- BPSDB
- Spin Cycles
- That’s curious
- Not this idiot again
- Oh oh at NSIDC
- The Boy Who Denied Wolf
Spin Cycles
CBC’s show “And the Winner Is…” re-broadcast the documentary series Spin Cycles: Spin, the spinners and the spun.
Episode Six exposes the industry funded “think tanks” and astroturf (ie bogus) citizen’s groups that specialize in providing climate denial PR for their clients.
It’s a good listen and well worth sharing with friends who do not realize that these “independant” think tanks are nothing more than disguised PR firms.
The podcast download link for episode six is February 18, 2009 – Spin Cycles, Episode Six and the page for the whole series is Spin Cycles podcast.
That’s curious
I was checking some website traffic site stats at Alexa and discovered something interesting, specifically a significant decline in traffic to a particular climate Denier site.
Curious, I checked a couple more, and then some climate science sites. I checked 6 of each (chosen quite arbitrarily, pretty much whatever I thought of first) and tabulated the results.
Statistically completely meaningless, but interesting
It’s impossible to overstate how trivial and meaningless this little sample is, it is a curiousity at most. Further, even if a proper survey demonstrated the same trend, given the 3 month trend horizon it would still be social “weather” as opposed to “climate.”
Still, I wonder what is happening ‘out there.’
Some of you may have seen Kevin Grandia’s “A troubling trend in Global Warming Denial on the internet“ where he looked at the doubling in the number of hits for various web searches such as “global warming” + hoax or “global warming” + lies.
While I appreciate why Kevin used this method, one concern I had is that these searches also find sites that address and refute the Denier claims.
For example the search “global warming” + hoax get’s you Climate Progress, Deltoid, Greenfyre, and no doubt many others.
So it becomes a question of whether Kevin’s results show a significant rise in Denierism, or whether it is increasing internet activity with respect to climate change generally, particularly with increased polarization; ie more Deniers, but also more rationalists.
I share Kevin’s belief that Denierism is not nearly as in retreat as some would believe, but also think that the actual social dynamic that is playing out is much more complex (more on that soon).
So it would be interesting to know
Maybe there is someone out there with the time and skills (or a hapless grad student in need of a thesis topic) to do a proper analysis.
Not this idiot again
Sad but true, a webzine that claims “This website is an ongoing 
exploration of what GOOD is and what it can be.” actually gives John Coleman’s idiocies another platform.
Unbelievably, they actually say “John Coleman has dedicated his life to studying weather and the science that creates it—so shouldn’t we at least hear him out?”
Since when did he study weather? Where are his peer reviewed studies? and when did being a weathercaster (not even a meteorologist) become a synonym for being a climatologist?
Earth to Puner! (the author) Reporting on something is not the same as studying it, nor is being a businessman. Fine and noble professions both when practised with integrity and dedication, but still not climatology or meteorology.
Secondly, the web is full of Coleman’s spam; he has been heard and his nonsense has been exposed for being just that – as David Puner would have known if he’d done even a single internet search.
For those unfamiliar with what a shameless fraud Coleman is, it is discussed here.
Clearly we’re in for another round of “John Coleman says”; shades of Huffington Posts’ Harold Ambler Gaffe.
Oh oh at NSIDC
Source NOAA
The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that
“…we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent.
The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February“
Needless to say the Deniers are going to pretend that:
i) somehow a few weeks of bad data invalidates 30 years of documented decline in Arctic sea ice.
ii) in an equally mysterious way it validates Asher’s lying fraud about the return of sea ice, a fraud which was committed before the sensor drift began and hence is in no way influenced by it.
Source: Cryosphere Today
Sigh … it’s going to be a painful few weeks until the spring melt starts.
The Boy Who Denied Wolf
Commenter Richard Pauli has a lovely re-interpretation of the classic tale:
Sometimes when we deny, but eventually realize the truth, we learn it too late to say. We will deny once, deny twice — but then perish when we deny our own plight.
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 119 … still no evidence.
IMAGE CREDITS
Spin Cycle by Cayusa
John Coleman by kusinews from Wikipedia
[...] [...]
[...] Frankwatching wrote an interesting post today on Climate Denier "science" bought and paid forHere’s a quick excerptIMAGE CREDITS. Spin Cycle by Cayusa. John Coleman by kusinews from Wikipedia… [...]
Interesting stats that point to a rise in global warming denial. I think that most people who accept global warming wouldn’t go out of their way to search for “global warming hoax”.
