Bishop Hill Time to lose the labels
Feb 19, 2015 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Hot on the heels of their paper on labels in the climate debate, Candace Howarth and Amelia Sharman have a piece up at the Conversation:
We need new ways of framing and talking about climate change. We need to remember that science “does not provide us with convenient yes/no answers” and being sceptical is part of the scientific process.
Removing these antagonistic labels from the debate could encourage all those engaged in this area to think of it less as a polarised debate and move towards a more nuanced and constructive discussion about specific issues of disagreement.
The current academic focus on categorising labels about climate change diverts attention away from much-needed research on underlying rationales. Scientists can play an important role in informing and legitimising new policies, therefore it is vital that climate researchers pay attention to their choices of language.
Well worth a read.
Reader Comments (49)
Yes just remove the sociologists who pretend to be scientists but are just agitators and this debate may move forward.
Can't we just discuss data, instead of labeling or manipulating, turning them into opinions, and rise from the " church of climate science". When this is not possible the Middle Ages have returned.
I completely agree and will tone down my rhetoric from now on.
Chink of light.
But it still won't work as long as the scientists themselves are so locked into the paradigm.
The two best pieces I have read in recent weeks are Abbot et al's Climate Change: The Facts, (available as a Kindle book for only £4!) and Bernie Lewin's Hubert Lamb and the Transformation of Climate Science from the GWPF. Reading those has made me understand that climate science is in many ways far from unique. "The Truth" in science belongs to those who shout the loudest and know whose brains (and pocket) to pick.
The end result can be all sorts of blind alleys before finally someone identifies the lack of clothes on the emperor. (Pardon the mixed metaphor.)
What is different about climate science is that it has also been kidnapped by the eco-activists (whether or not supported by all sorts of sinister organisations) who have been handed CO2 on a plate as their demon of choice to force us all down the road of Agenda21 and any other totalitarian bullshit they can come up with.
What is lacking (because the Climateers are happy to have it that way) is any possibility of reasoned discussion. Whether Howarth & Sharman are making a move in that direction I don't know. Hopefully they are but something about that piece says that this may well be just one more example of "we could convert all those nasty sceptics of you weren't so rude to them".
Climate science is unspeakable drivel based on a completely fictional temperature record. I think we can all agree on that moderate position and move toward reconciliation.
I didn't mention 'hide the decline'. You shouldn't either.
Scientists can play an important role in informing and legitimising new policies, therefore it is vital that climate researchers pay attention to their choices of language.
Here we have the classic appeal to authority - the 'scientists' have to be believed, everything else is wrong.
As Mike Jackson says in his last sentence this article has all the hallmarks of a puff piece saying that the church of climatology is the only church and all the sceptical heretics should be cast out into limbo land.
I would go further and say that the warmists will still be trying to justify their position when the glaciers start moving down over the land so marking the start of the next ice age.
Interesting that the first comment on the blog came from someone who's position appeared to be here's the truth (as I see it) agree with me or your a denialist idiot.
All rather depressing and so normal.
Comments did improve later
I see that Niagara Falls is frozen.
Um. We've already been framed. Why do they need to do it again?
E.Smiff @ 10.23 "I will tone down my rhetoric in future"
E.smiff @ 10.27 "Climate science is unspeakable drivel........."
That too far down smiffy - you have lost all of your panache.
Good thing about Smiffy is he is so utterly predictable. Maybe he is in fact a Smiffbot?
The problem isn't the use of labels per se; the problem is that what the labels refer to is unclear.
The first comment at the Conversation makes it clear. He is not talking about the evidence for newsworthy climate change. But most sceptics are. When the debate comes up they aren't talking about diverting rivers and UHI and trivial changes in atmospheric trace gas concentrations...
They are talking about the sort of climate change that sets the policy agenda.
The reason is obvious. Most consensus followers are either uninformed and just take the wisdom of authority (and they don't engage much or passionately) or they are deeply involved in the science establishment and so see lot of nuance other than an obvious end of the world. Of course people who believe the world is coming to an end will be involved in stopping it.
