Well number 1 is just exhibitionist young people doing what exhibitionist young people do best, winding up their elders. The majority of the population at BH and elsewhere can ignore them.

No 2 is like confirming whether Manchester United are the greatest team in the world (substitute sport and team of you choice) by doing a survey of their supporters. Having said that when the study results confirm what the MO says then the MSM and Harrabin will trumpet the results from the roof tops which will elicit a response here and elsewhere.

Rhoda
I'd be happier if just one of our further and post graduate education establishments tried to prove the MO models by attempting to show why it doesn't match reality.

I'm surprised not to have noticed any discussion on the Bishop Hill or any other climate sceptic website of the University of Exeter's new free online course on climate change that will be starting in January.

Climate Change: Challenges and Solutions. A FREE online course from the University of Exeter
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/climatechangecourse/?utm_source=exeter.ac.uk&utm_medium=homevideofb&utm_campaign=MOOCvideofb

Our very first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) begins on 13th January 2014 on the Open University's FutureLearn platform, and lasts for eight weeks.

The free course is open to absolutely everybody – whether you are a student considering coming to university or are simply interested in learning more about climate change. The course is delivered entirely online covering a different topic each week.

Course content
'Climate Change: Challenges and Solutions' has been produced by eight leading academics from the University of Exeter – from mathematicians to marine biologists – and is led by Tim Lenton, Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science, working in partnership with the UK Met Office.

The aims of the course are to explain the science of climate change, the risks it poses, and the solutions available to reduce those risks. It sets contemporary human-caused climate change within the context of past nature climate variability, balancing the 'bad news' about climate change impacts on natural and human systems with the 'good news' about potential solutions. These solutions can help avoid the most dangerous climate changes and increase the resilience of societies and ecosystems to those climate changes that cannot be avoided.

This course is an exciting opportunity for you to examine climate change from a fresh new perspective.

Here's a flavour of some of the surprising questions we'll be asking:
Why is the Greenhouse Effect a bad metaphor for the process of atmospheric warming?
Why is one of the biggest threats to humanity – as a result of climate change – a tiny fungus?
Why might the Sahara Desert be transformed from arid sand into lush vegetation?
How exactly could the climate be engineered to put a stop to global warming?
Examining the challenges of climate change and developing solutions that mitigate its risks requires a whole range of different skills. That's why we have assembled an inter-disciplinary team of geographers, mathematicians, biologists, marine biologists, meteorologists and glacierologists from both the University of Exeter and our partners at the UK Met Office.

Issues we will cover include:
We have reached a real tipping point in Earth climate systems. For example, the Greenland ice sheet is melting, raising sea levels, and there's simply no going back.
We're entering a new geological era – the Anthropocene. We are no longer going through natural traditional climate cycles. The Anthropocene is driven by man – and how much carbon we are putting into the atmosphere.
Geo-engineering may come into its own. Cloud-seeding. Carbon storing. Mirrors in space. Iron fertilisation.
Climate change will have a dramatic effect on food production around the world, rendering traditional patterns unviable but opening up new opportunities elsewhere.
Sign up now
Watch the trailer, find out more and enrol now at www.futurelearn.com/courses/climate-change-challenges-and-solutions. It takes minutes. But don't forget, the course begins on 13th January 2014.

Roy, it was posted here at BH (can't remember who/when), probably in "un-threaded".

I did click on a few of the links, but it really wasn't clear to me who it was aimed at, and at what level. Or at least not at a level that grabbed my attention, so I didn't comment.

nb
The first since-fiction novel I read that contained global-warming from CO2 was ~in the late 1970's. Their solution was big mirrors in space. The sex in the novel was as bad as the science.

More jobs for the boys disseminating warmist propaganda. I wonder who's financing this "free" course?

Dec 31, 2013 at 10:37 PM | johanna

I would have thought that sponsoring the cruise would have meant them just paying to send a staff member or student along on the trip/holiday.

johanna, It's possible a PhD student got some funding as a field trip. I recall a UK vulcanologist friend who got a trip to Hawaii as part of funding for her 3 year course. Not many active volcanoes in the UK.

By contrast, chemists often get to stand in front of a fume-hood wearing safety-goggles and rubber gloves, which doesn't have quite the same caché value to people wanting to save the world.
(btw My friend was a proper scientist.)