Bishop Hill Diary date: correct messages edition
Mar 14, 2014 Diary dates Media The Environmental Physics group of Institute of Physics has organised a meeting to look at how scientists and journalists can work together to convey "the correct messages". It's on 27 March in London.
The degree to which humans are influencing the physical mechanisms that are causing the Earth’s climate system to warm, remains a controversial subject that has caused passionate and heated debates in the news media.
As the public gather most of their information on these issues from newspapers, TV, radio and the internet, the way that evidence is communicated by scientists to journalists is a crucial factor in the public understanding of climate science.
Through group discussions and a number of keynote talks, the aim of this event is to bring together environmental scientists, journalists and science communicators to discuss the ways in which communications in climate science can be improved, and what each of the stakeholders can do to present their work more effectively.
The event will also cover how scientists work with public engagement officers and journalists to ensure that they are conveying the correct messages.
Details here.
Reader Comments (90)
Mike Jackson 1.36pm. Excellent. Keep this apposite and succinct summary and post it every time one of these " We gotta better communicate" talkshops appears. All too often now!
" A proxy diagram of temperature change is a clear favourite for the Policy Makers Summary. But the current diagram with the tree ring only data somewhat contradicts the multi-proxy curve and dilutes the message rather significantly. we want the truth. Mike thinks it lies nearer his result (which seems in accord with what we know about worldwide mountain glaciers and, less clearly, suspect about solar variations). the tree ring results may still suffer from lack of multi-century time scale variance. This is probably the most important issue to resolve in Chapter 2 at present..."
Chris Folland (Met Office) Climategate email 0938031546.txt discussing "hide the decline" and how to present the correct message.
Would Doug McNeall care to comment?
"It *is* possible to actually find stuff out, know it, and then truthfully communicate that, you know :)"
Indeed it is Doug, and we have been assailed with warnings of catastrophes and disasters now for 20 years of more, and we still saying, "Yeah right". I'm assuming that by "truth" you mean that we know what the ECS is and can produce empirical evidence to support the number. (Sorry I don't have one to quote because the IPCC failed to agree on what the ECS number was in AR5) - is this the sort of "truth" you believe the IoP is looking for?
Here's the problem they have. We have heard the icecaps are going to melt and raise sea levels 20 meters but how many of us know over what timescales? I don't know, but I suspect it's over thousands of years, do you think that's the sort of truth the IoP have in mind? No? Neither do I.
MIke Jackson caught it they're making the classic mistake of believing they are so correct in their views that they mustn't be communicating them properly if people don't accept them. Totally ruling out the idea that their views are well understood, but thought to be balderdash by the poor bastards having them thrust upon them every day of their lives.
To finish on a positive note I'll ask you to do something for the curmudgeons who haunt this blog. I promise you it's not a trick, it's an attempt to understand what the climate science community is all about and I invite you to bring along as many of your colleagues in the MO and the wider climate science community as you feel necessary to contribute and then we can have a real debate. Here it is:
Assuming all these exercises in communication are successful, what would winning look like to you?
Whatever you come up with it needs to be more than hand-waving solutions lI'll give you an example like "reduce CO2 output", if you say that you'd have to point to (clearly you couldn't write it all down on the blog) how we're going to organise our energy policy so the lights don't go out, and what cost you're prepared to bear in terms of money and human suffering to achieve that aim. You should also be clear what you're going to do about persuading the rest of the world to reduce their CO2 emissions in line with ours and what sort of energy you see sustaining 7-9 billion people over the next 40 years. That sort of thing.
This is serious stuff Doug not just some jousting contest between the good guys (scientists) and aged curmudgeons (Us). So you please, use the Discussion part of the blog, invite as many as your scientific colleagues as you think fit and have a real communication with us and tell us what victory would look like for the clisci community.
We understand the physics and the logic. We respect observation. Many of us are old enough to have seen scientific fashions and beliefs come and go. Some of us were lucky enough to have been educated before CAGW brainwashing became the norm.
