Fierce words about those “wacky professional climate change deniers”

Summary:  Adversity tests one’s character.  As the global temperature pause continues into its second decade, we can learn much the reaction from the reaction of laypeople committed to belief in a coming climate catastrophe.

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Contents

1. Fierce words from Slate about climate change
2. The truth is out there
3. Key things to remember about global warming!
4. For More Information
5. A sad photo of a polar bear floating away

This is another in our long series about our leaders’ — Left and Right — discovery that we are easily led by propaganda. When we change so this is no longer true, then reform will become possible for America.

(1)  Fierce words from Slate’s voice about climate change

“Debunking the Denial: ’16 Years of No Global Warming’”, Phil Plait (bio here), Slate, 3 December 2012 — Opening:

Oh, those wacky professional climate change deniers! Once again, they’ve banded together a passel of people, 90% of whom aren’t even climatologists, and had them sign a nearly fact-free opinion piece in the Financial Post, claiming global warming isn’t real. It’s an astonishing example of nonsense so ridiculous I would run out of synonyms for “bilge” before adequately describing it.

The Op-Ed is directed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who has recently, and thankfully, been vocal about the looming environmental catastrophe of global warming. The deniers’ letter takes him to task for this, but doesn’t come within a glancing blow of reality.

The letter itself is based on a single claim. So let’s be clear: If that claim is wrong, so is the rest of the letter.Guess what? That claim is wrong. So blatantly wrong, in fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone could write it with a straight face. It says: “The U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no statistically significant global warming for almost 16 years.”

This is simply, completely, and utterly false.

Here we have a man whose gods have failed him. A core element of his faith appears false, leaving him no recourse but to denounce those who reveal this unpleasant truth to the world. A thousand words would be insufficient to deconstruct the lies and misrepresentation in Plait’s article.  Most obviously, the letter does not claim that “global warming is not real”, let alone deny that climate changes.

(2)  The truth is out there

Going to the core of his message — despite Plait’s hysterical denials, all the major temperature datasets show the pause in warming.  Many major climate scientists have discussed the pause. Its causes and implications are actively debated in the peer-reviewed literature.  For links see:

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• Good news! Global temperatures have stabilized, at least for now., 3 February 2012
• Still good news: global temperatures remain stable, at least for now., 14 October 2012
• The IPCC sees the pause in global warming!, 18 December 2012

Or see for yourself, since the data is easy to understand:  Update about global temperatures. Watch our world warm!, 5 January 2013.

This reaction by some activists illustrates that the roots of climate alarmism as a popular movement lies beyond science.  Also, we see how the integrity of many climate alarmists has folded under the pressure. They could relay to the public the work of climate scientists about the pause:

• its causes,
• why it was not forecast in advance by climate models,
• how the pause is consistent with the major climate models,and
• how long the pause might continue.

The pause provides a teachable moment about the complexity of the physical world — and science. And an opportunity for debate about the risks of climate change, about probabilities and magnitudes.

Instead we learn about the willingness of true believers to deceive the public with errors of omission and commission.  Fortunately many scientists, science writers, and journalists are using this opportunity. Unfortunately, as so often the case in The New America, their words get drowned out by screams of rage and ignorance from activists.   We see why debate about vital issues in American has become a cacophony.

The truth is out there.  We just have to listen carefully to hear it.  Those who speak loudest are often not the best guides.

(3)  Some of the key things to remember about global warming!

While cheering madly (ie, irrationally, emotionally, hysterically) for their faction of scientists, laypeople often lose sight of the big picture — the key elements for making public policy.

The major global temperature measurement systems tell — broadly speaking — the same story since the late 1970s: two decades of warming, followed by a pause.

This is consistent with the larger firm conclusions of climate scientists: two centuries of warming, coming in pulses (ie, waves), with anthropogenic factors becoming the largest (not the only) drivers since roughly 1950.

(4)  For More Information

Propaganda about climate change:

1. The media doing what it does best these days, feeding us disinformation, 11 February 2008
2. More attempts to control the climate science debate using smears and swarming, 19 October 2009
3. The facts about the 1970′s Global Cooling scare, 7 December 2009
4. Quote of the day – hidden history for people who rely on the mainstream media for information, 12 February 2010
5. The hidden history of the global warming crusade, 19 February 2010
6. A real-time example of the birth and spread of climate propaganda, 9 March 2010
7. Lies told under the influence of the Green religion to save the world, 30 July 2010
8. Shaping your view of the world with well-constructed propaganda, 21 June 2012 — About rising sea levels.
9. Run from the rising waves! (The latest climate catastrophe scare), 27 June 2012
10. Ignorance and propaganda about extreme climate change, 10 July 2012
11. Lessons the Left can learn from the Right when writing about climate change, 12 December 2012 — More from Phil Plait

(5)  One of the many examples of photoshoped climate propaganda: from Science

See this article by Roger Pielke Jr (Prof Environmental Sciece, U CO-Boulder) discusses the many implications of this episode.  For a more accurate report about the condition of polar bears see section 2 of this post.

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