Arguments
2015 SkS Weekly Digest #17
Posted on 26 April 2015 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights
Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis by CJA Bradshaw (ConservationBytes.com) attracted the highest number of comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. Coming in second was Permafrost feedback update 2015: is it good or bad news? by Andy Skuce.
We Heart Chris Mooney
On the week of Sept. 8, 2014, the Web site Skeptical Science launched an online campaign to emphasize the broad scientific agreement about climate change. It was called “97 hours of consensus,” and for each hour, the organizers put out a new statement from a climate scientist highlighting the scientific consensus — accompanied by tweetable cartoon images of each scientist.
The campaign was popular enough that organizers claimed to have reached “millions” online. A tweet from Barack Obama surely didn’t hurt:
The campaign did indeed create a successful spike in online attention, say the authors of a new academic analysis that crunches vast amounts of Web data to compare how differently Twitter and the mainstream media handle the subject of climate change.
Why you shouldn’t only get your climate change news from the mainstream media by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Apr 21, 2015
Toon of the Week
Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists
Quote of the Week
Tackling climate change should be a bipartisan effort and it requires "political will," said Obama, who pointed out that Republican president Theodore Roosevelt started the national parks system.
"Refusing to say the words 'climate change' doesn't mean that climate change isn't happening," said Obama, taking a jab at climate change deniers. "Protecting the one planet we've got is ... what we have to do for the next generation."
Obama visits Everglades to call for action on climate change by Andy Reid and William E. Gibson, Sun Sentinel, Apr 22, 2015
SkS in the News
SkS's Where is Global warming Going? graphic is included in Matthew England's The climate ‘hiatus’ doesn’t take the heat off global warming posted on The Conversation.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner cites the TCP in her Guardian article, Conservative thinktank seeks to change Pope Francis's mind on climate change. She states:
A 2013 survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals found that 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.
SkS Spotlights
The SELCO Foundation (India) envisions a socially sustainable society: we seek to create avenues for asset building, enhancement in quality of life and wealth creation that will uplift deprived sections of society through sustainable development solutions.
SELCO Foundation was officially registered on 5th October, 2010 as a public charitable trust, with the mission to:
1. Systematically identify diverse needs of underserved communities, understand and define the role of sustainability and energy in these communities.
2. Create and support innovative and sustainable solutions that positively impact well-being, education and livelihoods and work towards the alleviation of poverty.
3. Foster ecosystem development in the social sector through holistic thought processes in technology, finance, entrepreneurship and policy.
SELCO Foundation uses soft funding and flexible capital to develop robust and field-proven technological and financial models in the field of energy and sustainability. It aims to generate public awareness about these models, while also building the ecosystem for the creation and delivery of such solutions. The foundation supports replication and utilization of these models in other deprived regions of India and the world, thereby achieving greater leverage on resources.
Coming Soon on SkS
- Inoculating against science denial (John Cook)
- Overlooked evidence - global warming may proceed faster than expected (Dana)
- 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18A (John Hartz)
- The climate ‘hiatus’ doesn’t take the heat off global warming (Matthew England)
- Guest post (John Abraham)
- Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather (Robert McSweeney)
- 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18B (John Hartz)
- 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #18 (John Hartz)
Poster of the Week
SkS Week in Review
- 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #17B by John Hartz
- Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis by CJA Bradshaw (ConservationBytes.com)
- Changes in water vapor and clouds are amplifying global warming by John Abraham
- 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #17A by John Hartz
- University of Queensland offering free online course to demolish climate denial by Dana Nuccitelli
- Permafrost feedback update 2015: is it good or bad news? by Andy Skuce
- 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #16 by John Hartz
97 Hours of Consensus: Ann Henderson-Sellers
There is an recent article in the Telegraph by Christopher Booker about an international team of scientists assembled to investigate the temperature record adjustments. Isn't this just a repeat of the same nonsense that was debunked here not too long ago? If it is really the same thing, then how does this junk keep getting repeated? I know the deniers are jumping all over this one.
rkrolph, it's being put together by the GWPF, one of the core denial machines. It's Pielke Sr., Chylek, McNider (UAH), Roman Mureika (wth?), and William van Wijngaarden (wth, part 2).
Note that "experts" is the label rather than "climate experts." It's all rhetoric in the name of shaping public opinion.
rkrolph, that GWPF waste of time is covered by And Then There's Physics, and several other folks in the comments there.
DSL @2, Roman Mureika is a statistician that frequently comments at Climate Audit, being very critical of anyone disagreeing with McIntyre. As a rough measure of his ability, he has an effective Google Scholar h-rating of 6. Most of his papers deal with the ins and outs of record times for 100 meter sprints. For comparison, Grant Foster who is belittled on Climate Audit as a statistical nobody in comparison to Mureika has an effective Google Scholer h-rating of 10. What is more, unlike Mureika, he has published on the temperature record.
The GWPF is certainly stacking the deck with people with a known outlook. As Nick Stokes points out, they have also stacked the deck with the questions they put to the inquiry.
Having said that, van Wijngaarden has an academic record that certainly justifies his being on this sort of panel, including publications on climate statistics. Based on his publication record, he at least is unlikely to perform a simple hatchet job.
rkrolph
" Isn't this just a repeat of the same nonsense that was debunked here not too long ago?"
Let me give you a detailed, in-depth response.
Yep.
Hotwhopper already has answers to the GWPF's questions about temperature adjustments. She also has a few questions of her own, for the GWPF. Not expecting to get answers to those....