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BillEverett at 16:08 PM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Possibly off-topic comment: An important issue is raised in this post without concrete suggestions for dealing with the issue. Moreover, dealing with the issue is probably outside the mission of the SkS site. Nevertheless, I continue.
The issue: What to do about implicatory denial?
Example of a vague (non-concrete) suggestion for dealing with the issue: We each need to behave consistently with our belief that AGW is a serious threat.
I think one of the reasons for implicatory denial is the lack of a clear, detailed, articulated vision of how we want to be living in 2050 with the problem "solved." In other words, not knowing exactly where I want to be, it is hard for me the think about where to go next in order to finally get there. My first rule of thumb for attacking a difficult problem is: Begin at the end.
Briefly, here are a few skeletal suggestions for a 2050 vision. Non-permitted commercial emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is treated in the courts (including the International Court) as a crime against humanity, similar to genocide. We live and work in shelters (homes, office buildings, factories, etc.) that are maximally energy efficient, that produce useful energy forms and carriers, and that are connected to intelligent energy grids as both a sink and source of energy, depending on the variable circumstances. We move ourselves and physical materials and products the minimum needed and most efficiently. Our healthy diets are produced sustainably. And so on.
The development and communication of a consensus vision for 2050 might help to free people from the stasis of implicatory denial.
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Tom Curtis at 16:03 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
C4A @31, here is an example of the typical disspassionate debate we have come to expect from AGW deniers:
Of course, you must not have heard of any such demonstrations, or that little thing in the US called the Tea Party to make so fatuous a comment as your response NewYorkJ.
(And just a little cameo for John Cook, check out the conspiracy theory on a placard in the center rear of the picture.)
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Tom Curtis at 15:55 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All @25, Phillippe Chantreau @28, the term "pseudo-science" was invented by philosophers of science as they attempted to determine the distinction between theories like astrology (which is pseudo-scientific) and astronomy (which is scientific). It was only later that it was discovered that theories like Young Earth Creationism, Scientific[sic] creationism, Intelligent Design Theory, and the vast majority of what purports to be skepticism about AGW also bear the hallmarks of pseudo-science. IMO, Imre Lakatos's discussion is the best on the subject.
I must say that Climate4All's response to shoyemore is on a par with an inveterate liar objecting to his lies being called such because recognizing the lies for what they are is an attempt to close down debate. I'm sorry, C4A, but the deniers excluded themselves voluntarilly from the scientific debate when they decided to resort to pseudo-science. I am not going to pretend that what they typically do is actual science just for their rhetorical convenience.
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Tom Curtis at 15:44 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All @25, regardless of your thoughts on the matter, those blogs where nominated, and by an objective measure were far more popular than WUWT. WUWT won based on the fanaticism of its followers, not their number and certainly not on the quality of the blog. It may be inconvenient for you to recognize these facts, but if the Bloggies do not recognize them, and so something quickly to restore credibility, the bloggies will be a mark of poor quality rather than high quality.
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Climate4All at 15:31 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Philippe Chantreau @28 Definition of conflation : blend, fusion; especially : a composite reading or text. I didn't conflate, the voters did. If there were more voters from sites like SkS, Real Climate, Open Mind, etc, this discussion would be mute. So ask yourself, 'why are there more voters from those 'other' sites?'
Ill rephrase my response to NewYorkJ @18 You said,"Deniers also tend to be more zealous and motivated to influence public perception" My response to this would be to lookup articles with those exact terms you used, and find that it isn't the skeptics chaining themselves to the gates of the whitehouse or demonstrating their rights to demand change.
DSL @ 27 If we were to judge this post as an assumption of the overall content for SkS, one could say that it has nothing to do with science. But this is just one post. Just as it is at other websites, there are many different articles that have no bearing on climate science.
