Anti-Science Anti-Sense

And so it is we learn from the Daily Express, that most learned journal, that the ethos, the very foundation, of Climate Change science is in question :-

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/199607/Climate-change-Failures-of-global-warming-probes-let-down-public-

“CLIMATE CHANGE: FAILURES OF GLOBAL WARMING PROBES ‘LET DOWN PUBLIC’ : Wednesday September 15, 2010 : By John Ingham, Environment Editor : PUBLIC inquiries into the Climategate scandal have failed to restore confidence in the science behind global warming, a report claimed yesterday. It branded as flawed the three inquiries into the leaking of e-mails by scientists at East Anglia university’s world-leading Climate Research Unit. And it called for independent inquiries into the ethos of climate research and the science itself…”

We’re post-modern 21st Century humans. It’s OK to question everything. There’s every likelihood that we control our own destinies by our thoughts; that tobacco doesn’t cause lung and pancreatic cancer; that sexual intercourse between a male and a female is not the cause of human reproduction; that Jesus was Catholic, and not Jewish; that so-called waterborne diseases aren’t caused by microscopic organisms; that infection by the HIV virus doesn’t lead to AIDS; that Barack Hussein Obama is a non-American Muslim; that the CIA planned 9/11 (no, really, they did !); that mobile phone masts are killing bees (well, it can’t be the pesticides, can it ?); the moon landings were staged; that wind power will never amount to much, and that chocolate doesn’t give you spots.

If you want to believe that DDT controls malaria, then go right ahead. We live in a tolerant society, and your knowledge is just as good as mine, really :-

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/indor_goklnay_ddt_and_malaria.php

And of course, it’s entirely reasonable to assert that the Earth is the centre of the Universe, for medieval clerics so believed :-

http://www.catholicintl.com/galileowaswrong/index.html

The theory of evolution, of course, is a hoax :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312210/Ireland-science-minsiter-Conor-Lenihan-pulls-evolution-hoax-book-launch.html

“…The author, who has offered 10,000 euros to anyone who can scientifically prove evolution exists…”

(as found on http://johnquiggin.com/).

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Timewasting Woman ?

Dr Judith Curry will probably be wasting a lot of her valuable time in future, as she has started her own “balanced” web log :-

http://judithcurry.com/

Several commentors appear quite relieved that she has decided to stop (pa)trolling their websites and has gone off to draw all the sceptic hormonally-charged untrained non-scientists beta males to hers.

Phew ! Now perhaps we can get on with the Science and the Data in peace !

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/09/curry-blogs.html

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/about_time.php

It’s a thankless task, engaging in dialogue with the voracious, capacious sceptics. Hopefully she gets paid for her trouble.

Excruciatingly, she’s in store for recurring complaints from Climate Change Scientists.

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Lords of Timewasting ?

The not-widely-awaited “investigation” into the official inquiries into “Climategate” from the Nigel Lawson “social experiment”, the “Global Warming Policy Foundation”, looks to me rather like a botched piece of cosmetic surgery on first scan.

I’d recommend avoiding it, as it seems to me like a total waste of valuable time, based, as I believe it is, on an obvious absence of leg-shaped support.

I wouldn’t have bothered spending five vacant minutes commenting on it unless I knew my various sceptic readers were standing by, eagerly salivating over tearing me to shreds about any statements I might make.

Lunch, boys ?

If you are a proper Climate Change researcher, unless you’ve got the time and funds and staffing to launch an investigation into how the Climategate Media circus was ever allowed to happen, I’d suggest you avoid entering into any kind of discussion about this latest seemingly vapid wraith of veneer.

http://www.thegwpf.org/climategate/1532-damning-new-investigation-into-climategate-inquiries.html

I am sure you will detect what looks like irascible sniping from Andrew Montford (as known as “Bishop Hll”) in various newspaper reports that follow on from this outpouring of apparently obsessive introspection into a non-scandal that’s deader than a century-old donkey’s fetid tail.

But nothing will trounce the ultimate truth – Climategate will never breathe another modecule of serious Media oxygen, even if it lives on in rabid obscurity in Internet zombie-blog-land.

