The Toyota Recall and CAGW: two examples of sense submerged by alarmism

The vulnerability of modern societies to scare stories is revealed on a small scale by the Toyota Recall fiasco, and on a large scale by the CO2 Alarm fiasco.  Both give insight into how politicians and others can be hassled into hasty actions and foolish decisions.  Or is it merely that they spotted advantage in propagating the scare?

Millions of vehicles were recalled around the world, and a new TLA spread: UIA - un-intended acceleration.  Sounds scary!  Better do something!  The theatre is on fire!  Everybody out!  No time to waste!

Except it was a false alarm:
 
'NASA's Toyota Study Released by Dept. of Transportation     02.08.11'

'WASHINGTON -- The results of a ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers of possible electronic causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles was released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).


"NASA found no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations," said Michael Kirsch, principal engineer and team lead of the study from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) based at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.'


This would be a good project for senior pupils interested in current affairs: a side by side comparison of the climate scare and the accelerator scare.  They are on different scales, but they share much in common:

(1) something scary for the general public
(2) a simple theory to convey 'knowledge' of the reason for the scare
(3) self-serving groups joining in the alarmism in which they have spotted advantage
(4) hasty legislation or the threat of it
(5) resources diverted to unnecessary actions
(6) in retrospect, revealed to be unfounded and foolish


Would that NASA, which led the investigation into the Toyota recall (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/nesc-toyota-study.html), would display the same disinterested and analytical approach on climate.  But no, that would be naive, since they are a prominent example of stage (3) above.

Stage (6) is still underway on climate alarmism, and is taking far longer.  The climate stage (3) was just on so much greater a scale, aided and abetted by massive state funding for such as the IPCC, and the far larger set of parties who spotted political, financial, or merely career opportunities in and around the scaremongering.

Note added 07 April 2014.  The disturbing episode of the Toyota false alarm is still getting coverage.  An Obama functionary called LaHood helped make the alarm worse, and Toyota ended paying a fine of $1.2 billion: 'No one is innocent, of course, but not everyone is bailed out. So Toyota, after recalling millions of cars and changing parts and floor mats even before LaHood's outburst – and after years of being hounded by the administration – recently agreed to pay a steep fine for its role in the acceleration flap. This, despite the fact that in 2012, Department of Transportation engineers determined that no mechanical failure was present that would cause applying the brakes to initiate acceleration. The DOT conducted tests that determined that the brakes could maintain a stationary car or bring one to a full stop even with the engine racing. It looked at 58 vehicles that were supposedly involved in unintended acceleration and found no evidence of brake failure or throttle malfunction.' http://patriotpost.us/opinion/24589  . 

Classroom Climate Conditioning at work: the plotting, the preaching, the results

 'Teaching Climate Change' - a video for teachers.

I guess it all depends on your point of view.  For me this is a sinister, spine-chilling video from way back in 2008, but I can see how the faithful would be pleased with it, giving insight as it does into the equivalent of two senior Jesuits ensuring the doctrinal correctness of a parish priest with teaching duties.

A professor, a PR/communications man, and a teacher are sitting by a window discussing how best to convert children into political activists for their cause.  Frequent shots from the classroom are spliced in to show their schemes in action, and interviews with some pupils at the end demonstrate some success - youngsters now guilt-ridden, and keen to 'take action'. 

Dramatis Personae

The Professor: David Lambert, Chief Executive of the Geographical Association, part-time professor and co-author of the blog 'Impolite Geography', where a recent post quotes with apparent sympathy these words from someone called Huckle, in 1985: “The struggle to construct and implement a socialist school geography will face many setbacks as it has in the past, but it remains part of the overall struggle for a counter-hegemony and an alternative future”.  No, I don't know what it means either!  But the notion of 'socialist school geography' rings alarm bells in my head, given the appalling track record of socialism in the 20th century, most notoriously in Germany in the 30s and 40s, in the USSR and in Mao's China.

