Getting the facts on denial

[Old Rocks]

Climate Science AMAScience AMA Series: I am John Cook, Climate Change Denial researcher, Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, and creator of SkepticalScience.com. Ask Me Anything! (self.science)

submitted 1 month ago * by Skeptical_John_CookJohn Cook, Skeptical Science

Hi r/science, I study Climate Change Science and the psychology surrounding it. I co-authored the college textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis, and the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. I've published papers on scientific consensus, misinformation, agnotology-based learning and the psychology of climate change. I'm currently completing a doctorate in cognitive psychology, researching the psychology of consensus and the efficacy of inoculation against misinformation.

I co-authored the 2011 book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand with Haydn Washington, and the 2013 college textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis with Tom Farmer. I also lead-authored the paper Quantifying the Consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, which was tweeted by President Obama and was awarded the best paper published in Environmental Research Letters in 2013. In 2014, I won an award for Best Australian Science Writing, published by the University of New South Wales.

I am currently completing a PhD in cognitive psychology, researching how people think about climate change. I'm also teaching a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), Making Sense of Climate Science Denial, which started last week.

I'll be back at 5pm EDT (2 pm PDT, 11 pm UTC) to answer your questions, Ask Me Anything!

Edit: I'm now online answering questions. (Proof)

Edit 2 (7PM ET): Have to stop for now, but will come back in a few hours and answer more questions.

Edit 3 (~5AM): Thank you for a great discussion! Hope to see you in class.
Science AMA Series I am John Cook Climate Change Denial researcher Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and creator of SkepticalScience.com. Ask Me Anything science

Very interesting discussion here.

 

[S.J.]

Oh boy, 6 or 7 left wing whacko global warming propaganda site links! I can hardly wait to delve into all those interesting and balanced discussions.

 

[DarkFury]

Oh boy, 6 or 7 left wing whacko global warming propaganda site links! I can hardly wait to delve into all those interesting and balanced discussions.

What happened to "global cooling"? I got some really pissed off Polar bears here in Arizona.

 

[cnm]

A couple of magazines beat it up and dupes believed it for decades, unlike climate scientists.

Source

 

[Wyatt earp]

A couple of magazines beat it up and dupes believed it for decades, unlike climate scientists.

Source

Excuses , excuses.....

 

[cnm]

Yeah, the dupes say things like 'But it was on Time magazine'.

 

[cnm]

But here's some more data on the myth of a scientific consensus of global cooling in the 1970s...

Source

 

[skookerasbil]

Go........go.......go. with the "denier" campaign!!


They spent 85 million in the '14 mid-terms running on that................virtually ALL candidates got their clocks cleaned!!


Climate Change Activists Come Up Short In Midterm Elections NPR

The day climate change became irrelevant in politics Powerful Green Lobby Defeated In US Midterm Elections Watts Up With That

Tom Steyer greens have rough night at the polls - Andrew Restuccia - POLITICO.com

Meet the new gridlock same as the old... - philly-archives


The reason folks? Climate change is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list of the concerns of the constituents unless it is an uber-left district.

 

[DarkFury]

Go........go.......go. with the "denier" campaign!!

I myself am a member of the "I don't give a sh8t campaign". And we are growing daily.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Yeah, the dupes say things like 'But it was on Time magazine'.

You can never comprehend it unless you lived through the hyperbole of the past 40 years, it was more then just on Time magazine, it was in newspapers, Television, radio, in cartoons. Again it was global cooling then switched to global warming, when your side couldn't make that stick to the wall it was switched to climate change, you guys figured that term would work for everything, you didn't count on us saying no "duh" it has been changing for 4.5 billion year's.

The alarmist made it to politcal instead of just sticking to science. Ya all made it a joke.

 

[Crick]

THE FACTS

Where it was NOT was on any significant number of peer reviewed journal articles, studies or the lips or minds of the experts. A review of published paper throughout the 1970s shows that, by a large margin, the predominant concern among people doing climate science was global warming caused by human CO2 emissions.

journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

 

[cnm]

You can never comprehend it unless you lived through the hyperbole of the past 40 years, it was more then just on Time magazine, it was in newspapers, Television, radio, in cartoons. [...]