Daily Express : Complain to the PCC

Yes, I’m inviting you to complain to the United Kingdom Press Complaints Commission regarding what appears to be a failure of accurate journalism in the Daily Express.

The question is, for you, have they “gone too far this time” ?

Here’s some e-mail traffic :-

from: Bob Ward
sent: 31 August 2010
subject: Express Denial

If you want to have a good chortle, have a look at this ‘Debate’ just launched on the website of the ‘The Daily Express’:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196681/DEBATE-Is-global-warming-just-a-con-

Apart from its one-sided title (‘Debate: Is ‘global warming’ just a con?’), I particularly enjoyed the illiterate reference to “LOSS OF CREDIBITY”. Well, after all, ‘The Daily Express’ should know about loss of credibility!

Bob Ward

Policy and Communications Director
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham

from: James Pavitt
date: 31 August 2010

Have you seen the headline and front page??? This is the worst case of climate misrepresentation I’ve ever seen. I have made a complaint to the Press Complaints Committee, and urge others to do so too.

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Bjorn Lomborg Chills Out

[ TED Talks : Flashback to 2005 ! Of course, one of the main problems with his "triage" suggestion is that Climate Change affects all the other problems in his prioritisation list, so even if they get solved once, they'll need solving again... ]

Reports of Bjorn Lomborg’s conversion to the truth about Global Warming may be perilously exaggerated :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/02/climate-change-bjorn-lomborg

“ I note with interest that Bjørn Lomborg has changed his mind on global warming. I also note that he has a book to sell.”

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/lomborg-100-billion-needed.php

Beside a book, he is also touting a film :-

http://www.indiewire.com/film/cool_it/#

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-sceptics-uturn-20100831-14fng.html

Has he really changed his tune ? Nope. :-

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/03/interview_bjorn_lomborg

“…In an exclusive interview with FP’s Elizabeth Dickinson, Lomborg says his views haven’t budged an inch. Rather, he argues that the cap-and-trade approach of Kyoto Protocol fame has clearly failed, and it’s time to try a more creative approach — one that doesn’t involve wasting billions of dollars. “At some point,” he says, “we have to ask ourselves, do we just want to keep up the circus of promising stuff but not actually doing it?”…”

http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/01/the-lomborg-deception/

“Lomborg is not a responsible climate commentator.”

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/the_lomborg_deception.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/02/climate-change-bjorn-lomborg

Made up in America

If you, or anyone dear to you, is a closet Climate Change sceptic, then you quite possibly have David Koch, of Koch Industries, and his allegedly personally paid-for propaganda machine to thank.

Climate Change denial was invented in the United States of America, but has since been imported into the United Kingdom and Australia, tripping up intellects and intelligences everywhere it shows up.

It makes a person look really uneducated when they recite the mantras of Climate Change scepticism and denial. Trouble is, it’s so pervasive and seemingly anodyne when you first encounter it, that many people just fall for it hook, line and sinker.

What’s so wrong about saying “The climate has always changed” for example ? Yes, of course it has, but not like it’s changing now.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?printable=true

“COVERT OPERATIONS : The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama. : by Jane Mayer : AUGUST 30, 2010 : On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small. Read the rest of this entry »

Newsnight : Complain to the BBC

I don’t expect much from it in terms of any kind of sensible, relevant reply, but here’s my two eurocents’ worth, as loaded at :-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/

The BBC are undergoing a review on balance in Science reporting. They need to get Climate Change right, and that could start by one of their programme editors actually trying to understand what programmes like this do to an unprepared or semi-prepared audience.

The Newsnight audience have been left with the view that “maybe Climate Change is not so bad after all”, which is the worst take-home message they could be given.

See further down the post for e-mail traffic related to the Newsnight broadcast of 23rd August 2010.

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Let’s Read the IPCC (1)

If there’s one thing about Climate Change nobody could be able to disagree on, it’s that there’s a huge amount of literature on the subject.

I figure it would be impossible for any one person to have a good grounding in the totality of the Science, spanning, as it does, most of humankind’s discoveries about the physical world.

It would be hard too to have an exceptionally well-rooted understanding even of the Synthesis of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

A human mind is surely not capable of remembering all the facts and figures and how everything relates. My personal forgettery is quite active in selecting what to drop after not using it for a while, and I’m sure others experience the same thing.