The Communicator: Ed Gillespie, Founder and Director of Futerra, a public relations organisation which looks to have been a great financial success, with clients including the BBC, the government, and many multinational corporations.  Ed is introduced as a 'climate expert', although he lacks any relevant professional qualification or experience in the subject, unless we take the broad definition which could include anyone who notes 'If these wet summers continue, I'll have to give up my vegetable plot' and is able to back that up with some data, and of course at least a speculative link to 'climate change'.  It would have been more accurate to introduce him as a successful businessman with a strong interest in climate alarmism.  (http://www.futerra.co.uk/about_us/directors )

The Teacher: David Dixon, a teacher at Hampstead School.  He comes across as an effective and sympathetic teacher, and is shown working with a dream class of bright, and engaged pupils, albeit ones whose critical faculties did not get displayed by the editor.  David states at the end of the video that he sees teaching 'climate change' as a 'moral duty'.

Their aim: to see how best to make use of 'climate change' to get their ideas across about 'geography', 'diversity', 'sustainability' (this last term used near the end as an umbrella term for everything else).

An early slide in what may be the first lesson has this in a prominent bullet-point:
'How can we alter our lives?' [at time 02m:10s]

Teacher decides in favour of 'steering away from the science ideas', which seems like a good tactic, given that some of the most penetrating attacks on climate alarmism are coming from scientists.

The Professor notes: 'We understand the science.  We trust it.', a catechism which I think triggered the Jesuit analogy in my tiny mind.

Pupils who say the right things about various self- and other-denials, get rewarded with 'Excellent!  Brilliant!', which is a bit much since they are merely doing as they have been told.

The Communicator promotes 'Carbon calculators' as the weapon of choice to get the class engaged in assessing their own lives, those of their parents, as well as of a celebrity and a teacher in their school.  And the movie switches to them doing just that, picking out an outstanding sportsman, David Beckham, as a figure to somehow compute a carbon footprint for, and for it to be seen as a bad thing rather than a symptom, as I would see it, of his great success.  A bit like Al Gore's footprint, which for some reason did not get a mention.

People in the USA are singled out, not so much to celebrate diversity, but to note without challenge a pupil's assertion that they are 'big and drive about a lot'! The USA, spenders of more money on overseas aid, on climate research, on new technologies, on the United Nations, than any other country is reduced to a stereotype. 

The Professor: 'why has it been allowed to happen?'  (Hinting at some authority, possibly a deity, who allows this and forbids that? Surely not!) Why did it allow 'the possibility of ....global catastrophe'  [at 10:11] Switch to big smile of delight by the The Communicator [at 10:12]) - you could almost see the cash-register sparkling in his eyes at that magic word 'catastrophe'.

If I close my eyes, I can picture our balance sheet...

A juxtaposition in time which seems accidently informative, but perhaps in fairness to Ed, it was just a trick of the editor's art.

 

The Professor: backing away from the deity notion, he slips in the basic cause ot the 'catastrophe' as due the fact that 'we consist of individual nation states', and hints at the discredited, even by leftwingers, 'tragedy of the commons' hypothesis so adored by an earlier generation of environmental activists, a hypothesis named explicitly by The Communicator.

Towards the end, the clear hijacking of 'climate change' as a cloak to smuggle in 'sustainable development' is revealed.  But what, you may ask, is the cloak of 'sustainable development' smuggling in?  A Trojan horse for more government control perhaps, including some kind of supranational version? (please excuse my mixing of metaphors in one short paragraph!)

The Communicator:  '..we can turn kids into a whole bundle of little climate activists..'[at: 12:53-59]).  

Yes you can, but only some of them, some of the time, not all of them, all of the time.  You missed this one for example:
http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/02/fighting-from-bottom-pupil-strikes-back.html.

The Teacher: 'we have a moral duty to teach this'.  Your morality may well differ from mine, but that's diversity for you.

