10-minute trainer: IPCC spin exposed very clearly. Again.

The remarkable success of the IPCC is due in some part to the simple, emphatic messages it imparts to the media, and seeks to incoporate in 'summaries for policy makers'.  These gloss over, ignore, or even contradict the reservations expressed even by those scientists who participate in the various working groups.  Thus, the scientists hang on to some integrity, where their papers recognise uncertainties, or distinguish between observational data, and the output of speculative computer models. Meanwhile, the political activists get what they want - dramatic headlines, and a headlong rush to push policy-making at breakneck speeds.

Donna Lamframboise has reported on one recent instance of this, captured by a writer from the New York Times, a famously leftwing paper not at all hostile to the IPCC, exposing the blatant error in this UN press release:

'UN press release makes the same mistake Revkin talks about

Andrew Revkin, who blogs about climate change for the New York Times, is doing what an experienced beat reporter is supposed to: he’s paying close attention. In a post filed from the Cancun climate summit, Revkin notes that a draft document currently being circulated by the United Nations contains a mistake.
The document lists some basic, agreed-upon climate change facts on page four. The third point, Revkin reports, currently says that the document

3. Recognizes that warming of the climate system, as a consequence of human activity, is unequivocal, as assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change [IPCC] in its Fourth Assessment Report;

Revkin correctly points out that this statement is false. In his words:

The only major conclusion of the climate panel that is described as “unequivocal” is that the climate has warmed.'

A nice illustration for any class discussion on the nature and intentions of the IPCC.  This is by no means the only instance of this sort of thing.  It supports the contention that the de facto role of the IPCC is to generate severe alarm about human influence on climate, largely via the implausible hypothesis that CO2 is a major driver of climate.  Yet many might have reasonably have assumed that the role was to critically review and summarise what is known about the causes and consequences of climate variation.  No such luck!

Background reading - helping us, and our discussions, stay civil on climate

I will not be able to do much on this blog for about another month or so, but in the meantime I hope to keep things ticking over by relaying pieces from other sources.  The essay below is by Donna Lamframboise, and although I have much sympathy for Tim Ball's reaction to the provocations of those pushing alarm about CO2, I think Donna has provided good guidance here:

---

Appalling Rhetoric from a Climate Skeptic

November 26, 2010

I’ve never met Tim Ball, a retired climatology professor and vocal climate change skeptic. I think he comes across well in this video, and I’ve heard others say he’s a good and decent man. I must confess, though, that I stopped reading his regular posts at Canada Free Press some time ago because I consider his rhetoric over-the-top.
If scientists don’t choose their words carefully when they make social and political arguments, it causes me to worry that they haven’t been as rigorous as they should be when arriving at their scientific judgments. In my view, way too many scientists (and others) have taken up hardline positions on either side of the climate change line. From there they hurl insults at each another. Sense and virtue can only be found on their side. Those people over there are deliberate liars. They’re stupid, corrupt, fraudulent, deceptive, manipulative, and self-interested.
In some respects, I’m a typical member of the public. I didn’t take any university-level science courses. Therefore, if someone stands up at the front of the room and points at graphs, refers to scientific theorems, and jots down formulas, my head begins to swim. I’m not equipped to follow the conversation. I don’t speak that language. Everything sounds plausible to me. Which means – and I know this is going to be distressing for some people to hear – I cannot be persuaded solely by a discussion of the science.
I, like many people, decide who I believe based on the strength of their logic, on their demeanor, on how they respond when challenged. Do they behave professionally – or do they lash out with venom and contempt? The individuals whom I find persuasive act like grownups – not not like adolescents intent on scoring meaningless points in a video game.
Freeman Dyson, who is a gifted writer as well as an eminent physicist, describes science as “a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions” (page 3). That makes a lot of sense to me. There are numerous scientific disciplines, numerous ways of looking at the physical world. Two scientists from different disciplines might well examine the same question and come to conflicting conclusions. I’m OK with the notion that they both might be partially right.
So when an ethics professor at Penn State U argued last month that corporations that advance skeptical climate arguments are guilty of crimes against humanity I was deeply offended. And when climate skeptic Ball argued yesterday that proponents of human-caused climate change theory are similarly guilty of crimes against humanity I was equally appalled.
Crimes against humanity are nothing to joke about. Mass graves, intentionally inflicted famine, gas chambers, barbarous violence – those horrors should not be spoken of lightly. If everything is a crime against humanity, then nothing is.
Climate change is a complex matter – and no one knows what the future holds. If the proponents of human-caused catastrophic climate change are right, climate skeptics may indeed have blood on our hands because we may well have impeded effective responses. (I don’t really believe this since I’ve yet to be persuaded that emissions reduction would actually accomplish anything. But for the sake of argument, I’m willing to grant this possibility.)
If climate skeptics are correct, however, and emissions reduction seriously undermines the well-being of national economies then far more people will lead pinched, restricted, poverty-stricken lives. Infant mortality will rise. Food (which is grown with fossil-fueled farm equipment and transported in fossil-fueled trucks) will become more expensive. There is no way, given the current state of our technology, to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions while still keeping the hospitals running, the schools heated, and anywhere near the same number of people employed. The math simply doesn’t work. Environmental activist George Monbiot isn’t kidding when he says:

The campaign against climate change is an odd one. Unlike almost all the public protests which have preceded it, it is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. [bold added, p. 215]

Because the climate change debate is so important, because so many lives (not to mention trillions of dollars) hang in the balance, we need open, vigorous debate. We need to hear all perspectives.
I want the proponents of AGW to make their case. I want the skeptics to make theirs. I want the lukewarmers and those occupying the agnostic middle ground to have their say. Only from this symphony of discussion, from this multitude of perspectives, will trustworthy knowledge emerge and genuine understanding evolve.
But this free and open discourse cannot happen when both sides are trying to shut down the debate by labeling other people’s views criminal.

Another straw in the wind - here is a teacher who has had enough of 'climate porn'

Bishop Hill has extracted this comment posted below a piece in the Daily Telegraph (a piece written by their WWF Spokesperson Louise Gray):

"This article is the last straw. For six years I have had to bit my tongue while force-feeding this climate anthropogenic global warming nonsense into the increasingly sceptical minds of my science school learners. They all know it's a scam. I know it's a scam. They all know that we will be notionally 1010ed if we don't all toe the party line, give the "government approved" answer in the exams, fill in the approved plans, but carry on as normal. I cannot seriously go into a school next term and carry on like this.

Consequently I hereby declare that, metaphorically, the next parent, head of science, head teacher, school governor, local education authority jobsworth, central government apparatchik, or UK energy minister who tells me have to teach this climate porn to under-16s or lose my job will be kebabed on a hockey stick and fed to the polar bear packs currently massing under my window seeking warmth. And any kid who dares to submit an assignment consisting of material cut'n'pasted from these Louise Gray's WWF press releases will be spreadeagled on a stationary wind turbine in the North Sea.

I call upon all teachers to join me in this declaration, and to organise a welcome back party to all UK attendees from Cancun"

And in the comments beneath the Bishop's post, a commenter called Trefor Jones writes:

"I concur totally with the sentiment. During the latter years of my long career as a head of geography I became totally disillussioned with the nonsense that I was supposed to teach and examine. The students, staff members ( apart from the young and ambitious) privately shared the doubts, especially mathematics teachers who understood that you cannot predict a chaotic system. It came to a head when I ignored an opportunity to take a group of children to see "An Inconvenient Truth", and was promptly sent a copy of this eco-nonsense by courier directly to my classroom. Unfortunately, following a very nasty accident I have had to finish teaching. However, I do not miss the climate change elements of the course which had morphed over the past decade from geography to environmnetally inaccurate propaganda. The Green lobby which has invaded so many of our national institutions are in my eyes nothing less than rather dangerous totalitarian fascists."

 And 'JohnOfEnfield' also appears again (see my previous post) with this comment:

"Yipee!
From my own experience: -
1. Teachers are beginning to coach children on this rather than just spout the propaganda. "What is the most common gas in the atmosphere?", "CO2, it is a toxic gas Miss". "What does toxic mean?". ...."So CO2 is NOT toxic then?". etc.
2. Head of sixth form "I can't get teachers to teach this c**p!".
And I thought I was a lone voice, crying in the wilderness."

Hope and change spring eternal!

A straw in the wind - are UK teachers revolting against the teaching of global warming propaganda?

Here is a comment on a thread published recently on WUWT :

"JohnOfEnfield says:

November 22, 2010 at 12:04 pm

I am very heartened by recent feedback from within my circle of family, friends and colleagues.

Apparently the teaching profession in the UK is beginning to revolt against teaching global warming, which they see as mere propaganda.