For example, I’m sure Dr Judith Curry, accomplished as she is in Earth Sciences, does not remember the entire field, and does not have the tools to look everything up quickly. Which is why she gives shorthand vague, answers on web logs which annoy other people so much :-

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/08/curry_jumps_the_shark.php

I reckon, though, people should give her a break for a while to let her compose herself, and get over the shock of the Anthony Watts “tribe” eating her heart out with steak knives after she published a proper piece of Science.

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Deny Everything

The sky is unnaturally warm, so the satellites are telling us.

So what do the Climate Change deniers do ? Claim all the satellites are defunct :-

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26603

“Nation’s battered satellite environmental monitoring program : Top Climate Scientists Speak out on the Satellitegate Scandal : By John O’Sullivan Monday, August 16, 2010 : US Government admits global warming satellite sensors “degraded” – temperatures may be out by 10-15 degrees. Now five satellites in controversy. Top scientists speak out. In an escalating row dubbed ‘Satellitegate’ further evidence proves NOAA knew of these faults for years. World’s top climate scientists and even prior governmental reports cite underfunding and misallocation as the trigger for spiraling satellite data calamities. Key flaws with five satellites undermines global data. Most disturbing of all is that it took publication of my article last week to persuade the authorities to withdraw the errant NOAA-16 satellite from service. But as Dr. John Christy indicates, the real Satellitegate is not about one satellite. The scandal is endemic with comparable flaws across the entire network; the scandal is also that it took a tip off from a member of the public and the widespread broadcast of my article before one of the offending junk boxes, NOAA-16, got taken down…”

Anyone who’s doubting that we’re back to the bad old days of outright denial should pay attention. Next thing you know, the Climate Change contrarians will be claiming that the whole of Science is dubious…what ? They did that already (for the last 25 years) ?

Make Me a Model

Statistical analysis of the raw data on Global Warming suffers from two major pitfalls :-

1. You are looking at the combined effects from several causative sources. Unless you have the means to distinguish the various factors, you cannot apply statistical techniques to the data and expect to get anything truly meaningful out. All that can be said, at best, is, “The Globe. Still Warming.”, as the warming trend over a long enough period of time has managed to stand out over the short-term variations.

2. Looking at the data purely by eye, some of the warming or cooling effects are clearly short-term, others longer-term; so picking a range of years/months/seasons at random, or according to some bias, is likely to distort the analysis. This is known as “cherry-picking”. The results of cherry-picking include the fallacious and discredited claim that, “Global Warming stopped in 1998″, or the much more crafty and misleading, “There has been no statistically significant Global Warming since 1998″.

Some researchers are content just to point to the overall effect of the raw data – global temperatures on land and at sea are rising sharply and the charts should be sufficient to understand the basic problem.

However, some people still contest that Global Warming is taking place, or that if it is, it isn’t serious. This then, is the cue to do an in-depth analysis into the known factors in global temperatures, and to attempt to “deduct” obvious short-term warming and cooling features in order to eyeball the underlying trends :-

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Hell Freezes Over : BBC Apologises

Jaw-droppingly, the BBC have apologised for the contents of a Today Programme. Not the one that caused poor, deceased Dr David Kelly so much embarrassment, God rest his soul. No, the one that featured the breaking of the “Climategate” e-mail scandal :-

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/bbc_apologizes_to_university_o.php

The BBC picked the wrong scandal story to run with, it appears.

The real scandal of Climategate is how the scientists’ e-mails were “liberated” from the University of East Anglia, and then annotated to give heavily biased interpretation, then released to the general public via the Internet, and how the Media were taken in.

Certain people at the BBC chose to go with the fake scandal, it seems – the narrative fabricated and dictated to them by Climate Change deniers.

Anyway, now the BBC have made an apology, of sorts. Better late than never, but all the same, it would have been better earlier rather than later.