Overall, a dismal story.  ( for more 'dismal' on geography teaching in the UK: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2011/02/rotting-from-top-government.html )

But let us try to be more cheerful!  Imagine the same framework, but now with a disciple of Julian Simon as the professor and Matt Ridley as the communicator!  In this new version of the clip, they are sharing thoughts about how to convey to children the wonders of the world, and what transformations in the quality of life have been achieved, and how that progress is becoming worldwide now that China and India in particular have given private enterprise a little more freedom to thrive.  The abundance of resources could be illustrated by the shale oil and gas discoveries, and the sequential failures of forecasts of 'peak oil' , not to mention many other 'environmentalist' forecasts of doom refuted by simple or subsequent observations. The cleaner technologies of the most industrialised countries show how pollution can be reduced, and more efficient use made of materials and energy supplies.  The class will be encouraged to imagine how future generations might live, with the promise of destructive, stultifying large-scale poverty fading from the world.  What a planet!  They might come to decide, as does the lead character in a current London play called 'The Heretic', with a bit of hyperbole:

".. that people, not nature, are the real miracle of life. "I've decided that the stars are rubbish. ... The stars are God's mistakes. We are the miracle. Life. Human intelligence. Human innovation, creativity, invention. That is why, every night, the stars gaze down on us in awe."

Now to develop that idea would be radical.  And would seriously challange the establishment view that we must worship nature and hang on the every word of 'environmentalists', apparently in direct proportion to the level of alarm they can muster.  Why not just teach children about climate, how varied it has been in the past, and how it will no doubt continue to vary in the future?  On the way, explaining how industrial and agricultural progress is helping more and more people to reduce their vulnerability to weather events and to climate variation. To give more emphasis to climate science, another version of our remake could choose the professor from a long list of good candidates, such as Lindzen, Spencer, Carter, and many others of that noble ilk.  And the communicator chosen from Monckton, Nova, Delingpole, Montford, and many others of that also noble ilk.  It might be harder to find 'The Teacher' though, as I guess they are liable to get fired or demonised if they step aside from the establishment line on climate.  But somewhere, surely, in private schools at least there are many who could fit the part?  Or perhaps the teacher could be shown in silhouette, with a dubbed voice, to protect his or her identity.  That picture would, by itself, be educational.

Note added 04 May 2012: My original link to the video above no longer works and has now been removed.  A possibly later (October 2011) version of the video is available here: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-us/Resources/Item/105435/ks3-4-geography-teaching-climate-change#.T6PPlFKM58F

Paired Comparisons in Climate Claims: paired by credulity and context

How about these, side by side on the climate-classroom wall?

The intellectual problems of the alarmists, exposed by Jimbo in a comment at Notrickszone:

'A few things caused by global warming:

Warmer Northern Hemisphere winters due to global warming
Colder Northern Hemisphere winters due to global warming

Global warming to slow down the Earth’s rotation
Global warming to speed up the Earth’s rotation

North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty
North Atlantic Ocean has become more salty

Avalanches may increase
Avalanches may decrease

Plants move uphill due to global warming
Plants move downhill due to global warming

Monsoons to become drier in India
Monsoons to become wetter in India

Plankton blooms
Plankton decline

Reindeer thrive
Reindeer decline

Less snow in Great Lakes
More snow in Great Lakes

Gulf stream slows down
Gulf stream shows “small increase in flow“

San Francisco more foggy
San Francisco less foggy

Less winter snow for Britain
More winter snow for Britain '

Is 'climatology' really fit for use in schools?  Should there not be a watershed below which exposure to it is not advised, say 30 years of age.  Just about enough years to see through shoddy science and self-seeking spin?  Leaving schools, and universities, to concentrate on truth and understanding, and postponing the shoddy stuff to be dealt with in those later years.

Note added 11 Feb: Pierre Gosselin has compiled a longer list of them, using 4 more pairs posted in a later comment by Jimbo: http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/10/unfalsifiable-science-proof-of-climate-change/

Note added 16 Feb:  Another commenter has added even more pairs: http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/10/unfalsifiable-science-proof-of-climate-change/#comment-14480 , giving credit to John Bignell: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm): “A complete list of things caused by global warming”.

