Bishop Hill A good day to bury bad science
May 7, 2015 Climate: Sceptics The University of Bristol has a high tolerance for hoary old tosh, but you have to wonder if they have not been just a bit embarrassed by Stefan Lewandowsky, whose oeuvre could best be described as "Goebbels with graphs". How else do we explain the fact that they have elected to do the press release for the great man's latest psychological petard on the day of the general election? A good day to bury bad science?
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and colleagues from Harvard University and three institutions in Australia show how the language used by people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists’ discussion of the alleged recent ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ in global warming, and has thereby unwittingly reinforced a misleading message.
What insight! What erudition!
What a waste of money.
Bishop Hill
Observations about the UK election don't apply to this paper published today, which is written by two Americans, but it's just as bad as Lew's by the looks of it:
Environmental communication researchers have focused on the role of media frames in the formation of public opinion. Yet, little is known about how citizens incorporate such frames into everyday conversations. We address this issue by examining the stream of Twitter conversations about climate change over two years. We demonstrate that hoax frames that question the reality of climate change prevail in the US, particularly in “red states” compared to the UK, Canada, and Australia or “blue states” in the US. We also investigate the use of terms, “global warming” and “climate change.” We find that red states prefer “global warming” to “climate change” compared to blue states and “global warming” is particularly associated with hoax frames
Reader Comments (108)
Ed Davey gone. Tee hee.
The latest IPCC report says - WGI chapter 2 (I think), WGI SPM (for sure) and Full Synthesis report (for sure) - that the rate of warming, presumably calculated from HadCRUT4 data, was 0.05C/decade but the error margin was +/- 0.1 so that's somewhere between a warming of 0.15C/decade to a cooling of 0.05C/decade. I believe those are the 95% confidence limits and given that statistics can't get any more precise, we have to say there was no certainty of any warming.
I conclude that Lewandowsky is saying that the IPCC report is lying and that he knows more than the IPCC.
Swiss Bob has the right of it... Bye Ed (and other Ed who are flailing).
@Richard Betts is it conspiracy theory to point out that particularly in the US appointments are influenced by what side of the fence a scientist is perceived as sitting on ? Judith Curry and Willie Soon would be prime examples of people who might be blackballed from some positions.
Someone asked why Anglo skeptics are more active surely this is partly due to the constant attack they are under due to the fantasists like Lewandowsky, Tim Flannery etc and a reaction to the vociferous aggressive Eco-warrior media led by the Guardian and certain BBC Eco-warriors. One thinks that without them more real scientists would be able to come out of the closet and condemn the fantasists.
Ed Davey loses his seat. There is a god.
"Ed Davey loses his seat"
So what comes next ... a corporate appointment or being sectioned under the Mental Health Act?
50/50
Well I didn't think I'd get an answer from any climate scientist. They have no answers, only continuous excuses for being wrong all the time.
" I wonder what politically correct word or phrase will be used to replace
"pause" if global cooling were to take place.
May 7, 2015 at 1:20 PM | Schrodinger's Cat"
I like 'climate inversion' that sounds like it could be scary... 'global cooling' is so '70s