We know flawed science when we see it. We are the sceptics but we are not the ones in denial.
"Many of us are old enough to have seen scientific fashions and beliefs come and go."
..and we've seen some pretty funny weather, only the most recent of which is ascribed to AGW.
I thought for a few comments that 'Drive-by Doug' was going to talk about the science. I observe that he and some others are only too keen to drop by to debate the debate or defend the honour of the various besmirched organisations which are up to their elbows in it.
How nice if he were to gather up all the reasonable questions here and make an attempt to answer them.
Oh, and next time we have an Oxford pub meet, how nice if the Exeter bunch hired a charabanc and came in to give us a bit of communication..
Rhoda: I like the "Drive by Doug". It reminds me of "Back soon" Betts. They never seem to want to address the few key issues that we raise here over and over again.
Mar 14, 2014 at 4:16 PM | geronimo
Don't forget for your challenge that Doug needs to identify the theoretical benefits for all this sacrifice too. Such as how much of a lack of rise in Global Surface Temperature would be achieved, and the figures via which this was estimated too. Oh yeah, and when 'the pause' will end also, so we know that it's our money saving us and not just where the temperature was going anyway ;)
I actually regret the remark I made a little earlier about Richard "Back soon Betts" because I don't want it to be taken as a personal attack. I respect Richard and Doug for commenting here even though they drop in to support the cause then clear off quickly. To be fair, they get a lot of stick.
I would rather that they try to address the issues that are raised here, in an honest manner, without resorting to all the bull**** answers that that we see generally. However, I doubt if they could retain their jobs if they really did that, so forget I said this.
Let's leave the individuals alone, but the IOP are fair game. Why don't they just tell the truth rather than hold a session to get their story right?
"In Russia, message corrects YOU!"
As a former fairly active member of the IoP I remember it being very political even way back. I was a member of one of the specialist groups and there were moans persistently about the upper echelons of the org.
"This one-day event will explore the ways in which environmental scientists can
communicate and engage in a more effective way with the news media."
They can start telling the truth, for a start.
There has been no warming for >27 years.
[See comment at 10.31 pm]
SCat: Thanks for saying the last piece. Compared to the oh-so-many climate 'experts' that never deal with the difficult questions in a hostile environment ... well, these are the best enemies we've got. Best hold onto them, just in case we get Nurse? :)
Yeah, environmentalists and climate scientists have so little experience in communicating with the public.
not.
Doug seems like a nice guy, but that only underscores the banality of the apartchiks in the climatocracy.
The only thing emerging from recent climate science communication efforts is an increasingly shrill demand to shut down any dissenting voices and then pretend they never existed.
Communicating science is quite simple: tell the truth.
Climate science seems unalterably opposed to that strategy.
This conference is udoubtedly well funded by tax payers or corporate AGW sponsors and its real purpose is to spend other people's money trying to control the narrative. Science is just a thin veneer in this.
geronimo
Thank you for that contribution at 4.16. Something you said switched on a light in my mind and I have been spending the last couple of hours mulling it over and trying to work out whether the sudden revelation is a genuine one or just another silly idea.
Let's have a look and see.
If I'm right much of the misunderstandings between the two 'sides' (forgive the word but I'm trying to keep this simple) about what to communicate and how to communicate comes down to a fundamental difference as to what it is we are trying to achieve and I am starting to reach the conclusion that what the 'climate community' (again forgive the terminology; I think I'm going to have to supply a glossary!) is trying to do is win the argument.
It was your "Assuming all these exercises in communication are successful, what would winning look like to you?" quote that switched on the light.
This is science we're talking about here, isn't it? If so, why are we talking about "winning"? Winning means getting the answer or result you want. Science is about getting the answer or result that is right — whether you want it or not. Every one of these meetings and seminars, all these studies into the psyche of sceptics or deniers or dissidents, the rantings of Ward, Fox's simpering press releases, Mann's libel actions are intended to serve one over-arching purpose — for the climate community to win and be seen to win.