Thankfully, despite the late apologies, this particular alleged witch-hunt didn’t end with a suspected suicide. Although it did include reports that Professor Phil Jones had, in fact, contemplated suicide; the reporting of which just added to his completely groundless public humiliation at the hands of the Press. Which they should apologise for, in my humble opinion. Just as good (old) George Monbiot had the good grace to offer some regret for :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jul/07/russell-inquiry-i-was-wrong

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7180154/Climategate-Professor-Phil-Jones-considered-suicide-over-email-scandal.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/rebuttalsandcorrections/johnhumphrys

“BBC apologises to University of East Anglia for “incorrect” remark”

“The BBC has apologised for an “incorrect” remark made by John Humphrys that UEA researchers had “distorted the debate about global warming to make the threat seem even more serious than they believed it to be”.”

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Fiona Harvey : Whoops, Cat !

Now, I’ve met Fiona Harvey, and she gives the general impression of being a reasonable woman, with her own mind, smart, knowledgeable and pragmatic.

What she writes about is Environment in general, but she takes in Policy, Politics, Economics and Science, and her output is normally balanced, accurate, and free from interference from propaganda and propagandists. Well-rounded, I’d say. Informative and straight.

So how come she’s writing a Financial Times article with quotations from extreme Climate Change sceptics and deniers ?

I suspect a heavy editorial hand :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d1fd25c-9a69-11df-87fd-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=728a07a0-53bc-11db-8a2a-0000779e2340.html

“Research says climate change undeniable : By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent, Published: July 28 2010″

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Judith Curry : Credibility Seppuku ?

Dr Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, should read up a little on the history of anti-science, its methods, its proponents and its arguments, before throwing in her lot with the anti-science people of today : Steve McIntyre and his buddies.

To demonstrate that anti-science arguments are nothing new, she should try to work out what science the following excerpt is about, and when the events it describes took place :-

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Christopher Booker : Sniping Smearduggery

The Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom spent almost an entire week crafting a political framework for power-sharing after the “hung” General Election.

Those considered the most appropriate people were appointed to positions in the central Cabinet, people from both political parties, with the aim and ambition of working together closely and fraternally.

Back room agreements were painstakingly forged, deals were clearly made, and explained publicly in a transparent fashion. In the day-to-day operation of Government, it is made clear who is speaking on behalf of themselves, their party or the Coalition.

This is probably the best example of cooperative, progressive politics since…I don’t know when. But all Christopher Booker seems to want to do is snipe, moan and smear, and appears to throw in as many factually incorrect allegations and fake statistics about wind power as he possibly can.

I certainly wouldn’t pay him to write such divisive, unreferenced, unverified stuff. What’s he trying to do ? Split public opinion ? :-

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Note to Steve McIntyre

Dear Steve,

Following Dr Judith Curry’s appeal on ClimateProgress regarding the recent RealClimate post from Tamino, that Joe Romm, and all of us, should be reading your work, I decided to take a brief look at your output on ClimateAudit in order to see what all the fuss from Judith Curry was about :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/25/hockey-stick-real-climate-montford-judith-curry-tamino-gavin-schmid/

“19. Judith Curry says: July 25, 2010 at 9:19 pm : …So if any of you have actually read as much as I have on this topic including Montford’s [Bishop Hill] book and the climateaudit threads particularly McIntyre’s most recent post, well then we might have something to talk about. Otherwise, we can just sit back and all be entertained by tribalistic wardances.”

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/

“107. Judith Curry says: 23 July 2010 at 12:44 PM : Once more people have read the [Montford, Bishop Hill] book, and if Montford and McIntyre were welcomed to participate in the discussion, then I would be interested in participating in a more detailed discussion on this.”

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Christopher Monckton : Limerick Competition

Here is my entry for the Christopher Monckton limerick competition, which was sadly received too late to enter, since voting is now open :-

“There once was a fella called Monckton,
Who claimed he’d been litigiously dumped on;
Twas patent absurd,
But steam could be heard
Escaping clenched teeth as Abr’am debunked him.”

If you want to show your support for John Abraham in his rebuttal of Christopher Monckton’s non-science, please comment here :-

http://hot-topic.co.nz/support-john-abraham/

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George Monbiot : Bunkum Masquerading As Insight ?

[ CORRECTION FROM JOABBESS.COM : David Adam has had his name struck from the list of journalists at The Guardian who have given the impression of blaming the quality and speed of UEA media relations for the Climategate pseudo-scandal. ]

I was in telephone conversation with somebody in the Climate Change policy arena in the last two weeks (names will remain unnamed for obvious reasons), and they complained to me about George Monbiot’s position on Climategate.

