Summary: Today’s post gives a challenge and two useful presentations about climate change. How can climate scientists restart the debate — and gain majority support for large-scale public policy measures for mitigation of and adaptation to climate change? Plus a presentation overflowing with insights about climate science (not what you might expect from a Professor of Statistics), and a presentation by Roger Pielke Sr. about the state of the art in climate science.
“The climate is what you expect; the weather is what you get.”
— From Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love.
A challenge for you
Last week I posted What climate scientists did wrong and while the massive climate change campaign has failed. After 26 years, one of the largest longest campaigns to influence public policy has failed to gain the support of Americans, with climate change ranking near the bottom of people’s concerns. It described the obvious reason: they failed to meet the public’s expectations for behavior of scientists warning about a global threat (i.e., a basic public relations mistake).
The next few posts explain how climate scientists can re-start the public policy debate about climate change and win — gaining approval of large-scale public policy measures for mitigation and adaptation). It’s taken longer than I planned to research; the first goes up tomorrow. So for today I pass the ball to you. Post your recommendations for climate scientists in the comments!
Recommendation #1, a brilliant presentation overflowing with ideas
Here are the slide decks to two interesting presentations. The first is by Leonard A Smith (Prof of Statistics, London School of Economics): “Distinguishing Uncertainty, Diversity and Insight“. It’s long, dense, and difficult to follow without the speech — but brilliant and over-flowing with insights. I especially recommend slides 76-86 describing the constraints limiting climate models. He does it unusually clearly using simple graphs of model complexity (run time) vs. forecast lead time (how far in the future it can see).
Also see this paper by Smith and Nicholas Stern “Uncertainty in science and its role in climate policy” in Phil Trans A, 31 October 2011.
Recommendation #2, the state of the art in climate science
“Climate lasts all the time and weather only a few days.”
— From Mark Twain’s English As She Is Taught.
Second, I recommend this presentation by Roger Pielke Sr. (see his Wikipedia entry): “Climate Threats: A More Inclusive Assessment Is Needed“, 11 September 2015. It’s an excellent summary of the state of the play in climate science.
Other posts in this series
These posts sum up my 330 posts about climate change.
- How we broke the climate change debates. Lessons learned for the future.
- How climate change can help the GOP win in 2016.
- Next: How climate scientists can re-start the public policy debate about climate change.
For More Information
Please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and post your comments — because we value your participation. For more information about this vital issue see The keys to understanding climate change and My posts about climate change. Especially see these…
- Watch the Left burn away more of its credibility, then wonder why the Right wins.
- Scientists speak to us about the warming pause, while activists deny their work.
- Climate denial by Left & Right dominates the public debate.
- Climate activists’ last play: attempting to start an “availability cascade.”
- Appeals to fear gain little support for the Left on climate change. What next?
- An example of the mad climate change debate, showing America’s dysfunctionality.
- What happened to NASA’s missing weather satellites & their vital data about global warming?
To help you better understand today’s extreme weather
To learn more about the state of climate change see The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change