The BBC is also being seen as a propaganda tool right across the board. Their active support for AGW is seen in this light and therefore the standing of AGW is suffering badly.

All good signs, if not an open revolt yet."

Is this true?  Is it even plausible?  Hope springs eternal.  May I ask all who read this to please forward a link to this post to any and all of their contacts in teaching.  If you have none, how about forwarding it to some local schools, e.g. geography or science head teachers?

If a spark of sense is smouldering in JohnofEnfield's circles, perhaps it can be found elsewhere, and encouraged to turn into a blaze of fury that will help see the curriculum cleansed of odious alarmism.

Do Climate ScareYouAlls make good teachers or preachers? - a musical offering.

[note: KnowItAll replaced by ScareYouAll 21/11/10]

APOLOGIES: Gilbert and Sullivan
TITLE: I Am the Very Model of a Modern Climate-ScareYouAll
 
Lyrics
[Pirates of the IPPC]



I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll
I’ve information digital, quotable, pictorial
I know the hacks of TV-land, and quote just like an oracle
On ‘News at Ten’ to ‘News at One’, on crises categorical.


I’m sort of well acquainted, too, with matters computational
I’ve heard of those projections, both simple and dramatical
On past and present temperatures I’m teeming with a lot o’news
Tho short of cheerful facts about the Yamal trees we have to use.
 
I’m very good at scariness and all degrees of fearfulness
I know how children get those nightmares quite horribilis
In short, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll.
 
I know our media’s trickery, in Nature and the NYT
I dish out press releases and they headline anything from me
I quote in elegiacs all the flaws of Homo Sapiens
With polemics I can dazzle almost any leftwing audience.
 
I can tell Trenberths and Santers from the Manns and even Houghtons
I know the Schmidts and Hansens  from the Albert Gores and Joneses
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din anew
And whistle all the airs from that infernal M4GW.
 
I can write a laundry list in Hulmeian Obtusiform
While forgetting every detail of those emails in ExCRUciform
In short, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll.
 
In fact, when I know what is meant by "lapse rate" and "stratiform"
When I can tell at sight a timeplot from a tephigram
When such affairs as hunches and guesses I'm more wary at
And when I know precisely what is meant by "wet in an adiabat".
 
When I have learnt of progress made in methods so statistical
When I know more ANOVA than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental calculus
You'll say a better Climate-ScareYouAll has never been to see us.
 
For my scientific knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of last century
But still, in matters terrible, fearful and excitable
I am the very model of a modern Climate-ScareYouAll.

A singalong version, with the original words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYZM__VdEjk&feature=related




I posted an earlier version of the above on WUWT yesterday as a comment, but a post there today made me dig it out to polish it up a bit. The post was about yet another agitated professor, this time a professor of astronomy, ranting away on climate, desperately trying to provoke his class. An unedited video of this class is here.

Full Video: LSU Astronomy Class from Campus Reform on Vimeo.

We have professors of many sorts, of various ‘ologies such as psychology, apparently so demented with fear that they make dreadful pronouncements well outside their professional competence.

We have environmental/climate office holders in the media (not least in the BBC), and in all  those organisations previously concerned with other things before they discovered meteorology such as the WWF, FoE, GreenPeace, and Oxfam telling us the end is nigh with much gusto.  Not to mention those organisations previously concerned with meteorology before they discovered other things, such as the UK Met Office, NASA, and CSIRO.  

 We have had the 10:10 zealots scaring even their own followers with the PR disaster of their extremist movie ‘No Pressure'.

And of course, we have the IPCC itself, whose reports, leaders and followers like Albert Gore scatter the word ‘catastrophe’ around like confetti, happily winning plaudits and fortunes from those they have managed to convince.  

Yet I don't find any of them convincing. Nor do many others. No doubt we should deepen our study of what the experts are telling us, but I can do without the emotional, scaremongering excursions into polemics from academics who ought to know better, from journalists who parrot their words, and from no end of political and financial interests finding advantage in the melee. 

Any schools still free to do so, should actively and explicitly distance themselves from this unseemly arena of unsettled science and very settled politics, to concentrate instead on educating and building the 
confidence of their pupils as free agents, rather than scaring and 'mobilising' them to the tune of a very politicised drum.

Note added a few hours after original post: more Gilbert & Sullivan adapted for the modern climate here:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/9/the-modern-climatologist.html   (good verses in the comments as well).

Note added 30 April 2013.  Here is yet another version: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/a-modern-climatologist/