But dissidents aren't deeply involved and so only engage when the issue of climate change affects the wider sphere - when it's catastrophic. Otherwise it is of a much or as little interest as S American tree frogs and new exoplanets.
So both sides are talking about different things and thus mis-label the other.
The range of belief goes from "Has Faith and Certainty" through "Agnostic" to "Has Faith and Certainty it isn't so" .
With catastrophic climate change there is enough evidence to say the original predictions are wrong. The faith that it isn't so is justified.
But to say that man has no effect is improbable and at best worthy of agnosticism. Thus to say man will never have a catastrophic effect is around the agnostic level too.
The use of labels would be useful as it can distinguish between those who hold positions only on faith and not evidence-based faith. But you have to say what they are Sceptical or Alarmist about.
The term Lukewarmer is Agnostic about catastrophe and so is useful. The fact that doubting the world is doomed is considered sceptical is just a reflection of the over-estimation of warming in the early models.
Agnostics take whatever evidence there is - and no further.
'being sceptical is part of the scientific process.' I think they direct that idea at those such has 'the Team' who have made great claims of 'settled science' not justified by reality .
Meanwhile pop-sociology is if anything worse than pop-psychological in pratic, in the attempt to find out why so many people simply will not buy the 'snake oil' they are offered.
Unfortunately there ARE two sides. Whether we label each other is of small importance. On the one side you have guaranteed man made catastrophe and a demand for unlimited action to prevent it and the other side doesn't agree. It doesn't matter which bit we disagree with, we are deniers. The consensus supporters deny us the right to debate and we deny them the right to make our minds up for us. We infuriate them by simply existing.
Some of the brighter 'upholders' have realised that insulting half the population and a big swathe of the business sector is not a great negotiating tactic for mass action on CO2, but until they accept that debate on AGW issues is both essential and inevitable then being polite is just thinly disguised PR.
Can't we just discuss data, instead of labeling or manipulating, turning them into opinions, and rise from the " church of climate science". When this is not possible the Middle Ages have returned.
Feb 19, 2015 at 10:19 AM oebele bruinsma
Actually, I think we should just discuss the data manipulating and turn a blind eye to the labeling.
How about adding the word "cyclical" to climate change, to give a fair impression that it is a constant process, that seems to happen in cycles.
What goes around, comes around. And then repeats itself.
Golf Charlie are you sure it isn't chaotic with two attractors?
Paul in Sweden Not off Topic/Thread
Are there records in Sweden indicating the change in requirement for snow tyres, which I believe provided confirmation for Stockholmers, that the climate was warming, but now things seem, not to be continuing to get warmer? Possibly cooling again? Cyclical even?
Or have I got your name wrong, and you have loads of Ikea furntiure?
MCourtney, weather seems chaotic. Climate seems cyclical. Climate science seems dogmatic in its theories and conclusion, but chaotic in its methods.
I have driven tractors, which can only pull in one direction. One Direction attracts the gullible and vulnerable, much like Climate Science.
Its cyclical, innit?
Feb 19, 2015 at 11:31 AM | Golf Charlie
Tire change in Sweden has not been varied specific to climate change. Tires are changed as mandated and required the same as it ever was. However; when the wife's kid went for her drivers course there was a whole program about driving and climate change. Don't know too much about what they had to do, I was spared the details so my head would not explode.
Has anyone noticed the not so subtle change in the meaning of the word 'assertive'.
Original flavour
confidently aggressive or self-assured; positive: aggressive; dogmatic:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/assertive
This is the new socially engineered flavour which is basically the opposite.
assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assertiveness
Whenever someone lies to me, I take the p*. That is now seen as aggressive and incorrect.
I utterly reject the so called political polarisation of global warming because it is nothing more than divide and rule. I am a lot more anti corporate than any Guardian employee.
Golf Charlie, I don't know. It seems to me that the world can be ice aged or not and it wobbles between the two.
