Global warming! Here!

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[Lobes]

I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about you. Do you want to make a point, or do you want to win?

I want an open discussion where the facts are acknowledged. If one side of the discussion refuses to acknowledge the laws of physics what am I meant to make of that? That Newton may have been wrong?

Skepticism implies there is some doubt over the facts. Climate change is observable, temperatures are rising. The causation is human emitted CO2. Occams razor suggests it is so but more importantly the physical principles involved remain consistent with what is being observed.

I just dont see the doubt  that would make the term skeptic an accurate one. If deniers want to call themselves skeptics then they must justify the use of this term. They have failed to do so and instead resort to renaming their view so it implies doubt where it does not exist.

[log man]

Hi folks, Bill , I don't get your observation about " if you were gay /faggot-- black /nigger" . Personally my skin crawls when white , straight men use terms like that . But maybe I'm just making assumptions again, and in reality you may just be Hawaii`s only gay, African American, sup sweeper

[PonoBill]

My point exactly, log.

Look, you guys can do what you like, and say what you want to say. A long time ago I said my great fear was that global warming is as big a problem as you say, but that the people leading the charge are not up to the task of communicating that. If you want to change public opinion you have to do a lot of things right. You certainly can't afford to make silly mistakes like polarizing the debate along political lines or sounding like you are trying to shut down criticism--whether or not the criticism is valid.

That simply means you lose. I've been on that losing side, didn't like it. Learned a lot of lessons. One of them is that being clearly, absolutely, demonstrably right about the science is pretty close to totally meaningless. What percentage of people are going to take the time to understand that?

[log man]

Yeah bill, I think I agree with Kevin. If you don't manage to convince the last 10 percent of people , who cares, if you pay them 20 dollars to go away they probably will and if they don't, well , give them 25 ,a six pack and some sunscreen(they might need it). If we're trying to convince every last doofus on the planet,  nothing will happen. Bill, I recon the whole idea of " communicating" and  "selling the message"is over played. If people aren't swayed by the facts, spin just won't do it. Just remember what Roosevelt said " PR is just convincing people they're not really eating a sh1t sandwich "

[stoneaxe]

It's funny that you guys are saying Bill is wrong as the momentum for change dies. In large part because of how poorly its been handled. Nobody is talking about spin. You can't argue that this was made into a poster child by the left and that is what doomed it. If this had been framed and sold differently instead of all the chaos everyone would be scrambling to get on board the gravy train.

I can't stand the stupid 10 percent of deniers either. It's easy to ignore them and of course you'll never convince them. But the 10 percent at the other end of the spectrum are the ones that have killed this by alienating a large percentage of the people in the middle with their own brand of stupidity.

[Weasels wake]

Bob, I usually like your open thinking, but where do you get 10% deniers out of the 2 quotes from the Gallop poll below?
I say it's quite a bit more than a measly 10%.

For example, the percentage of Americans who now say reports of global warming are generally exaggerated is by a significant margin the highest such reading in the 13-year history of asking the question. In 1997, 31% said global warming's effects had been exaggerated; last year, 41% said the same, and this year the number is 48%.

 
In 2003, 61% of Americans said such increases were due to human activities -- in line with advocates of the global warming issue -- while 33% said they were due to natural changes in the environment. Now, a significantly diminished 50% say temperature increases are due to human activities, and 46% say they are not.

And as to "deniers" being a proper label or not?  Hell, I don't mind, so long as the activists here among you (not everyone here on this thread), don't mind being called "alarmists", which is a word I sometimes use,,,,,,,,,,,, depending,,,,,,, you know.  

By the way, I just had a really good windsurfing session, 4.5 in shoulder high sets today, so I'm actually in a really good mood.
Not that it's pertinent to the discussion, I just thought I'd mention it,,,,,, it was really good! 

[stoneaxe]

There are both deniers and skeptics. Skeptics will change their minds when the evidence is presented in a reasonable way. Deniers will take their opinions to the grave. I think the poll represents mostly skeptics. Most especially the change represents skeptics being turned off by the manner in which its been managed. Heroes being made of hypocrits, the socialist agenda tagged on to the message, evidence of critics being blackballed, and small pieces of bad science bringing question to the remainder.
Get rid of those and the outcome would be very different today.