The cold weather has provided an opening by deniers to deliver their message. However, I have to admit that I have found myself coming to the defense of global warming science more lately, so to an extent it has sparked a curiosity in what the other side is saying.
If you are on Twitter, I’ve also noticed (unfortunately) a trend in users who complain about the cold weather, and refer to the lack “global warming”.
Mike, I think Kevin went off on a complete wild goose chase, which he admitted to down in the comments. Read the comments starting with DavidCogito’s for details.
It turns out that I was able to find something interesting in those stats, which was a sharp uptick in the use of “hoax” at a particular point in time. This is evidence IMHO of the extent to which the denialosphere is “memo-based,” i.e. a very few loci (Fox News and Drudge certainly among them) decide on the memes and out go the memos to the blogosphere, the radio talk shows, the columnists, Republican politicians, etc.
I should hasten to add that this isn’t particular to the climate change issue, but is a characteristic of wingnut culture dating back to the Goldwater era. The premise is that a unified minority can impose its views on the less-focused majority, and that unified messaging is the key. Recall e.g. Reagan’s 1970s-era admonition to other Republican politicians that “thou shall speak no evil of other Republicans.”
The seams of this approach can be seen to a degree, as with the Will column of a week ago, but overall it’s pretty skillfully accomplished since they’ve had such a long time to perfect the method.
I think there’s a strong case to be made that the internet era is undermining their effectiveness, although I need to think about how to focus my views on that (is it something inherent in getting more information sooner?) other than to make the obvious general observation that last year the Dems benefited disproportionately from the internet. A related specific example is what happened when for the first time extensive use was made of snap debate polls such that the unified spin by Republican pundits that had been so effective in 2000 and 2004 was contradicted while they were still on the air.
BTW, I think the progress made by both this blog and BNC can be chalked up to how new they are. That CA result may indeed be ephemeral, but I wonder if it’s possible that they lost traffic to WUWT, which has become the go-to denialist site via frequent posts (always good for traffic) and a much-reduced requirement for cognition.
re. The Boy Who Denied Wolf
It’s tricky to explore important issues through storytelling. Not easily done.
My take on this will likely go over like a lead balloon, but… after reading this re-telling of the original terrible tale, I’m distressed by its vivid demonization of wolves. The association of wolves with evil is has led to the sort of hatred and fear that justified mass slaughters to point of extirpation, so I don’t find it constructive. Actually, I felt sick reading this, but not for the intended reason.
The point of the re-telling is further lost on me because it seems easy to stand it on its head. I don’t think it’s hard for a denier to see the boy as an AGW activist suddenly saying ‘oh, wait, you are right, I was lying about the crisis. There is none. Now all is lost and it’s too late to change things’(because deniers believe the sky will fall on freedom if AGW is true). The moral of the story would still be ‘don’t lie’ and ‘don’t call for help if you don’t need it’, from the perspective of the denier. They can just ignore the intended reference to themselves and the story works for them.
Of course, it’s possible I’m just not getting it.
I was led to some of Richard’s other cool work, though. Thanks.
—-
Today Krugman blogged about a current economic memo. This example is of interest since it shows how well the Republicans transitioned between White House-based economic memos and current ones from an as yet unidentified source. Practice makes perfectish.
Isn’t sea ice extent measured by satellite?
—-
“it is the parable that many Deniers throw out in discussion forums, so the reinterpretation has real resonance for the dialogue.”
Yes, I get that Richard is responding to this.
I think stories can help us deal with a complex issue: climate change is probably something many people feel they can’t cope with, but we must try, and exploring issues through stories can help people understand. I’ve seen it done well here, and elsewhere. I appreciate that Richard was responding to denier claims that AGW is about crying wolf. But stories are often much more than the identifications intended. This re-writing is closer to the horrible wolf myths of medieval times than the original, and goes far beyond the original in its evil portrayal. On my view, it is unnecessary and irresponsible in relation to the defense of the natural world and wildlife, which is part of the dialogue.
Who’s the wolf?
Richard – Make the wolf humans in wolf clothing. We are talking about human-caused evil, so let’s be clear about the villains of the story. It’s not animals. They are the victims, as are people. The deniers will be killed by themselves and their human interests–not by Nature.
I think what drives the majority of denialists is their worldview. Its the thing that gives meaning and focus to how they think about life.
So along comes something challenging or threatening that worldview and so people react. It seems to me from reading the blogs and looking at the sorts of organisations that people are associated with (e.g in Australia Jennifer Maharosy is associated with the right wing thunk tank, the IPA) that the world view of the denialists is fairly closed (‘obvious’ you would say) and has some features that a lot hold to, but not all, e.g. constant expansion and materialism gives meaning to life so that means an evidence based approach goes out the window plus thats why they practically spit when you mention the Australian term, ‘greenie’. Plus this worldview seems to come with a very large ego, witness some of the denialists on the lecture circuit.
