nepal: Food security bulletin 28 - August 2010â€; Source: United Nations World Food Programme, WFP; reliefweb.int, 8/11/10).
Ignoring death and destruction as “physical phenomena†in Nepal and less ice = higher temps, “More Gunsmoke, This Time In Nepal ... Posted on August 11, 2010 by Willis Eschenbach ... Note to Readers: This is an important post ... NASA GISS has taken a cooling trend and converted it into a warming trend ... -Anthony ... Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach ... I’m sorry, but I see absolutely no scientific basis for that massive adjustment. I don’t care if it was done by a human ... or ... monkeys were having a really bad hair day. ... capricious and arbitrary adjustments†(abuse by Anthony “20-watt dim bulb†Watts; wattsupwiththat.com).
No matter whether you believe or don't believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, if somebody's jiggering the thermometers, we've got a problem because it is a blow against science to transmit false data that everybody else uses in good faith going forward.
This is a BIG deal. Thank you for pointing at this. People around the world hear that "temperature in _______ since _____" has gone up, and they ASSUME that the term "temperature" is the number that was on the thermometer. Few in the general public are aware that the charts we see in the newspapers and online are after adjustments are made. And it is exactly those adjustments that DO in some cases (quite a LOT, in fact) turn a decreasing trend into an increasing trend. The amount of those adjustments has never been vetted. The original peer-reviewed papers associated with the adjustments have never had the adjustments verified as being valid - not the methodology and not the values used.
Thank you for pointing out how blindly others use these adjusted values. We do because we TRUST the scientists BECAUSE they are scientists; we most often think, "What scientist would publish something that was wrong, after all?" Yet many a scientific paper has been refuted over the years. Almost NONE of the science of the mid-1800s is considered correct now (much has been supplanted by more modern studies), yet it was considered correct right up until the moment it was tossed in the waste bin. So, scientists DO get it wrong sometimes.