In my previous posting today I suggested that there was enough in the way of observations (the empirical evidence I have been screaming for for well over a decade) and papers (of which Lewis & Crok is only one more example) to suggest that the climate community might care to accept that possibly, just possibly, it might have got it wrong. That CO2 is not the demon gas they (and more importantly their little green parasites, but one thing at a time) have been claiming; that their computer models — X-Box™ science — are failing to match reality and their forecasts (politely termed "projections") ditto; that their excuses are becoming less plausible and more tedious by the day.
But no.
The reaction to Lewis & Crok — as to numerous other papers — is to circle the wagons, debunk it almost before they've had a chance even to read it, lash out at anyone who supports it and continue to maintain, in a sort of inverse parody of Dr Pangloss, that "all is for the worst in the worst of all worlds".
And why?
Because it is essential that they WIN. Never mind that the science is evidently far from settled; never mind that their mantra that anyone who questions even a scintilla of the global warming gospel is the enemy; never mind that the canard about all of us on this "side" being in the pay of Big Oil (conveniently forgetting the funding that climate research has had from Big Government and Big Green — and not to mention Big Oil as well!) has long been proved to be the fatuity that it is; never mind that the climate is simply not doing what they have been telling us for decades it is going to do any minute; never mind that climate gurus like Hansen have repeatedly been proved by events to be W-R-O-N-G. (And there are a dozen other examples!) The most important thing to all the big names in the community is that they WIN. They don't have to be right as long as they can convince the rest of us to shut up and accept what they say. It may be bullshit but they don't care. All that matters is that they WIN.
And the science? F*** the science, man. This is about winning. Much more important.
And I'm no genius so I may well have this totally arse about face. But if so will someone please provide a more plausible explanation for this obsession with "getting the message across" — AGAIN!
“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d'hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their manners of petrified vestals, their indescribable toilets and a certain odor of india-rubber which makes one believe that at night they are slipped into a rubber casing.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Miss Harriet
“The puritanical potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of ''decency'.' The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.”
Wyndham Lewis quotes (English Artist, 1882-1957)
"Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there."
Hugh Hefner
A part of human existence unfortunately.
Mar 14, 2014 at 8:25 PM | Mike Jackson
"The most important thing to all the big names in the community is that they WIN."
An interesting proposal. What unites the definition of 'win' in such a broad church as the CAGW 'community', which includes governments, universities, NGOs, celebrities, green business, millions of passionate supporters, etc?
"...I may well have this totally arse about face. But if so will someone please provide a more plausible explanation for this obsession with "getting the message across" - AGAIN!"
I think your posterior and visage are definitely facing the right way around :) If your proposal is true, then it is a reasonable assumption that the definition of winning is somehow strongly tied to the (endlessly repeated) message.
An above comment that is attributed to me was not actually posted by me.
I don't disagree with it, but I'm a bit concerned that it reported as my comment. It is the comment timed at 7:22
Have you collapsed the wave function? :-)
Nice quotes, woodentop (note to self - read some de Maupassant!)
Mike Jackson, you have hit the nail on the head with your comments about "winning". The thing is, no matter who "wins" in this kind of paradigm, science loses. As a result, the people lose as well, because decisions are being made based on the "winner takes all" approach.
Ezra Klein on a shingle! we now have a Journ-o-list for CAGW. When are these dingbrains going to learn that this is NOT how science works?
This is one of the best "non-technical" "summary" threads that I have followed. The contributions from regular commenters, have explained "how science works" and how it is not working and how one stream, "climate science" has been totally corrupted and how the "reporting" of "science" - the MESSAGE, is the goal - not that carrying out an experiment (carefully statistically controlled) and measure of observations (also carefully statistically controlled) is what science is about and the mostly "failing" result.