Moderator Response: [DB] All-caps converted to l/c bold per the Comments Policy. -
Doug Hutcheson at 15:27 PM on 3 March 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9
Shame the US Security Establishment can't have a wee chat with the Albertan troglodytes.
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Doug Hutcheson at 15:21 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Good choice, John. The Eureka award says all that needs to be said.
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Tristan at 14:37 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Q: What would you call a properly skeptical blog?
A: Warmist.
;)
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Philippe Chantreau at 14:35 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Personally, I prefer the initials B.S. to long words like pseudo-science. That is the best way to refer to the ideas of those who try to convince people that the World is flat or that CO2 snows in Antarctica and phase diagrams are a ploy from conspiracists. Climate4all's conflation of this kind of nonsense with true scientific debate is laughable. There are such things as anti-science and pseudoscience, they consist of giving something the appearance of science when in fact it is a bunch of BS. Some sites mentioned above are prime sources for this kind of junk. Everybody can have an opinion, some opinions are completely worthless, they're not granted value by virtue of their exsitence.
There are some objective criteria in science. Questioning the norm for the sake of doing so when the norm is so well established that everybody who has a clue has moved on, that's pseudo-science. Being skeptical is part of doing science and it is not shunned, except when one is skeptical of things so obvious that they simply demonstrate ignorance or incomprehension of the subject.
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DSL at 14:27 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climaate4All, you're not serious. Science is essentially skeptical. What Willis Eschenbach does regularly at WUWT is not skeptical. The response to Steve Goddard's odd musings is not skeptical. The WUWT comments policy (or, rather, its enforcement) does not encourage skepticism. Note that Watts performed his first study on surface stations and didn't get the answer he wanted, so he tried it again (and had a rather embarassing fail, despite having trumpeted it as a back-breaker before it had even been peer-reviewed. What a showcase of skepticism!). Skepticism is not simply doubt. Consider the recent Luedecke fiasco. Would you call editor Zorita's decision to publish Luedecke properly skeptical? Would you call the Washington Times decision to publish this properly skeptical?
What would you call a properly skeptical blog?
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:19 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All... But the bloggies do not distinguish between those focuses (zines, etc). In fact, as Tom points out, those blogs where actually nominated in 2012. But despite having traffic levels that are 100's to 1000's of times larger, they still lost out to WUWT.
I mean, if you want you can continue to rationalize aspects of the category until you get down to a description of exactly what WUWT is, then voila!, WUWT is the defacto winner.
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Climate4All at 14:02 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Tom Curtis @23 I think that sites like Mashable, and others like it, shouldn't be included in the Bloggies. Sites like that are more of a webzine than a blog. I've always considered blogs to be more interactive. Also, Mashable is more than about science. Its a diverse multi topic webzine. If it was just science, I doubt it would be ranked that high. Blogs encourage reblogging and comments. Just things to keep in mind.
Shoyemore @19 I really don't know what to make of the types of commentary that use words like anti-science and pseudoscience. I'm sure words of that sort was heard often by Copernicus,Galileo,Newton, etc. We would still think the world was flat with that kind of mentality. Science is about a re-evaluation of the norm. Skepticism should be encouraged, not shunned.
NewYorkJ@18 You said,"Deniers also tend to be more zealous and motivated to influence public perception"
(-snip-)
Moderator Response: [DB] Sloganeering snipped. -
Tom Curtis at 12:14 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Matt Fitzpatrick @23, if his concern is that a more restrictive voting system will introduce a bias, he can adopt the simple expedient of renaming the award "the most popular" blog in each category, and using the Alexa rank (or some other similar ranking system) to determine the winners. To see the level of distortion in his current system, consider the relative rankings of the five semifinalists in 2012 for best science blog:
His system was thoroughly biblical for it made the first last and the last first. He would have us believe that a pseudoscience site is better than four other genuine science and tech sites, all of which are more popular than the pseudoscience site based on Alexa rating.