That could be chaotic just as it could be cyclical.
The periodicities of the changes - big and small - are not constant to our measuring limits.
Not saying it isn't cyclical. Am saying I don't know.
And I will say that no-one can be sure either way.
"therefore it is vital that climate researchers pay attention to their choices of language."
Yawn.
Lets attempt to rewrite that [above] vague guff.
Therefore it is vital that, climate researchers pay MORE attention to their data sets, release their calculations ie PUBLISH all of it - to make them public....... for all to see - and halt with immediate effect the incessant [± but usually upwards] manipulation of the Temperature record.
What's always missing? Only ..........honesty and clarity.
One more thing, how about dropping those endlessly nebulous some would call
idiotlabelling or,professional jargonpretentious gibberish - like "climate change", "renewables" and "sustainability"?On the one side is a group of highly organised people who sit around in meetings to discuss how to destroy the reputations of ordinary people like us.
On the other we have ordinary people like us ... OK, (ref)with science and engineering degrees and post grad qualifications years of experience an obsession with data analysis ... but otherwise quite ordinary.
For years they get paid by big oil to dream up new ways to attack us and boost the price of oil or worse paid by OPEC to prevent energy independence, and then when they have finally lost all credibility, the pause is now an established fact, and everyone (outside the media fairyland) is listening to us sceptics ...
... then they are so deluded by their own profiteering organisational structure that they think we have some kind of central leadership that like them decides who to attack and why and somehow we have paid executives who like them can order individuals around to stop the name calling.
MCourtney, I am certain, that I do not know what causes the climate to change. With a high level of confidence, I note your uncertainty too
I am also certain, that those you predict the climate, with high levels of confidence, based on one changing factor, should factor in, a change in confidence. They don't, of course.
You know what this really is. It's an admission that they are losing political support by attacking us. So, they want to come to some agreement to keep us sceptics quiet just long enough that the politicians go to Paris and sign a replacement for Kyoto.
Then all the name calling will start again from their marketing execs with even more viciousness than before
From the article:
'lowers support for climate policies'.
They say this as if it is a bad thing.
What a load of tosh : Pretending that there are 2 sides both of which have a problem. It is not a labeling problem ..it is MIS-labeling problem by one group a fundamentalist minority "the Denier Shouters". Almost every other part of the spectrum can communicate fine
- Here in the UK there a wide variety of opinions from true warnist extremist thru agnostic/dont-knows to never believers, but only one noticeable minority has a problem and that is "Denier shouters" who have shown they are not interested in proper active debate but rather dehumanise anyone who disagrees with them by MIS-labeling them "denier" and seeking to have their views suppressed.
- Now other commonly used labels like warmist or alarmist just don't have the same baggage, they are not genuinely offensive debate stoppers.
- In the US there may well be a group the mirror image of "denier shouters" who shout 'freakin Eco Nazis" all the time, but they seem to be a fringe relatively small & powerless group who don't seem to disrupt much debate.
- However "Denier shouters" have a custom to characterise anyone who doesn't agree with them as if they come from that mirror image group ..and that is a problem cos "Denier Shouters" DO HAVE POWER within the authority of science and media to be able to suppress debate. They are the ones who have the problem and the ones who need to realise the full spectrum of debate and drop their mis-labeling.
In no particular order:
10 points for Golf Charlie, esmiff, TinyCO2, KnR,Mike Jackson, Athelstan and Michael.
09 points for MikeHassler cos sum ov us int edicated guv and da points wus gettin borin.
-01 point for the Bish for getting us to discuss this garbage but 11 points for entertainment.
-100 points for MCourtney cos ee dunno the diff bettween chaos an cycling init
200 points for Dung cos I wants to 'av the biggist score ^.^
Stewgreen, if you want to see the kind of people who dish out these "denier" slurs, have a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6FxhUE6jk.
The protest covered is Canadian Oil, but he makes the point very well that these protesters really don't know what they are protesting about. So, there's no doubt we meet these kinds of people on line all the time.