Good Advice for Teachers: 'Don’t be intimidated by false claims of “scientific consensus” or “overwhelming proof.”'

An open letter that would grace any classroom wall:

'February 8, 2011

To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:

In reply to “The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change”

On 28 January 2011, eighteen scientists sent a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging them to “take a fresh look at climate change.” Their intent, apparently, was to disparage the views of scientists who disagree with their contention that continued business-as-usual increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced from the burning of coal, gas, and oil will lead to a host of cataclysmic climate-related problems.
We, the undersigned, totally disagree with them and would like to take this opportunity to briefly state our side of the story.
The eighteen climate alarmists (as we refer to them, not derogatorily, but simply because they view themselves as “sounding the alarm” about so many things climatic) state that the people of the world “need to prepare for massive flooding from the extreme storms of the sort being experienced with increasing frequency,” as well as the “direct health impacts from heat waves” and “climate-sensitive infectious diseases,” among a number of other devastating phenomena. And they say that “no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet’s climate,” which is understood to mean their view of what is happening to Earth’s climate.
To these statements, however, we take great exception. It is the eighteen climate alarmists who appear to be unaware of “what is happening to our planet’s climate,” as well as the vast amount of research that has produced that knowledge.
For example, a lengthy review of their claims and others that climate alarmists frequently make can be found on the Web site of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (see http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/prudentpath/prudentpath.php). That report offers a point-by-point rebuttal of all of the claims of the “group of eighteen,” citing in every case peer-reviewed scientific research on the actual effects of climate change during the past several decades.
If the “group of eighteen” pleads ignorance of this information due to its very recent posting, then we call their attention to an even larger and more comprehensive report published in 2009, Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). That document has been posted for more than a year in its entirety at www.nipccreport.org.
These are just two recent compilations of scientific research among many we could cite. Do the 678 scientific studies referenced in the CO2 Science document, or the thousands of studies cited in the NIPCC report, provide real-world evidence (as opposed to theoretical climate model predictions) for global warming-induced increases in the worldwide number and severity of floods? No. In the global number and severity of droughts? No. In the number and severity of hurricanes and other storms? No.
Do they provide any real-world evidence of Earth’s seas inundating coastal lowlands around the globe? No. Increased human mortality? No. Plant and animal extinctions? No. Declining vegetative productivity? No. More frequent and deadly coral bleaching? No. Marine life dissolving away in acidified oceans? No.
Quite to the contrary, in fact, these reports provide extensive empirical evidence that these things are not happening. And in many of these areas, the referenced papers report finding just the opposite response to global warming, i.e., biosphere-friendly effects of rising temperatures and rising CO2 levels.
In light of the profusion of actual observations of the workings of the real world showing little or no negative effects of the modest warming of the second half of the twentieth century, and indeed growing evidence of positive effects, we find it incomprehensible that the eighteen climate alarmists could suggest something so far removed from the truth as their claim that no research results have produced any evidence that challenges their view of what is happening to Earth’s climate and weather.
But don’t take our word for it. Read the two reports yourselves. And then make up your own minds about the matter. Don’t be intimidated by false claims of “scientific consensus” or “overwhelming proof.” These are not scientific arguments and they are simply not true.
Like the eighteen climate alarmists, we urge you to take a fresh look at climate change. We believe you will find that it is not the horrendous environmental threat they and others have made it out to be, and that they have consistently exaggerated the negative effects of global warming on the U.S. economy, national security, and public health, when such effects may well be small to negligible.