I suspect that his problem is not concerns about biasing the results, but that a different method will significantly reduce traffic to his own site, which must be massively boosted by attempts to stack the vote.
Regardless of his real concerns, however, if he does not fix his clearly broken system, winning a bloggy will become a mark of shame rather than of distinction.
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Matt Fitzpatrick at 11:48 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
And it wasn't just the finalists that were heavily skewed toward a single science topic. Leo Hickman of the Guardian reckoned yesterday that 13 of the 17 semifinalists were climate contrarian blogs: "Climate sceptics 'capture' the Bloggies' science category".
Even though the bias of the current voting system toward a single science topic is clear and increasing, Bloggies founder Nikolai Nolan worries that restricting voting to qualified experts would still bias the results in some way. Mr. Nolan, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. If expert voting results in less bias than the current system, it's a good thing.
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Farmer Dave at 10:42 AM on 3 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
I have just had a quick look at Reality Drop, and it looks great - a really cool concept. The initial load of story content is either US centric or global science. Does anyone know if users can load Australian content? The next few months are likely to be really ugly in Australian politics and a tool such as this could help counter the dark tide of misinformation in which we are sure to find ourselves swimming.
A related matter is the topic spread. Here in Australia the dark tide of misinformation also includes a concerted push against renewable energy, with important policy instruments like the Renewable Energy Target under sustained attack. Are such topics off-topic as far as Reality Drop are concerned?
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Tom Curtis at 10:08 AM on 3 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Foxgoose raises the issue as to whether this is a type of astroturfing. The answer is no, it is not. Astroturfing is the use of paid employees to give the appearance of popular, grassroots support whereas Reality Drop attempts to give tools to the assumed pre-existing popular acceptance of, and willingness to do something about AGW. If, in fact, that popular acceptance does not exist, the "Reality Drop" project will fail.
And, Foxgoose, I believe your prior comment was deleted because it made suggestions of fraudulent activity (astroturfing) contrary to the comments policy, and that your currently displayed comment will be deleted as all moderation complaints are. The later is because they are necessarilly of topic, and because once a moderator has seen them, they have served their legitimate purpose. Such complaints, if reasonable can, and has in the past promoted debate among moderators about the correct interpretation of comments policy.
This comment may well be deleted as a reply to a deleted comment (and as a comment on comments policy). I hope Foxgoose has time to read it before that happens.
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Tom Curtis at 09:53 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
BarbelW @5, not the most popular blog. If that is what it was rewarding, the award would go to the blog with the highest Alexa rank immediately after nominations closed. Rather, the prize is for the blog with the most vocal supporters. There are many popular science blogs whose supporters would be disinterested in a campaign for the blog they enjoy to win an unscientifically polled popularity contest. Indeed, my respect for John Cook and SkS would have decreased had the blog above campaigned for votes rather than withdrawing from this idiotic excercise in finding out which rabble shouts loudest.
Climate4All @17, as SkS has been previously nominated in the best religious, and best humour awards, it is safe to say that some deniers are prepared to nominate SkS simply for the sake of causing embarassment. Indeed, I believe just such tactics have been openly canvassed at WUWT, where of course, Anthony Watts annually pleads for votes from his readership. This makes a mockery of the awards, and the runner of the award should be ashamed that he regularly grants the award for "Best science" to a blog dedicated to pseudo-science.
Shoyemore @19, don't forget the many non-climate related science blogs out there, eg, the Panda's Thumb, or Pharyngula and of course, many others I am not aware of due to my narrow interests.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:52 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Actually, it's not a measure of popularity at all. It's a matter of how fanatical your audience is.
Remember, this is the "Best Science and Technology Blog" category. That means it includes some of the 100 highest traffic websites in the world. Engadget, Mashable, etc. These are huge sites with millions of visitors a month.
That WUWT has won this category repeatedly tells you zero about the quality or popularity of the blog. The only thing it tells you is that Anthony Watts is telling his readers to go nominate him and other websites like his, and they all dutifully follow his command.
