Unfortunately, some misuse science. Some of their intentions, are far from benevolent. They see science as a mechanism for political power and control. There is great danger from those who would use science for political control over us.
How do they do this? They instill, and then continuously magnify, fear. Fear is the most effective instrument of totalitarian control.
If your colleagues mostly read The Guardian and excoriate The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail, then they are likely to a) be seriously mis-informed about climate change and b) unlikely to have seen this quiz.
10 questions out of hundreds that could be constructed on similar lines are not too many to put someone intent on their coffee off trying them. The two Tory opportunists in the picture may even provide motivation for them to have a go since I suppose a Guardian-reader will automatically be incensed by them. In this case, for once, they would be right in their prejudice.
As a bonus poke in the eye, let them see the rest of the page carrying the quiz, but only after they have been softened up by it!
One thing we shall need for years to come is good quality materials to help repair the damage done in politics and in education by the past decades of overblown alarmism about CO2. This video project promises to provide exactly that, and may yet manage to go ahead on a reduced budget. Here is the latest update:
Note added 29 July 2013. It looks like all the interviews and the studio-work has been completed, and they are going flat-out on animation with a target release date of 'around about' 25th August. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIsBMM0m9Vc&feature=youtu.be
Prof Bob Carter shreds the case for alarm over CO2 and climate in this lecture from 2011, recently put on toYouTube. It is a public lecture on "Climate Context as a basis for Better Policy", given at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, June 2011 (h/t http://spielclimate.blogspot.co.uk/ and through them https://twitter.com/Climate_con/statuses/336167271582035968)
This deserves the 'must-see' label! Not only does he expose the shoddy science, he also exposes the shoddy policies and shoddy politicking and shoddy PR efforts that have thrived upon it.
This should be recommended viewing for every teacher in the world.
I also think there are seeds in this video for ideas that could be used as and when the 'authorities' get round to creating a decent curriculum on climate for schools. That might have to precede publishers willing to risk new books aimed at the young, and suitable for schools, with a more realistic and optimistic view of our climate system and our impact on it.
That might include the fact that we have never been in a stronger position than we are now to cope with climate variations. So parents might like to take the initiative and tell their children that. There will be troubles ahead from climate, just as there have been in the past. But we are more ready than ever before to handle them. Our abundant supplies of affordable energy are part of that.
As someone who has not been convinced that recent increases in CO2 are an important or dominating
driver of the climate system, I find the speculations about temperature changes
as promoted by the IPCC quite hard to get excited about.However that is not the case with many influential
or powerful people – they are very excited indeed, and want us all to put a
stop to world development in a dramatic fashion.Dramatic reductions in fossil-fuel
consumption along with dramatic increases in the use of inefficient generation
technology such as windturbines,will in
my view increase the cost of energy supplies and thus make it harder to cope
with climate variation in years to come.
The discussion of climate change is now so heated, and polarised,
that it will take remarkable efforts for one side to get through to the
other.This proposed video, 50 to 1, is
one such effort, or so it seems to me.Remarkable because it will take the IPCC methods and use them to
demonstrate that the actions proposed to ‘stop climate change’ are many times
more expensive than those that would be involved in adapting to it.About fifty time more, according to some!
The appeal has not reached the halfway mark in sums
promised, and we are at the halfway mark of the appeal’s planned duration.I hope all readers will consider
donating.Lots of small donations might
inspire a few huge ones.
'Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation
than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonisation of this
natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control
of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is
that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary
to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by
increasing agricultural productivity.
The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so
has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of
human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has
with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists
have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better
with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and
atmosphere. There isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide
has caused more extreme weather.'
'Mr. Schmitt, an adjunct professor of engineering at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S.
senator from New Mexico. Mr. Happer is a professor of physics at
Princeton University and a former director of the office of energy
research at the U.S. Department of Energy.'
Note added 18 May 2013 Here is a video clip showing Happer participating in a tv discussion triggered by the above letter (h/t Bishop Hill):