Make sure you keep not reading the data about it I posted, there's a good [dupe].

 

[SSDD]

Yeah, the dupes say things like 'But it was on Time magazine'.

Guess you aren't old enough to know that back then, there was no 24 hour news cycle...there was no internet for disseminating information...Back then writers for time...and other news magazines actually talked to experts....who explained what science was thinking at the time and those writers actually reported what the top dog scientists were saying about the climate. In the 70's, climate science thought that we were going into an ice age...

Time wasn't the only source for the claim..

Here is a paper prepared by the CIA based on the "expert opinion" and best science of the time. It discusses the possible problems associated with a coming cold period. Your climate buds certainly won't point this paper out to you, but the fact is that it exists...and it was written because the prevailing science of the day predicted a deep cooling period. I guess you will deny that the CIA had access to the prevailing scientific opinion of the day?

Here is a link to the paper:

http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf

And here are some clips from the paper....let the denial begin.

The western world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climate change. The stability of most nations is based upon a dependable source of food, but this stability will not be possible under the new climatic era. A forecast by the University of Wisconsin projects that the earth’s climate is returning to that of the neo-boreal era (1600- 1850) – an era of drought, famine and political unrest in the western world.

“The University of Wisconsin was the first accredited academic center to forecast that a major global climatic change was underway. Their analysis of the Icelandic temperature data, which they contend has historically been a bellwether for northern hemisphere climatic conditions, indicated that the world was returning to the type of climate which prevailed during the first part of the last century.” “Their “Food for Thought” chart (Figure 7) conveys some idea of the enormity of the problem and the precarious state in which most of the world’s nations could find themselves if the Wisconsin forecast is correct.”

 

[cnm]

Yet the majority of papers suggested warming was most likely. It was not the prevailing science, as has been demonstrated.

The 'University of Wisconsin' as 'the western world’s leading climatologists'. It is to laugh. They were in the minority. Minority opinions have been acknowledged, 10%.

That dupes were duped is neither here nor there.

 

[Old Rocks]

Not only old enough to remember it, I remember reading the the 1975 PNAS article not long after it was published, in which they stated that while there was a small chance that we could go into a cooling, by what we knew then, we were far more likely to see a rapid warming. They stated that with the knowledge of that time, no definitive prediction could be made. By 1981, the leading atmospheric physicist, Dr. James Hansen, did make definitive statements and predictions concerning the warming.

Pubs.GISS Hansen et al. 1981 Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide

Publication Abstracts
Hansen et al. 1981
Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213, 957-966, doi:10.1126/science.213.4511.957.

The global temperature rose 0.2°C between the middle 1960s and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980s. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.

• Download PDF (2.6 MB; scanned, no OCR)
• Go to journal webpage

 

[Old Rocks]

Oh boy, 6 or 7 left wing whacko global warming propaganda site links! I can hardly wait to delve into all those interesting and balanced discussions.

What happened to "global cooling"? I got some really pissed off Polar bears here in Arizona.

There never was any scientific consensus on 'global cooling'. In fact, only people of low intellect, like you were, were taken in by it.

 

[S.J.]

I remember them talking back in the 60's about another ice age coming.

 

[Old Rocks]

Mr. S.J., you remember who talking about another ice age in the '60's? Specific names and titles, please. Where published, or on what venue was this stated?

 

[S.J.]

Oh boy, 6 or 7 left wing whacko global warming propaganda site links! I can hardly wait to delve into all those interesting and balanced discussions.

What happened to "global cooling"? I got some really pissed off Polar bears here in Arizona.

There never was any scientific consensus on 'global cooling'. In fact, only people of low intellect, like you were, were taken in by it.

Like you are taken in by "global warming"?

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, since every Scientific Society, every National Academy of Science, and every major University seems to be 'Taken in' by the evidence for AGW, looks like I am in good company. By the way, I have been taking classes in science and math now at the local University for 2 years now, part time basis as I also work full time, and I have yet to meet any professor in the sciences that states that AGW is not real.