That's not popularity. That's a fanatical following.
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Foxgoose at 09:07 AM on 3 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
(-snip-)
Moderator Response: [DB] Your previous comment was deleted because it made suggestions of fraudulent activity (astroturfing) contrary to the comments policy. This current comment was snipped due to moderation complaints. This site's comments policy has not changed...and neither has your laissez-faire attitude towards adherence to it. -
bill4344 at 09:02 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All post a long-winded rationalization typical of those who somehow believe you can vote for the laws of physics!
If it's all just some lumpen popularity contest based around who the fans think is the dreamiest then The Bloggies should simply renounce any category such as 'Best', or 'Science', for that matter. This is the kind of thinking that has McDonalds as the world's best restaurant, One Direction as our greatest musicians, and the Twilight Saga as the greatest set of movies in history. Sad.
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shoyemore at 08:42 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All @17
There are good science weblogs, other than this one, that devote themselves to explaining peer-reviewed science and discussing the implications. Good examples are Science of Doom, Open Mind, Real Climate and ScienceBlogs. To lump these in with sites who invite and encourage pseudoscience for propaganda purposes makes a mockery of the word "science". Do the Bloggies recognise sites that discuss Intelligent Design, Dowsing, Parapsychology and Homeopathy? If such sites were "popular" should they be promoted to the "scientific" category?
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NewYorkJ at 08:37 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Political material in general is more popular than science material. The blogosphere in general is highly-political, and denier blogs are certainly so. A high chunk of those with political persuasions aligning with views against climate change mitigation will add a few denier blogs to their regular reading. Pro-science blogs attract mainly those who are interested in science, which is inevitably a smaller subset of the political crowd. Politics inevitably has a much wider audience than science, so it should be no surprise to see all those GW denier blogs up there in the science category and few other topics.
Deniers also tend to be more zealous and motivated to influence public perception. They don't have science or qualified scientists on their side so they go with alternative routes of gaining broader acceptance, and they see Bloggies as one such route.
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Climate4All at 08:20 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
We are talking about blogging right?
Blogs are a disccusional or informational site published on the WWW.
The Bloggies is an award system for the most popular blogs, divided in many categories.
Weblogs win on how popular they are. Readers vote and the blog with the most votes win.
Lifehacker won the award for most popular science or technology weblog 3 times. Lifehacker didn't win it because it was the most scientifically thorough or truthful. Lifehacker won it because it was the most popular at the time.
There is even a category for the most popular gay weblog. If the criteria for winning of that award was based solely on its gayness, and not it popularity, we would arrive at a different winner.
The Bloggies is all about whats trendy and most engaging by its readers.
So it purely comes down to traffic. You know that John.
So you want to withdraw you nomination? Thats your right.
But what about the ones that nominated you. They think you are popular.
SkS even made the finalists list. That is an achievement in itself.
(-snip-).
These 'anti-science' blogs are only popular because their readers enjoy them, and these readers amount to hundreds of thousands if not millions.
You should thank your readers for voting for you and not making it about the science. You do them a disservice.
Moderator Response: [DB] Sloganeering/inflammatory tone snipped. -
Esop at 07:57 AM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Norway
#19 (gws): A disproportionately large number of the worlds most active climate disinformers are Norwegians. Example: in the case of one the last denialist WSJ Op-eds, a huge percentage, I seem to remember that more than 10% , of those who signed it were Norwegians. That number is quite large considering a population that makes up less than 0.1% of the worlds population.
Some of the most vocal deniers are Norwegians: Giæver, Humlum, Stordahl, Solheim, Ellestad, Brekke, Segalstad, and the list goes on. When the newspapers run specials on climate/weather, these guys are often called on, and rarely the real experts like Benestad, Drange, etc.