I could sense incandescent rage, even at the other end of the phone line, as the person expressed extreme displeasure with George Monbiot, and asserted that he was a “nasty little man”.

I don’t agree with that summary. For a start, George Monbiot is probably taller than the average Briton, so the epithet is literally inaccurate. I don’t even agree that George Monbiot is “little” in terms of influential, public figures, either. I think George Monbiot is very smart, usually highly accurate and incisive, assiduous in his research.

His pieces are factually rich, and he is often on the money. But on this particular train of events I believe he is most assuredly wrong, even after backtracking from his original position.

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Climategate Review : Delaying Tactics

The Climate Change Science hasn’t changed, the scientists haven’t changed, and the Earth System hasn’t suddenly become healthier, so why did we need a review into e-mail traffic between researchers ? What was it all for ? Answer : to delay progress. Clue : follow the old revolutionaries, still trying to create a fuss.

The Independent Climate Change E-mail Review :-

http://www.cce-review.org/

“Sir Muir and the Review team held a press briefing at the Science Media Centre in London on 11 February 2010…”

Transcript of Sir Muir Rrussell’s opening remarks on 7 July 2010 :-

http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/MR%20Launch%20intro.pdf

“Good morning – good to see you all here again. A lot has happened since February! I hope you have enjoyed reading the fruits of our labours. Thanks first to Fiona Fox [Director of the Science Media Centre] and her team for hosting us this morning…”

Just who is Fiona Fox ? And what is the Science Media Centre ?

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/pages/about/staff.htm

“Fiona Fox : Director : Fiona has a degree in Journalism and 15 years experience in media relations. She held the position of Senior Press Officer for the Equal Opportunities Commission for six years, followed by two years running the media operation at the National Council for One Parent Families. A total change of environment followed as Fiona became Head of Media at CAFOD, one of the UK’s leading aid agencies. She founded the Jubilee 2000 press group, which helped to force serious Third World issues onto the media and political agendas. Fiona is an experienced public speaker and a trained journalist, who has written extensively for newspapers and publications, authored several policy papers and contributed to books on humanitarian aid.”

What’s not to like ?

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Fred Pearce : Scorned Again

I’m sorry to say that my general opinion of Fred Pearce’s work has taken a sharp tumble. I found his latest New Scientist piece disappointing, and for me he has continued to be uninspiring today in The Observer newspaper, Sunday sister to The Guardian :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell

“Climategate was ‘a game-changer’ in science reporting, say climatologists : After the hacked emails scandal scientists became ‘more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties’ : Fred Pearce : Sunday 4 July 2010″

His style is robustly “journalistic” and suffers from a basket of semantic fuzziness, but I’m just going to highlight a few phrases and words here.

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The Merchantess of Doubt

My summer reading includes a number of easy-read popular science volumes, including a thoughful, factful and scholarly work called “Merchants of Doubt” co-written by Naomi Oreskes, famous for her study of the contrast between Climate Change Science and the Media representation of it, startling figures that appear in Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” :-

http://pandeliterary.com/authors/naomi-oreskes/

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/moving-by-degrees/bios/oreskes.html

One passage, early in the book, has highlighted for me that the mainstream Media have completely forgotten the lessons of yesteryear.

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Sceptic Backlash : Questions Answered

Last Wednesday’s “Sceptic Backlash” meeting ended with a lively Question and Answer session. Here it is as I recorded it :-

http://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

Q. (from Christian Hunt, a plant in the audience from Greenpeace)

- You say it’s just the journalists who are the sceptics. What happens if another Government comes in and scepticism gets political footholds ? [ reference to Conservative Party Climate Change sceptics ]

A. (Phil Thornhill, Campaign against Climate Change)

- People shy away from the problem if they can’t find solutions. We propose a million Climate jobs – there are lots of ways of dealing with the crisis. That’s the kind of thing we should be emphasising.

Q. Andrew Neill interviewed Caroline Lucas and asked her about the Phil Jones interview with the BBC where he said there had been no “statistically significant” warming in the last 15 years. Has there been no statistically significant warming or not ? Why wouldn’t Caroline Lucas, head of the Green Party, say “you’re wrong” ?

