2014 SkS Weekly Digest #8

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

 2014 Toon 8

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

Coming Soon on SkS

In the works 

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:

John Cook's Cartoon: People died of cancer before cigarettes were invented.

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.

Posted by John Hartz on Sunday, 23 February, 2014


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