Signed by:
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, University of Alaska1
Scott Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania
James Barrante, Southern Connecticut State University1
Richard Becherer, University of Rochester
John Boring, University of Virginia
Roger Cohen, American Physical Society Fellow
David Douglass, University of Rochester
Don Easterbrook, Western Washington University1
Robert Essenhigh, The Ohio State University1
Martin Fricke, Senior Fellow, American Physical Society
Lee Gerhard, University of Kansas1
Ulrich Gerlach, The Ohio State University
Laurence Gould, University of Hartford
Bill Gray, Colorado State University1
Will Happer, Princeton University2
Howard Hayden, University of Connecticut1
Craig Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Sherwood Idso, USDA, U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory1
Richard Keen, University of Colorado
Doral Kemper, USDA, Agricultural Research Service1
Hugh Kendrick, Office of Nuclear Reactor Programs, DOE1
Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology2
Anthony Lupo, University of Missouri
Patrick Michaels, Cato Institute
Donald Nielsen, University of California, Davis1
Al Pekarek, St. Cloud State University
John Rhoads, Midwestern State University1
Nicola Scafetta, Duke University
Gary Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
S. Fred Singer, University of Virginia1
Roy Spencer, University of Alabama
George Taylor, Past President, American Association of State Climatologists
Frank Tipler, Tulane University
Leonard Weinstein, National Institute of Aerospace Senior Research Fellow
Samuel Werner, University of Missouri1
Thomas Wolfram, University of Missouri1
1 – Emeritus or Retired
2 – Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Endorsed by:
Rodney Armstrong, Geophysicist
Edwin Berry, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Joseph Bevelacqua, Bevelacqua Resources
Carmen Catanese, American Physical Society Member
Roy Clark, Ventura Photonics
John Coleman, Meteorologist KUSI TV
Darrell Connelly, Geophysicist
Joseph D’Aleo, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Terry Donze, Geophysicist1
Mike Dubrasich, Western Institute for Study of the Environment
John Dunn, American Council on Science and Health of NYC
Dick Flygare, QEP Resources
Michael Fox, Nuclear industry/scientist
Gordon Fulks, Gordon Fulks and Associates
Ken Haapala, Science & Environmental Policy Project
Martin Hertzberg, Bureau of Mines1
Art Horn, Meteorologist
Keith Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute
Robert Lerine, Industrial and Defense Research and Engineering1
Peter Link, Geologist
James Macdonald, Chief Meteorologist for the Travelers Weather Service1
Roger Matson, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists
Tony Pann, Meteorologist WBAL TV
Ned Rasor, Consulting Physicist
James Rogers, Geologist1
Norman Rogers, National Association of Scholars
Thomas Sheahen, Western Technology Incorporated
Andrew Spurlock, Starfire Engineering and Technologies, Inc.
Leighton Steward, PlantsNeedCO2.org
Soames Summerhays, Summerhays Films, Inc.
Charles Touhill, Consulting Environmental Engineer
David Wojick, Climatechangedebate.org
1 – Emeritus or Retired'

Letter in PDF form: TruthAboutClimateChangeOpenLetter

Thanks to: WUWT  


Note added later: Details of the 'Letter from the 18 alarmists' are given here, along with some powerful Fisking of them: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/04/pielke-sr-on-the-gang-of-18-letter-to-congress/

Fighting from the Bottom: a pupil strikes back against climate-cloaked indoctrination

A little flippant perhaps, but in this tiny act of defiance by what may be a 14-year old completing a 'climate questionnaire' I see a spark of hope:

 

Source: http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/02/clarkson-1-harrabin-black-shukman-0.html    

It would seem this was captured by someone while entering the children's responses into a computer.

For non-UK or non-TV viewers: Jeremy Clarkson is a charming free-thinker, decidedly averse to being told what to think by the PC brigade.  He leads an extremely popular tv-programme about cars (mostly).  He also writes articles for newspapers, such as this:

 

From The Sun, 29th January, 2011.  Hat-tip: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7124  

A little humour is not amiss in the face of the all-but-relentless propaganda in the media for the establishment's take on climate variability, and how it can be exploited by governments and corporations alike - such as the WWF for example, or Greenpeace, or Goldman-Sachs, or, while it lasted, Enron.