A few PR Giants won’t help “deniers of climate change” (but 70% of PR giants will)

The most dangerous thing is a skeptic that can be heard.

If only climate activists had evidence, they wouldn’t need to use social censure, instead of reasoned arguments. But it was never about the science, and always about PR. If skeptical arguments weren’t so powerful, the fans of Climate Change TM wouldn’t be going out of their way to try to silence skeptics.

This article itself is spun. They frame the message to avoid saying that only 28% of PR Firms agreed climate change was a threat or that 60% of PR firms ignored them completely. They only name five PR groups, and at least one (WPP) is a conglomerate of 150 firms which “will all make their own decisions”. So much for that.

The Guardian,of course, gullibly soaks up the meme. Suzanne Goldenberg and Nishad Karim asks no hard questions.

World’s top PR companies rule out working with climate deniers

Ten firms say they will not represent clients that deny man-made climate change or seek to block emisson-reducing regulations

Since no one actually denies the climate changes, this is a bit like refusing to work with Klingons. Though fans of Climate Change TM speak in Spin-English and in that language “climate change” means man-made-catastrophic-weather. In that sense, these firms are boycotting up to 60% of their potential clients. It may not be the best business strategy in a world shifting away from big-spending green projects.

What is most telling, is that even after being repeatedly harrassed by an activist by phone, mail and email from the Climate Investigations Centre, fully 60% of PR companies ignored them completely:

Only 10 of the 25 firms responded to multiple emails, phone calls and certified letters from the CIC, either directly or through a parent company.

And watch the pea, 40% of companies responded, but not all of them ruled out working with “deniers”. Only seven agreed “climate change” was a threat. The number that would boycott “deniers” was described as “smaller” — too small to actually put a number on?

Seven of the firms told the researchers their companies saw climate change as a threat. But a smaller number would rule out taking on clients that deny climate change is occurring, or work on campaigns that seek to block policies to deal with climate change.

Looks like the mass of companies run by skeptical CEO’s will only have 70% of the world’s largest PR firms to work with.  Shucks. They can work with any company not called “WPP, Waggener Edstrom (WE) Worldwide, Weber Shandwick, Text100, and Finn Partners.”

As for The Climate Investigations Centre — it is a 2014 start up, has 64 “likes” and is directed by a self-described climate activist who specializes in ad hominem attacks against scientists.

“Kert Davies, a well-known researcher, media spokesperson and climate activist who has been conducting corporate accountability research and campaigns for more than 20 years. Davies was the chief architect of the Greenpeace web project ExxonSecrets…”

His first blog post tries to associate skeptics with asbestos, tobacco, and lead. In other words, a science-free site where the aim is to blacken and smear anyone who dares question the religion.

Things are getting heated in the lead up to Paris 2015. The real action is probably early next year. Paris may be the grand theatre, but the groundwork and possible success of Paris probably depends on what happens early in 2015.

By the first quarter of 2015, countries must come forward with their “contributions” to global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, that will come into force from 2020.

Fiona Harvey, environmental correspondent at The Guardian, candidly admits that timing was chosen to avoid putting  “climate change” on the agenda in the US before an election (where the voters might make a choice the bureaucrats don’t want) so the issue of new targets will fly under the radar til after November 2014.

Publishing targets in the first quarter of 2015 do (sic) not leave long for the assessment process to take place. However, that timetable has been drawn up chiefly to take account of the realities of the US electoral timetable. The US government announced earlier this year that it would set its post-2020 targets in the first quarter of 2015. That is necessary to ensure that the decision does not get tangled up in the US congressional elections in autumn 2014 – they are likely to be touchy enough, without introducing the incendiary subject of climate change.

US voters need to know that climate change is very much an election issue. Don’t let the activists hide it.

*Edited just after publication to correct authorship of first Guardian article.

8.9 out of 10 based on 85 ratings

182 comments to A few PR Giants won’t help “deniers of climate change” (but 70% of PR giants will)

  • #
    Truthseeker

    This article itself is spun.

    … spin … ?

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Old joke:
    The Pope; well, Mr. Cohen, we have decided that we need to counter falling numbers with a multi- national advertising campaign. This will take many millions of dollars but we have these resources.

    Mr. Cohen; we at Cohen & Waffle are at your disposal. We are eager to take on this campaign.

    The Pope; there is just one thing, naturally it must be handled by a catholic. Isn’t Cohen Jewish ?