To sum up their worldview means these people are not going to go away and it gives them a very strong focus so that they will continue to fight. Its just very exhausting constantly having this worldview battering at you so I can understand why scientists and other people give up and ignore them, as one climate guy said to me in frustration, “its like you drive a stake into their hearts and the next minute they are climbing back out of the coffin”. However, history has shown us time and time again us what happens when people driven by their worldview think it should take precedence in society.
That graph from cryosphere isn’t astroturfing?
One of those years looks not like the others, one of those years just doesn’t belong.
NSIDC tells us first that the issue isn’t worth talking about. Then when their satellite totally breaks down NSICD says there is a new and improved (greater accuracy and more confidence on current sea ice conditions – is the way they put it) space craft already there in orbit, but they don’t want to use it’s information because “it actually provides less accuracy on the long-term changes over the past thirty years”.
Less accuracy over the long term but more over the short term – what sort of horse shit answer is that?
In the second para of Satellite sensor errors cause data outage, “We perform quality control measures in coordination with scientists at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center”, all becomes clear.
—-
Jeremy C: I think what drives the majority of denialists is their worldview. Its the thing that gives meaning and focus to how they think about life.
I recall one study that came out around the same time as the IPCC AR4 that tested this. Basically, they created a summary report from a fictional scientific body and passed it to a large group of people who had been previously screened for general political ideology. The reports were identical except for one thing: Half of them concluded that the immediate action we needed to take was regulating greenhouse gases, and the other half concluded that the solution was deregulation of the nuclear industry.
The interesting part was how the conservatives reacted — any conservative who read the first (regulate) report not only shouted that nothing needed to be done, but also that climate science was a hoax. The conservatives who got the otherwise-identical deregulation report not only expressed support for its results, but also took no particular issue on the science.
In this case, conservative ideology literally dominated one’s capacity to understand basic physical science, simply because the proposed course of action (something altogether missing in the IPCC report, by the way) didn’t jive with their worldview. They would rather attack the science and deny the problem than come up with a better solution.
I’ll see if I can track down the original.
—-
Brian D: Please do!
Greenfyre:
So, we have yet another example of a nonsensical knee-jerk CLINTON DID IT TOO!!!!!!!!!!! reaction from an inactivist. I bet James Mayeau was thinking something like
Anyone with a brain will realize quickly just how stupid this ‘method’ is, but it doesn’t stop the inactivists from trying it again and again and again.
Mike: Yes, it’s the Braman et al study. Thanks for finding the link.
The money quote is as follows:
individualists and hierarchs who received the “nuclear power” version were less inclined to dismiss
the facts related by the described report—that the earth’s temperature was increasing, that
humans were the cause, and that the consequences would be dire if global warming were not reversed—
than were individualists and hierarchs who got the “antipollution” version, even though
the factual information, and its source, were the same in both articles. Indeed, individualists and
hierarchs who received the “antipollution” version of the news report were even more skeptical
about these facts than were hierarchs and individualists in a control group that received no newspaper
story—and thus no information relating to the scientific report that made these findings.
(note that they didn’t use traditional liberal/conservative spectrums, opting instead for an individualist/collectivist (left/right) axis and a hierarch/egalitarian axis, somewhat similar to <a href=”http://www.politicalcompass.org”Political Compass although with different limits on the boundaries.)
It’s surprisingly accessable for an academic paper and highly recommend people read it. The conclusion notes that the culture war is more a war on facts rather than a war on values, and indicates that people place weight on facts because of the ideology of the person talking about it. This may explain why conservatives hate climate change somewhat — it’s Al Gore’s pet issue, and who cares about the facts so long as Gore’s the one talking about it…
Since I’m typing this up and I know Frank will be reading it as well, check out the February 9th episode of the Colbert Report. He does a segment on the Grammy Awards, which he lost the Best Spoken Word award to Al Gore and thus delivers the perfect “GOOOOOOOOORE!!” to use in your computer-generated curses.
Brian D:
w00t! I’ve found the video segment; I’ll see what I can do with it.
[...] am on February 26, 2009 | # | Episode 6 of CBC News’s Spin Cycles. (Via Greenfyre.) Choice quote at 9′ 28′: Sheldon Rampton: Scientists feel the most objective, hardest [...]