As one of those educated in the "past" and a very lesser scientist but with a fierce scepticism of what anybody tells me - in any context, I marvel at the way the world moves, at the hubris of "experts" at the continual putting down of all the "Blind Freddies", at the proponents of science's inability to see the nose on their faces - at the complete inversion of reason. This site is a haven for reason. It's also probably needed in most other avenues of human endeavour.
Mike Jackson - I think you have nailed it and that your metaphorical arse is facing in absolutely the correct direction. The exalted few are worried that that the many are not understanding the message but they cannot and will not understand that we Bishop Hill readers and respondents will not lie down and accept their BS.
Some events are seminal for me: I clearly remember the strange little officious senior functionary from THAT university congratulating his comrade-in-arms for 'playing a blinder' after one of the farcical 'enquiries', which, to me spoke volumes about the corruptibility of the few.
They see the goal as winning - we see truth as the goal.
Johanna
I reckoned I'd gone as far as I decently could last night without being in danger of sending you all to sleep but you've picked out what would have been Phase Two had I gone on.
As you say the obsession with winning, which inevitably though regrettably sets the language for the debate (ie we feel that we need to "win" as well), relegates science to a poor second place.
But cast your mind back to the beginning of the cAGW scare and you will realise that the science was always second to the environmental politics. The archetypal event was Hansen's notoriously "doctored" appearance before the Senate Committee in 1988, an event that was orchestrated (read "set up") by Timothy Wirth, the same Timothy Wirth who later said
And something even more significant has just struck me because directly above that quote in my Little Book of Climate Quotes I found this ....And where were those comments made? Why, at the 1970 Earth Summit. Yes, both of them!
Hot? Cold? Who cares as long as we get what we want out of it?
I rest my case.
I agree with those praising this thread but I'd also sound a real note of danger for the BH community once some smartass feels it's OK to impersonate another long-term, well known contributor - in this case Schrodinger's Cat. Isn't the answer to register and be forced to use a password, SCat? Or doesn't that protect against someone using exactly the same name as you? I don't know enough about the Squarespace system underlying this blog but it's worth an urgent enquiry to the host (poor soul). Whatever turns out to be true affects all of us - and our interrelationships - in the end.
woodentop:
Very interesting point but Hefner leaves something out of this picture that makes the whole thing much less surprising. The Puritans were followers of John Calvin and, cutting a long story short, this made them believe in theocracy, in the people with the right beliefs telling everyone else what to do and think. The only problem for them with the situation in England at the time was that it was other such churchman at the top telling everyone what to do, not them!
The amazing story of religious freedom and tolerance in the United States arose, more than anything, I believe, because of a very different stream of Christians: the Quakers. Once the Puritans and their allies had actually put some Quakers to death for believing the wrong things others in the new colonies began to think again. I learned about this fascinating area from a book called The Great Restoration by Meic Pearse in the 1990s. There will be fuller treatments elsewhere by now but Meic shares my distaste for Calvinism (and its precursor Augustinianism) and its propensity to be used in support of political oppression. I duly pay my respects to the book and the man.
Thanks Mike, I've been telling cliscis in private now for some time that they should write down what "winning" looks like. It is a question we should all ask ourselves, not just in conflicts, but in everything. If you don't know what winning looks like then you don't know if you've won.
And that is the problem here, I believe they've won hands down already. The entire western world in in thrall to the catastrophic global warming meme, governments have enacted futile, expensive and ultimately destructive policies at the behest of the greens and their puppet scientific community. Most of the public, as ever, is apathetic and there are a handful of, not very powerful citizens challenging them. So why on earth do they want to find ways to improve the way they "communicate" the science?
I can only tell it as I see it and have come to the conclusion that there are two elements to this peculiar behaviour.