For the general population, the winter of 2010 was like pushing a lightswitch. Pre 2010, most Norwegians had good understanding of the problem. Post 2010, climate change has become somewhat of a standing joke, despite increasing floods, etc. Cold winters in 11/12/13 as well as cool and rainy summers, with the MSM reporting next to nothing on the causes of the change has eroded that previous understanding almost completely. Polls have shown that Norwegians are way more skeptical than our neighbors in Sweden and Finland.
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uknowispeaksense at 07:57 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
In the words of one of my favourite performers, Tim Minchin... "Just becuase your ideas are tenacious, doesn't mean that they're worthy." He was referring to religion in general but it could easily applied to climate change denial and to the nomination process of these awards..."Just because you received lots of votes from morons, does not mean you're the best."
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Paul Magnus at 06:09 AM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Would love to post this on my FB page for my friends. But because of the headline they will feel like I am preaching to them.....
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Ironcage at 05:49 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
At the risk of being called a conspirarcy theorist I recommend checking out an old blog from George monbiot on the lenghts powerful lobbying groups are liable to go to, using the internet, in order to impose their bias www.monbiot.com/2011/02/23/robot-wars/.
I am aware of the recent posting here on the conspiratorial dispositions of some climate change deniers. However not all conspiracies are equal. The one concerning the funding of climate denial groups are supported by evidence www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/14/funding-climate-change-denial-thinktanks-network. Also there is plenty of historical precedence whereby corporations have sought to purposefully distort the truth in order to protect their profit interests - e.g., the tobacco companies; the petro-chemical plants in response to Carson's silent spring; the Thalidiomide manufacturers. These come with historical precedence unlike the ridiculous notion of commie environmentalists or climate scientists seeking to boost funding (probabably would've made more working for the private sector). Thus is it beyond reason to percieve these nominations of at least being a potentially dubious quality. I would recommend however not pursuing this suggestion further here without genuine evidence as it is best to pursue proper scientific methods rather than engage in anti-scientific speculation. As it is only right to stick to the integrity of this website and anyway accusations of hypocracy would be inevitable.
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dwr at 05:39 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Clearly a Weblog Award is not worth winning. You can't vote global warming out of existence, any more than you can vote evolution or the germ theory of disease spread out of existence. Why is SkS even wasting time discussing this nonsense?
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Bob Loblaw at 05:31 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
ubrew12: "its about the effectiveness of your communication tool"
Just exactly what tool is that? The Bloggies seem to be dominated by which blogs can motivate their followers to nominate and vote for them. It's not even about popularity - it's about devotion. SkS simply isn't interested in motivating readers to spend their time doing that, and isn't interested in competing with blogs that do.
Should Canadian politican Stockwell Day have been forced to change his name to Doris Day, just because over 1 million people thought he should???
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2000/11/16/bc_dorisday001116.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Hour_Has_22_Minutes#Stockwell.2FDoris_petition
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mbryson at 04:52 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Clearly the right decision. Mere numbers of enthusiastically supportive fools and knaves obviously fail as a measure of scientific quality. But more importantly, associating a high quality blog with a discredited awards process only contributes to its undeserved credibility.
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ubrew12 at 04:45 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
When someone gives you an award, they are saying something about you, not the other way around. In this case, its about the effectiveness of your communication tool, NOT what it is saying. I would accept the nomination.
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Chris G at 04:19 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
I wonder what David Archer would do if he found that he had been put in the same category as Michael Crichton, the difference being that Archer has published good science books, and Crichton has published good science fiction books. I would not try to change whoever runs the bloggies; it's clear they do not understand the difference.
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Chris G at 04:08 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
It is to be expected that the other four will spin your withdrawal in a completely different direction. That's acceptable; no matter what they call the category, this site does not belong in the same category as Nova and whomever. It's easy to be popular when you are telling people what they want to hear.