The other point that screams out, is that Saudi oil has been flowing in this pipeline for years, but these protests only started when it was planned to replace Saudi "sweet" oil, with Canadian oil. It doesn't take a genius to work out where their funding is coming from!
The article is a plea to one side of "the debate," as the last line reads:
"Scientists can play an important role in informing and legitimising new policies, therefore it is vital that climate researchers pay attention to their choices of language."
Someone is losing the fight for hearts and souls (and pocketbooks), and it may have a lot to do with all the unseemly name calling from one quarter.
Personally, I have never used labels in addressing anyone in this modern fight. I prefer to argue the logic of the absurd positions that I see defended tooth and nail. The more time passes, however, the more I'm willing to embrace the preferred label that's hurled my way. From now on, just call me John the Denier!
Dung, point scoring in climate science=grant funding. The more scary the story, the more grants. This requires an even more scary story, to justify the increased grants.
Therefore writing scary stories=more points, and points win prizes, even if you have to award them to yourself.
Well done on your 200 points by the way! You could be a successful climate scientist, if you could only tell imaginative scary stories.
The Conversation a revoltingly smug blog. Its intellectual level is 0, unlike the present website whose proprietor has even been known to allude to that forgotten masterpiece 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'.
Bet you all didn't even realize you were just a gang of 'stealth issue skeptics'!
You don't think it is funded by our taxes, do you?
That they have to name us, that they have to other us, exposes the true nature of the movement. The term Denier is a form of pejorative hate used to marginalize anyone who jeopardizes the current power structure. It is used for the same reasons by the same type of scared ignorant bigots who called my mother a ni**er and my father a ni**er lovin’ sp*c. They didn’t want my parents to be part of the conversation so they othered them. Named them. Sneared at them. They do this openly so that otherwise decent ordinary people will not want to be associated with the othered. It is time to stop them. From now on this word must be put its proper category of hate along with all the other vile marginalizing wretchedness of the world. It is infinitely disgusting that anyone else using hate this would way, would be dragged into the sunlight to whither from exposure but these people get to hide behind the thin veil of academic virtue.
Exactly : Some people have been engaged in the fallacy of the poisoning of the wells tactic ie saying "anything from that well is poison, don't believe it" and applying toxic labels "denier", "denialist" . Surprise people in their own clique seem fine with that, but it's not a tactic that brings a people over that outside view.
- That Conversation article is very amateur in trying to say it's a problem with labels that applies to everyone. Labels are a nature of language but not all labels are toxic.
- When a skeptic disagrees with another skeptic have you ever seen one say to the other "well I don't have to listen to you cos you are a wamist !!" ?
No, cos it's just a label; not a toxic label.
The Conversation a revoltingly smug blog. Its intellectual level is 0, unlike the present website whose proprietor has even been known to allude to that forgotten masterpiece 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'.
God bless the Bishop for sparing us Kahlil Gilbran .
It's strange that an article calling for an end to the use of the D word is met with quite a lot of anger.
Paul Matthews. We are all DOOMED has ben the climate science D word for ages. I think climate scientists are in Denial about their forthcoming Doom.
It could be their forecast of Doom for all, was right, affter all, but their definition of "all", was wrong.
@Paul What do you expect when those disengenuous writers don't know the difference between a label and an INSULT ? and rather than show contrition try to spread blame equally.
- If a guy is calling the policeman "officer" and the policeman is calling him n#gger ..then they are both equally guilty ..cos they putting their opponent in a box and applying a label !
.. That is the premise of that dumb article written by activists paid by our taxes, presented on a website with an activist agenda which is also paid for by our taxes, which will never allow us an equal platform to present an anti-activist article. And often uses excuses to censor skeptic comments.
Science has always had controversies over complex science eg Dawkins vs Gould on Cambrian e plosion, the nature vs nurture mind debate, einstein vs copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics etc.