[kwhilden]

There are both deniers and skeptics. Skeptics will change their minds when the evidence is presented in a reasonable way. Deniers will take their opinions to the grave. I think the poll represents mostly skeptics.

Completely agree. Well said.

Most especially the change represents skeptics being turned off by the manner in which its been managed. Heroes being made of hypocrits, the socialist agenda tagged on to the message, evidence of critics being blackballed, and small pieces of bad science bringing question to the remainder. Get rid of those and the outcome would be very different today.

Completely disagree. You've been snookered by a disinformation campaign funded by a multi-trillion dollar industry that directly benefits from preventing action. Think about how hard it is to create something new (the science/environmentalist viewpoint) vs. preventing change and maintaining the status quo (the fossil fuel industry viewpoint).

Do you truly believe that society would be cutting carbon emissions now if the environmentalists and scientists hadn't made the 'marketing mistakes' you describe? Get real, please.

[stoneaxe]

I don't disagree that there has been a well funded assault on the question of climate change. But ask yourself this...who provided the most damning ammunition for the assault? I also didn't say we would be cutting carbon emmissions yet, but I certainly believe we would be closer than we are right now absent that ammo. Again Kevin you question the intelligence of anyone that doesn't see it your way. That's a big part of the reason this is falling apart. I've hardly been snookered. You argue that the fossil fuel industry is running a disinformation campaign...I can agree with that partly...its also an information campaign, using the ammo so foolishly provided them. You criticize them but not folks like Gore and others who are profiting greatly from this? Do you disagree that socialists have jumped onboard for their own agenda? Nothing I said was untrue...all facts..but somehow I've been snookered. I don't even like snooker...the pockets are too small....

[Lobes]

The idea that climate data is in general closed, or that vast pieces of it are unreliable is an invention of the fear-uncertainty-and-doubt campaign of the fossil fuel interests and their lackeys. The University of East Anglia is only one of three major research centres. One could take out all of the UEA data and there would still be an overwhelming case for AGW. None of what emerged from the Climategate scandal could be applied to the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany or the GISS at NASA who come to the same conclusions.

Unfortunately we are being poorly served by a media who see better public engagement with their brands by presenting this equally with as much weight being given to the denier viewpoint as to the overwhelming scientific one. If the arguments where weighted as they actually are rather than what sells the most papers then we would see less conflict, controversy and may actually be forced to start making the hard decisions rather than debating semantics about what actually composes the difference between denial and scepticism.

[Chan]

The idea that climate data is in general closed, or that vast pieces of it are unreliable is an invention of the fear-uncertainty-and-doubt campaign of the fossil fuel interests and their lackeys. The University of East Anglia is only one of three major research centres. One could take out all of the UEA data and there would still be an overwhelming case for AGW. None of what emerged from the Climategate scandal could be applied to the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany or the GISS at NASA who come to the same conclusions.

Unfortunately we are being poorly served by a media who see better public engagement with their brands by presenting this equally with as much weight being given to the denier viewpoint as to the overwhelming scientific one. If the arguments where weighted as they actually are rather than what sells the most papers then we would see less conflict, controversy and may actually be forced to start making the hard decisions rather than debating semantics about what actually composes the difference between denial and scepticism.

 I read an interesting book (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) written by a man who had been influential in devising and implementing the current OPEC/US relationships as well as personally involved in creating the existing third world debt structures.

 His autobiography included documentation detailing the conspiracy and corruption involved in the modern corporate -political global power structures.  He said he thought, as a whistleblower, his life would be in danger.  He soon realized the spin machine was so effective that nothing he said would have much impact, regardless of its validity.  

[PonoBill]

I read that book also, it was kind of fun, though the deeper you get into it the more silly it got. The reality of conspiracies is that in order to believe in them you have to believe in some kind of uber-being, who is far smarter, far tougher, far greedier, far better organized than you are. And if you spend any time in the very largest corporations, or the upper reaches of governments, you find nothing but knuckleheads who couldn't plan a pissing match at a keg party.