It's nice to be liked, but not worth a breach of integrity. Good decision.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:08 AM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
News just in at DesmogBlog with regard to the whole "Ethical OIl" argument:
Does Gary Doer Know Canada Buys $780 Million in Crude Oil from Hugo Chavez Every Year?
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Ferran P. Vilar at 02:55 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Well done, John.
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r.pauli at 02:47 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
I am pleased to see that Skeptical Science put no effort into propping up the Bloggies. Science communication is important, but that is not a worthy task.
Their job is to discover you, if they miss out, then it is their failure, not yours.
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Phil L at 01:58 AM on 3 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Sorry about the bad link in my previous comment re the Spurgeon/Twain/Churchill quote. Try this.
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jyyh at 01:57 AM on 3 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
I'd say discussion needs a common language, and that, I think is why talking about scientific findings should happen in scientific terms. The difficulty here is possibly that some people do not recognize the scientific skeptic in them, and get all emotional about sides and others.
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tamikenn57 at 01:51 AM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
I feel that Norway and Canada don't have rights to the denialist population. I believe the U.S. is definitely a member of that party. It is amazing in the U.S. if I make that simple statement and include Obama's pending extended reliance on shale fuels, and potential bitumen from Canada I get flamed by his loyalists. I was making the argument regarding a Wall Street Journal article speaking of the American shale fuel growth through 2040 which coincides with several instances where the president has referred to the 100 year supply of natural gas sources opened by fracturing. More of the population is understanding that climate change is associated with changing water availability, fire, and increasing weather extremes to name a few. But both houses of congress are pushing the president to approve the XL project. Latest environmental impact out for comment states no significant risk of installation. Too often the 'ethical' oil/gas argument is 'financed' by quick land leases. I worry when studies talk about peaking U.S. carbon somewhere between 2016 and 2020 and business is jumping with joy about the economic recovery riding on the natural gas industry.
So I guess the lens works just as well when applied to the neighbor south of the Canadian border. -
Paul D at 00:52 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Is climate science the only science anyone blogs about?
It is quite crazy to not only have just climate change sites being the only subject, but all but one being climate change skeptic sites.
The people that have done this are tactically a bunch of drongos.
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BaerbelW at 00:35 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
As inconsequential as the Bloggies are, there's a simple change which could be applied to all of the categories to make the results come closer to the reality of this type of vote: don't call them "Best" (which is an inherent but unverified quality statement) but "Most Popular".
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shoyemore at 00:16 AM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Something I only found out recently: "Tallbloke" posts extensively about the "refutation" of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and the experimental evidence that there is a luminiferous aether (no kidding!).
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/tag/speed-of-light/
It puts the Bloggies into perspective that his website has been nominated for an award.
Correct decision, SkS. No point in pretending these are real science sites.
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jyyh at 21:54 PM on 2 March 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #8
Skeptical science does well in debunking the denialist/luke-warmer machinations, does anyone know if there is a site that would do the same for overtly alarmistic claims? As an excercise I did a story here, that would need some debunking. Trying to keep some connection to reality, like the luke-warmers do, I inserted some links to it too. At least, the speed of methane release is likely wrong and thus the whole story is off by many years, but what else?
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jyyh at 21:38 PM on 2 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Well done! n/t -
Tom Curtis at 21:02 PM on 2 March 201316 years - Update and Frequently Asked Questions
Ray @27, nobody has commented on the apparent discrepancy because there is no discrepancy. Hansen, like all other climate scientists, believes that short term fluctuations, most notably from ENSO dominate short term temperature trends. That is unsurprising given that the expected temperature increase from change in CO2 level (alone) over the last 16 years is approximately 0.23 C, while ENSO alone can cause temperature fluctuations in GMST of 0.3 C or more in a single year. Given the discrepancy in the scale of the effects over the short term (one to two decades), no climate scientists expects a simple monotonic increase in temperature. That is why the UN makes its predictions with regard to twenty year average temperatures. As I have just shown on another thread, those predictions are on track to be fulfilled.
