2014 SkS Weekly Digest #8
Posted on 23 February 2014 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights
The most controversial articles posted during the past week were John Cook's 'It's been hot before': faulty logic skews the climate debate and Dana's Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap. The controveries were, however, registered on the comment threads of the original postings of these two articles on The Conversation and The Guardian respectively.
Toon of the Week
Quotes of the Week
"People have a real fear about what it (climate change) means for the world and their future," says Norgaard. "Then a sense of guilt comes up because they realize that our high quality of life through our use of fossil fuels is directly linked to this problem. Then there is a sense of helplessness, because it feels so large and we see the lack of political response."
Why don't we want to hear about climate change? by Irene Quaile, Deutsche Welle (DW), Feb 17, 2014
"When a fringe 2 to 4 percent minority - who consistently produce shoddy analysis and compare those with whom they disagree to Nazis - are given equal credibility by the media and policymakers as the 97 percent of scientific experts, we have a problem." - Dana Nuccitelli
Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap by Dana Nuccitelli, Cimate Consensus-the 97%, The Guardian, Feb 21, 2014
Sks Week in Review
- Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap by Dana
- 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8 by John Hartz
- A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 1/ by Bob Lacatena
- 'It's been hot before': faulty logic skews the climate debate by John Cook
- Snows of the Nile: The search for vanishing equatorial glaciers by Guest Author
- Dodgy Diagrams #1 - Misrepresenting IPCC Residence Time Estimates by Dikran Marsupial & John Cook
- Vision Prize: scientists are worried the IPCC is underestimating sea level rise by Dana
- Customizable Global Warming Widget Metrics by Bob Lacatena
Coming Soon on SkS
- A Hack by Any Other Name — Part 2 (Bob Lacatena)
- Is the BBC becoming the UK version of Fox News on global warming? (Dana)
- Peer-reviewed papers by Skeptical Science authors (John Cook)
- Global warming not slowing - it's speeding up (James Wight)
- SkS Facebook page reaches 20,000 likes (Anne-Marie Blackburn)
- Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk (Dana & John Cook)
- 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9 (John Hartz)
In the works
- UK Winter 2013-14 Round-up: Timeline of Disaster (John Mason)
- The Scepticism In Skeptical Science (Collin Maessen)
- New Video: Abrupt Climate Change, and the Expected Unexpected (Peter Sinclair)
- Deep Ocean Warming: The Coriolis Effect (Rob Painting)
- Record growth of atmospheric CO2 in 2013 (Alexander Ac)
- Honey, I mitigated climate change (Ari Jokimaki)
- The 'pause' in global warming is not even a thing (Graham Readfearn)
SkS in the News
John Cook's article, 'It's been hot before': faulty logic skews the climate debate, originally posted on The Conversatioon was reposted on the website of the Australian Conservation Foundation. The article includes Cook's original toon:
Science Daily's summary of the TCP, Scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, is linked to by Brad Friedman in his hard-hitting article, Sunday shows’ climate disgrace: Cluelessness and false balance could cost lives posted on Salon.
Science Daily's summary of the TCP is also linked to in Philip Bump's article, Fact-Checking the Bill Nye-Marsha Blackburn Climate Change 'Debate' posted on the Wire. Bump also includes the following quote from Ned Resnikof's MSNBC post, Bill Nye spars with member of congress over climate change. [Note: Resnikof's post is highlighted below.]
Blackburn cited two climate scientists to make her point: One who has been “wrong about nearly every major climate argument he’s made over the past two decades,” according to fellow environmental scientist Dana Nuccitelli, and another who recently said, “it’s clear that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will warm the planet.”
Chris Mooney links to the Basic version SkS rebuttal article, Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? in his Blue Marble/Mother Jones post, Watch Bill Nye Explain Climate Change to GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn
In his MSNBC post, Bill Nye spars with member of congress over climate change, Ned Resnikoff quotes Dana about the credibility of Richard Lindzen's opinions about manmade climate change and links to Dana's SkS article, The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures.
John Cook is quoted extensively by Peter Hannam in his Brisbaine Times' article, Climate change: Opinions are affected by the weather. Tthe SkS thermometer graphic of most used climate myths is also embedded in the article.
SkS Spotlights
Global Forest Watch (GFW) is a dynamic online forest monitoring and alert system that empowers people everywhere to better manage forests. For the first time, Global Forest Watch unites satellite technology, open data, and crowdsourcing to guarantee access to timely and reliable information about forests. GFW is free and follows an open data approach in putting decision-relevant information in the hands of governments, companies, NGOs, and the public.
GFW is supported by a diverse partnership of organizations that contribute data, technical capabilities, funding, and expertise. The partnership is convened by the World Resources Institute.
What is meant by "TCP"?
[JH] TCP = The Consensus Project undertaken by the all-volunteer, SkS author team lead by John Cook.
The TCP culminated in the publication of the peer-reviewed paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 2013; 8 (2): 024024 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024