The first is that they think they're in some sort of "game" which they have to win. I've commented on this before and MIke Jackson mentioned it, but it's the reaction to papers that both support and oppose the climate "science" adopted as absolute truth by the clisci community is, what I would call, "Nescafe". Instant. All papers published are instantly true or false to the cliscis depending on their orientation in the "game". It's not normal, we saw the "relief" experienced by Ed Hawkins and Richard Betts when the Lewis and Crok paper suggested temperatures would rise, but not quite as much as predicted. It looked like exultation to me, the kind of response to a try at Twikenham rather than the considered reflection one would expect from academia. What was also indicative that there is belief that it's a game is while some were "relieved" that sceptics seemed to accept warming, others were simultaneously rubbishing the paper.
The second element is a little more difficult to describe, but I'll give it a go. It appears to me that the entire scientific establishment and the clisci community have a desperate need for everyone to agree with their theory, which is peculiar given they've already won hands down. Hence the visceral attack on scepticism from the likes of Paul Nurse. They have the medicine for us which is higher energy prices, probably energy rationing, the migration of any energy intensive industries to more benign regimes, and a general turn down in economic activity and with the greens front and centre are imposing them on the populaces of the western industrial countries regardless of cost and pain.
And yet...and yet they seem to be seeking our approbation for what they're doing. Hence getting the message right isn't just about the scientific message it's also asking us to approve the industrial enema there theories are imposing on us.
Geronimo: Brilliant. Even before I'd got to your second element I was thinking of this from the book of Esther:
It all turns out well in the end! But this is surely the signature trait of the despot: an insecurity enraged by even one person who refuses to tell you that you're wonderful.
And the corollary is, what does winning look like to us? To me, I do not need to have my null hypothesis (Not much is happening and if it does we can adapt) proven. I think a win would be for the scientific debate to be unlinked from the political and social participants. And the the scientific debate to be engaged in a normal scientific manner. No causes. no cheating, open data, that sort of thing. I could stand to have my null discarded if their hypothesis really has some legs to stand on other than models all the way down. I think my null is pretty hard to break though.
What does winning look like to you?
@rhoda 10:29AM "I do not need to have my null hypothesis ... proven"
Er, a null hypothesis cannot be proven. It is a default position and remains so unless/until falsified. (You know this, surely?).
Re: simon abingdon
> Er, a null hypothesis cannot be proven. It is a default position and remains so unless/until falsified.
You need to tell Trenberth this. He believes that, in climate science, it should be assumed the null hypothesis is false unless proven otherwise.
See Climate null(?) hypothesis by Judith Curry
geronimo
I don't think in their minds they have won until there is not a sceptic left standing.
They can't abide WUWT; they can't abide Bishop Hill; they can't abide Tallbloke; they can't abide JoNova — simply to take my personal top four (only in the order they appear in the Bookmarks, you understand!). As long as there are blogs that get the number of hits those four do and there are other sites like Climate Audit, Climate Resistance and Climate Etc out there they cannot claim to have won.
This is not science we are talking here; this is control of the message and by extension control of the people. I'm sorry if I give an opening to those who would yelp "conspiracy theory" when I say that but, as I asked at the end of my 8.25pm post, somebody point me to another plausible explanation.
At the very least science and extreme environmentalism have gone hand in hand on this subject for 30 years to the detriment of the science and to genuine environmentalism. I argue that the environmentalism has been used as a justification for perverting the science, as witness Firth's quote above.
I'm not sure whether it's approbation the climate community wants from us. I'm more inclined to the view that it's simply compliance. Note the ones who are shouting loudest — Grantham the moneymaker through his mouthpiece Ward, Nurse (not a climate scientist), Mackay (not a climate scientist), Beddington (not a climate scientist), Deben (not any sort of scientist), activist NGOs (very, very few in there with any knowledge of anything very much except their own agenda). The various professional bodies (which are the reason for this thread) are pontificating on a subject well outside the remit of most of them. In a nutshell the megaphones are being wielded and the arms are being twisted by people and organisations who in their professional capacity have no more right to have their views on climate listened to and believed than those of us on this and the other blogs I've mentioned.