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Tom Curtis at 20:49 PM on 2 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Philip Shehan @88, Monckton's dishonest strategy is already clearly marked out in his very next paragraph:
"Therefore, it would be prudent for us to concentrate not only on the absence of warming for years, but also on the growing discrepancy between the longer-run warming rate predicted by the IPCC and the rate that has actually occurred over the past 60 years or so.
Since 1950 the world has warmed at a rate equivalent to little more than 1 Celsius degree per century. Yet the IPCC’s central projection is for almost three times that rate over the present century."
In fact, the approximately 0.3 C per decade quoted by Monckton is the trend to the end of the 21st century if, contrary to the projections themselves, it is treated as a linear trend. The IPCC's short term projection for the period 2000 to 2020 is approximately 0.2 C per decade projection for the period. As they write:
"Committed climate change (see Box TS.9) due to atmospheric composition in the year 2000 corresponds to a warming trend of about 0.1°C per decade over the next two decades, in the absence of large changes in volcanic or solar forcing. About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade) would be expected if emissions were to fall within the range of the SRES marker scenarios."
That is, in fact, less than double the 0.125 C per decade (+/- 0.02 C/decade) trend since 1950 as measured by GISS. More precisely, and relative to explicit scenarios, the IPCC predicts that the mean global surface temperature averaged over the years 2011-2030 will be 0.64 C (A2; 0.69 C, A1B; 0.66 C B1) greater than the average over the years 1980-1999. The twenty years ending December, 2012 averaged 0.21 C greater than the reference period, and we are just over a third of the way to the 2030 end date for the prediction. Consequently the actual IPCC short term prediction is currently on track for fulfillment.
We can, of course also consider the IPCC retrodiction for the years since 1950. As can be seen, the trend of the IPCC retrodiction (in red) is scaresly distinguishable from that of recorded temperatures (in black):
Crucially, however, by extending his time period back to 1950, Monckton includes two decades durring which the IPCC retrodicted, and temperatures shows a slight negative trend. His game is evident. He wishes to compare years in which the IPCC actually (and accurately) predicted a low overall trend with IPCC "predictions" from an entirely different period, having misrepresented those into the bargain.
The man is an unabashed shyster.
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jonthed at 20:27 PM on 2 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Even if the same text and link gets pasted into a comment thread multiple times, I don't think that's a bad thing or pointless duplication. Especially if it's a busy comment thread, it means more readers will be exposed to at least one of the link's postings. It also shows a kind of strength in numbers. The more posts we have in support of the science and with good links the better.
One thing I also like about this is that the Reality Drop site itself becomes almost the Definitive source for any and all climate related news articles, even local level news from all around the world. I'll definitely be visiting it for this aspect, and if I can help out by quickly dropping in some rebuttals it'll be time well spent indeed!
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Boswarm at 20:11 PM on 2 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Nothing to do with other websites - these BLOGGIES are a joke.
Why do you continue to pander to skeptics? They are not important.
Your original ABOUT page opening line states:
The goal of Skeptical Science is to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming.
Stick to this goal only - forget all the competition - just stick to your original motives Mr. Cook. Don't enter ever into a war against these other sites.
Start again explaining the peer reviewed science only - forget these rejects and BLOGGIE people.
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Ray at 20:02 PM on 2 March 201316 years - Update and Frequently Asked Questions
Interesting that no-one (that I can see) has commented on the apparent between James Hansen's insistence that CO2 is the prime driver of global warming and the stasis in global warming despite the continual iincrease in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. An argument that other factors impinge negates Hansen's conviction and indeed the conviction of many modellers that CO2 is the prime driver. If so, why a slowdown in global warmig
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bill4344 at 19:33 PM on 2 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Completely agree. When you have the likes of Jo Nova or 'Friend of the Ether' Tallbloke nominated in the 'Science' category we have tuly attained a World Beyond Parody.
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