A. (Phil)

- I wrote her a rather long e-mail. You can’t really debate Science in the popular Media. Most people don’t understand.

- The tip for answering this kind of question is – in 15 years, it’s hard to spot a trend against the background noise. It’s a difficult thing to explain.

- It’ a clear case of how once you start debating the Science it gets twisted. She should have said “this is a typical case of the misrepresentation of Science”.

A. (Ben Stewart, Greenpeace Media)

- She was fine to say “I’ll take a pass on that”.

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Our Great Leader, Phil

[ Left to Right : Phil Thornhill (Campaign against Climate Change), Dr David Adam (The Guardian) ]

I bet you all thought I was going to talk about Professor Phil Jones, who has been completely and utterly exonerated this week :-

http://www.desmogblog.com/second-expert-panel-shows-climategate-was-sham

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/phil_jones_vindicated_some_mor.php

But, no. I’m going to report on what Phil Thornhill said on Wednesday at the “Sceptic Backlash” meeting.

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The Guardian : Trumped by a Stuffed Toucan

[ Left to Right : Dr David Adam (The Guardian), Ben Stewart (Greenpeace), Tooki the Toucan operated by George Marshall (ClimateDenial.org) and Marina from Campaign against Climate Change]

On Wednesday evening, at the “Sceptic Backlash” public event, hosted by the Campaign against Climate Change, communications researcher George Marshall introduced the meeting to an unusual commentator on Climate Change…

http://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/15/ben-stewart-greenpeace-stalking/

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/15/david-adam-liberal-pacifier/

Here is a transcript of what George Marshall said (as I have it) :-

- I do a lot of work around Climate Change communications and information.

- Climate Change is a large and technical issue. No one has the time to get totally on top of it. Even within the Science the specialists only look at their specialist areas.

- The average Media “punter” (somebody looking for information) is looking for a shortcut – their “ask” is “just tell me what’s going on”.

- Most people ask “Dave” down the pub (public house, bar). Friends and acquaintances in bars are the most important people in your social network, no doubt.

- And Dave says he saw this thing on telly (television)…

- The average person is just looking for a source of information that has some kind of authority…

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You Know It Is

[ Music Credit : Massive Attack; Album : "100th Window"; Track : 1 "Future Proof". Listen in : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atbPFkhTzh0 ]

Everybody has a Climate Change story. I remember hearing a colleague explain how she nearly died when driving a rental car in the United States and the vehicle got swept along the road by unusually high flood waters. I remember a contact talking about branches dropping from drought-stricken trees in Central France during the freak Summer heatwave of 2003. I have relatives in Atlanta, Georgia, who talk about the water supply problem and disappearing rivers…

It’s time to tell people who are sceptical that you know Climate Change is happening, right now…

David Adam : Liberal Pacifier

Dr David Adam, Environmental correspondent at The Guardian newspaper, the “home” of the political Left and Liberal in the United Kingdom, was disappointingly pacifying at the “Sceptic Backlash” event in London yesterday evening.

“Please don’t over-estimate the damage being done by Climategate”, he urged the audience, comparing the sceptic bug-bear to the Bush-and-Cheney narrative about dangerous terrorism which used to get people so worked up, (riled enough, remember ?, to sacrifice their youth and their entire Economy to the new American project of killing innocent women, children and men in the Middle East. Such a good decade for Big Business !)

I read that David Adam used to write about scientific research in Nature magazine before he became Science, and then Environment correspondent at The Guardian.

Funnily enough, I seem to recall meeting somebody who could well have been David Adam in First Class on the Eurostar train service from London to Brussels some time in the late 1990′s. If it was David Adam, his declared profession had nothing to do with journalism, or even chemical engineering (which David Adam studied). I can’t be sure. I don’t always remember faces from more than ten years ago, especially people I have only met once, but his expressions and mannerisms when I saw him yesterday triggered the same reactions in my mind. How strange…but anyway…

I was incensed. Outraged. Deflated, by David Adam’s liberal dismissiveness of the power of Climate Change scepticism, to divide a nation, to cause countless arguments – classic divide-and-rule tactics.

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