The conspiracies are fun to believe in but the truth is always so much more mundane. If the oil companies are conspiring to sink global warming concerns then they are stupider than I believe, and I believe they are pretty stupid. They don't need to. We won't get off oil for decades, and as we do it will become more and more expensive. When we finally stop burning it oil will be immensely valuable.

When I was fighting the anti-nuke wars my boss's, boss's boss thought there was some huge conspiracy working against us. He asked me what I thought. I could hardly explain it to him because the reality was laughable.  I had already taken it upon myself to spend time with our real opponents--two guys a gal and a dog. Between them they had all the resources of a church rummage sale. The two guys were Lloyd Marbet--who I thoroughly liked and still do, Eugene Rosalie--who I disliked and still do, and Nina Bell--who I thought was very hot, but I haven't seen her in twenty years. Those three, and a few other minor players, brought nuclear power plants in Oregon to a halt.

We spent our time trying to lay out the scientific case disproving every word they said. They didn't care, they just kept saying it, and the media kept reporting it, even though some of them actually knew it was nonsense. The media sells advertising. Scientific reports do NOT sell advertising. Wild claims and arm waving sells advertising. People laying down on sidewalks and painting themselves with fluorescent paint sells advertising.

THE MEDIA SELLS ADVERTISING. End of story.

We played their game "what a fool believes. a wise man has to follow, to reason away"--the Doobie Brothers

We lost.

If I had it to do again, and I was king, I'd whip their little butts. I'd smother them in attention. i suck them right into our infrastructure. I'd give them offices on the 17th floor and assign someone to listen to everything they have to say. I certainly wouldn't call them deniers, or moronic little sold-out dweebs--which is what I called Eugene, or blinkered idealists which is what I called Lloyd, or "hey you want to go get a beer later" which is what I usually said to Nina.

I'd plan out the whole assault, because a conspiracy is possible--only guys that are making $500K a year sitting in a corner office at Exxon aren't doing that. They're making sure they cover their asses, don't run afoul of anti-trust or a zillion other regulations, and hanging on for retirement

It's nice to call conspiracy, because that means "it's not our fault". It's them. the powerful guys. And in the meantime you guys can't even learn the very basics of how to undermine your enemy.

Stop spending all your time clipping more data that no one will read, and read Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals".

[Lobes]

Well which is the more stupid and unlikely suggestion;

The conspiracy that the Oil/Fossil Fuel companies are obfuscating the science and consequences of global warming to maintain their profits and energy market share

OR

The conspiracy that global warming is a scam to enable a vast left wing new world order to reallocate wealth from 1st to 3rd world

Yeah Bill I hear you repeating all the time that this is being engaged in the wrong way, that we should be using different tactics etc, and maybe you're right but personally I dont have the background in PR and managing peoples viewpoints that you do. I have a science/engineering background as such most of my arguments tend to fall back on these immutable laws. Its obvious that this isnt enough, at least for the layman and the media. Maybe I'll read that book.

[PonoBill]

I wandered a little far afield there, I blame the hot bath and a couple glasses of wine after a long downwinder. Still, Give Saul a read. You'll be surprised what you learn. He was, of course, advising people how to resist the government--pure sedition. but the guy understood PR and how to manage the media.

Oh, and to answer your question, they are both stupid.

[log man]

jeez Bill, You just got to get over that " I was right about nuclear and if I spun it a different way, we would have won" thing.  But that's the problem with most pr guys, they think that if they rebrand the product, give it a new jingle, change the logo then the public will buy it. Bill it wasn't your add with the young children, holding hands, dancing , joyously in a green field just below the nuclear power station cooling tower that failed.... it was nuclear power!!. People know when they're being fed a sh1t sandwich and even rebranding to "tasty brown sandwich spread" wont work. Oh and another couple of things. You weren't "fighting the anti nuclear war" , you were being paid by the nuclear power lobby ( it's like calling the Japanese "Pro Whale"). Oh yeah and you said "if the oil companies are conspiring to sink global warming " . IF, IF , are you serious Bill . Are you still working for the man! cheers log