Arguably they have less right because many of us here, aware of our own ignorance, have taken the trouble to learn while many of those who contribute are at least as well-qualified as the self-styled and self-opinonated experts.
At least we usually manage to avoid fatuous comments like comparing sceptics to flat-earthers (the Flat Earth Society is fully signed-up to the meme, I'm told) or comparing us to those who trash GM crops blissfully ignorant (are you listening, Sir Paul?) of the fact that his most rabid supporters are the very ones who are doing that very thing.
Enough!
And anyone hoping for a further comment from me will probably have to wait — a rugbyfest calls!
@TerryS 11:27AM
Depends where you're coming from. "All swans are white" and "The sun will rise tomorrow" are examples of default positions which awaited/await falsification.
Trenberth can try to build a theory on his own null hypothesis. But he should not be surprised by the possible disappointment of early falsification.
Simon, you are of course correct. Slip of the keyboard on my part. Except that the other side play by a different set of rules. I don't know what their null is.
If the climate science establishment is sincere in its attempts to communicate science and science alone, here are a few tips:
1. do not present the output of computer models as scientific evidence/experiments - they may indeed be the best we have but they can equally be seen to be the worst we have.
2. do not let activists and politicians misrepresent the science - if David Cameron looks out the window and sees a storm and then blames it on climate change call him out for the idiot he is.
3. take a firm stand on the use of the word 'denier'. This is an attempt to equate those who disagree with the consensus position on climate to those who deny the Holocaust, surely the most evil atrocity ever committed in the annals of human experience. This is truly ugly and those that use the term put themselves beyond redemption.
4. do not prescribe policy or if you must make it crystal clear that you are moving into an arena where you have no more right to be heard than us headless chickens
5. above all start to act like scientists FFS! Given the policy implications of climate science it behoves the true scientists to be even more impartial objective self-critical and yes sceptical than in any other field of science
Stoney ground? You bet
Mar 15, 2014 at 10:13 AM | geronimo
It occurred to me too that by some definitions at least, if it's a game then they've already won.
"All papers published are instantly true or false to the cliscis depending on their orientation in the "game". "
Indeed it seems so. If one terms that orientatation 'orthodoxy', or lack thereof for sceptics. And one terms the endless messaging as 'proselytization', then 'the game' becomes very much like one we already know, which is common in society. Might also explain why there's no endpoint 'win', because there is always the danger of heresy and schcism coalescing around any divergent voice. As for the approbation, I guess it's usually true in this particular game that you have to take a flock with you; 'guide' them not force them (at least not directly and obviously!)
To add to this notion of papers being accepted as factual truth almost immediately, it also seems that there's a race to cite certain papers in order to elevate their credibility, before the slow processes of replication and verification have had a chance to operate. This is a huge corruption of the scientific method and it is rampant in climate science.
Skeptics "winning", for me, looks like:
Returning the policy making process to cost/benefits based on real costs and benefits.
Get vulnerable people food, clean water and cheap energy.
A thorough audit of and report on the actions and expenditures of the various AGW promotional groups, whether government, NGO, UN or academic.
A return to tolerance in science, academia and the public square.
Ask for the stars, settle for the moon......
Mar 15, 2014 at 4:20 PM | hunter
Wow, that's a big ask. I think on that scale, for the next coule of years at least we may still be struggling for a moonbeam 0:
hunter: A very good list, thank you. I gave a more pessimistic three level answer to the same question from geronimo, in the context of 'denier', eleven days ago:
Negative though this may seem, it does mean one has something to keep fighting for, however bad it gets. And in all this 'not likely to happen in my lifetime' isn't the same as 'not worth fighting for'.
Richard,
Thanks. I ran across a very interesting little back and forth over at Tom Nelson's latest post on the Steyn Mann suit.
You might look at how the AGW believer posted and his/her interesting turn of phrase. I think these skeptical blogs are read by more than just Walport on the believer side.