Climate is a young science with insufficiently long and detailed amounts of data. So unlike some past controversies which end up leaning one way with an adjustment to the language used, it has political implications. Although the nature vs nurture also had in education field. I sometimes think i see too much of the 'blank slate' attitude in my grandchildren's education.
Science has always had controversies over complex science eg Dawkins vs Gould on Cambrian e plosion, the nature vs nurture mind debate, einstein vs copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics etc.
Climate is a young science with insufficiently long and detailed amounts of data. So unlike some past controversies which end up leaning one way with an adjustment to the language used, it has political implications. Although the nature vs nurture also had in education field. I sometimes think i see too much of the 'blank slate' attitude in my grandchildren's education.
Loos like more of the same o' same ol'- theythink if they talk nice and quiet us wicked den!al!st cum will sit quietly and let us spend their money.
Paul Matthews it only calls for 'an end to the use of the D word ' because it proving not to work , but the idea behind it ,that AGW sceptics are unquestionable wrong and in some way defective. remains the same . Smiling snake oil salesman's are the pushing the same product has frowning snake oil salesman's.
it's worse than we thought. The article, I mean. I've read better things in the in-flight magazine - more intellectual horsepower and better written.
I think the authors need to get out more.
Certainty way beyond evidence just look at a serious "denier shouter" commenter
Trouble is if you ask them for proper evidence of this truth that 'all deniers are evil right wingers', they'll dig up some tosh hyped up by Chris Mooney which they believe at first glance but which doesn't withstand deconstruction. But if you did they'd just stick their fingers in their ears.Curry's new Denizens thread is huge, pages and pages of highly qualified people telling their stories of coming over to scepticsm
@Paul "Of course skeptics are Not in the demographic"
- The Bish didn't emphasis the reputation of the reseachers that they are climate loonies, so some us went and read the Conversation article and found it's total bollocks"
But now that I checked I realise of course it is : it's written in such a strange logic to pander to "denier shouters" and their fantasyland view. It wasn't written for critical thinkers.
- 14 months ago Jo Nova completely took the NZ sociologist Sharman apart .
And hardly surprising look at Sharman"a choice of language:
Accusing blogs of deliberate "delegitimisation" soundsore like activist language rather than sober academic. Sounds like shes a full on loony ... connected to GreenPeace, worked at the Grantham Institute. I wonder if is she Wards protege ?But paradoxixally first work in a 2012 report she exposed how biofuels were rushed-into EU policy due to a power lobbiest
"These labels are not only offensive, but they also polarise the debate into opposing “us and them” factions."
...precisely as intended by the high level advertising and PR agencies which power the Green juggernaut.
Controlling the dialog is critical and the professionalism and effectiveness of the "Manufacturing of Consent" (or "consensus" to tweak Noam Chomsky's ironically applicable term), shown by the skill background of WWF board member Rita Clifton is nowhere to be found on the skeptic side.
http://www.populus.co.uk/member/Rita-Clifton/ She if far from alone.
Impressed by the fundraising success of "Non Profits" (now 10% of the US economy) grant seeking academic organizations ramp up their marketing of fundable areas. Taking the cue, obscure grad student Safa Motesharrei cobbles together a doom prediction "study" using a NASA funded software routine (for irrigation patterns?) lifted from a totally unrelated project and submits it to Dr. Nafeez Mossaddeq Ahmed, Chief Research Officer at strategic PR firm Unitas Communications, founder of The Institute for Policy Development and (just coincidentally), Guardian Environment editor. Unitas has superb connections and knows their stuff. http://www.unitascommunications.com/press-room/
Now with NASA approved fuel, the story rockets from the Guardian launchpad through the Green Echosphere as a "Government science proves we're doomed!" meme.
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/according-nasa-funded-study-were-pretty-much-screwed.
Story is here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/03/21/popular-guardian-story-collapse-industrial-civilization/#.VOemZ_m2CSo
oops link was missing
- 14 months ago Jo Nova completely took the NZ sociologist Sharman apart .