    Cohen; well, not necessarily.

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  • #
    Mattb

    OT but when will you [Snip]
    [I have snipped your “question” because it is a direct attack against Jo – you owe her an apology -Fly]

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      That’s a disgraceful assertion Matt. Shame.

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    • #

      Mattb,

      surely you’re not suggesting that YOU think this site actually supports this.

      Therein lies the problem with those of you who disagree with what we say here. You put words in our mouths, or text at our Posts, and then suggest that it was our idea in the first place.

      Mattb, if this is your MO, or even what you think, then you are absolutely despicable.

      Lucky I got in early, because Joanne, or Moderators, you need to pull his comment off this site.

      Tony.

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      • #

        That’s the nature of the beast, Tony. They’re happy to exploit any human tragedy in furtherance of their cause and suppressing any opposition. That’s their PR style.

        Pointman

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        • #

          Actually, I saw Matts comment and didn’t snip. The clumsy loaded attempt at baiting was rather revealing. After being here for 1500 peaceful posts, and 240,000 comments where no one invites anyone to murder, perhaps he needs to fantasize reasons to maintain his illusion of his own moral superiority? (I guess that either we are despicable murderous thugs, or he might have to find some evidence to back up his faith.) Is that how it works Matt?

          And it wasn’t off topic at all. Fits with the theme above — it’s never been about science, and never been about the environment either. “Good people” recite their Climate Change lines, and “bad nasty people” doubt it. This is no different from 15th century religion. I suspect Matt is keeping the faith, earning salvation points (aka dinner party “kudos” in sustainable circles).

          Keep fighting those imaginary “deniers” Matt. We’ll keep defending your right to speak and the need for logic and reason in a science debate.

          731

          • #
            Mattb

            Jo I’ve copped it sweet over the years without much grumbling. There have been plenty of cries that people will fight with force if need be, MemoryVault’s thinly veiled and often not at all veiled threats, and others. One of my snipped posts was simply a link to an old example. When you whip the crowd up, is there not a certain responsibility for those who take the messages a bit too literally?

            My original link… well maybe it’s own thread is warranted and people may even want to argue the case that when people are pushed so hard sometimes they snap? It’s a valid discussion point no?

            045

            • #

              Mattb,

              My original link… well maybe it’s own thread is warranted and people may even want to argue the case that when people are pushed so hard sometimes they snap? It’s a valid discussion point no?

              Off you go then. You have your own blog site, so start a Thread there and seek responses there.

              Tony.

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            • #

              Matt, you’ve copped it sweet, and I’ve defended you when skeptics made it too personal. But why on Earth would you think I would condone for one minute the deplorable death of a father of two for doing his job? That was your original link. I gather you posted a quote of another comment to justify yourself — one of my mods took it all out because he could see this thread is not about farmers, nor guns, and you were hijacking a thread.

              …so now I’ve searched and found your other snipped comment. It never had a link. So I searched and found the comment you were quoting. It was a one hit wonder, by a commenter who never commented before or again, on an old thread 18 months after the last comment before it. Probably no one except you has read it. No one reported it (you weren’t concerned enough to report it either). I’ve snipped it.

              This year I began automatically closing off old threads to stop this sort of “gaming”.

              280

              • #
                Mark D.

                I note that there isn’t one gram of apology from Mattb even thought there is universal disgust for what he suggested. 97% of the regulars (or more) disprove his premise yet no apology.

                Low down Mattb, and you didn’t have a lot of altitude to spare.

                I wonder where he hangs out on the web lately, somewhere that lots of disappointed Warmists get themselves all lathered up to justify setting gamely traps and then thread bombing contrary sites? I wonder too, how many places that bogus post was linked to and sent around Believers sites?

                There’s your PR campaign……..

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              • #
                PhilJourdan

                This year I began automatically closing off old threads to stop this sort of “gaming”.

                That is an excellent action. Since i use the “email” option to be notified of comments, you would not believe the spam I get from some necro threads on sites such as Climate Audit and Judith Curry (among others).

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            • #
              john robertson

              Weak characters, with weak minds snap very easily.
              Also the most rigid points of view do naturally shatter.
              Reality.. So unpleasant for the deluded.

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      • #
        Peter C

        Well I got here late, and now I can’t even see what I am supposed to be outraged about.

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    • #
      James Bradley

      Putrid.

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    • #
      Mattb

      you can get all fauxtraged at my connection, but here is an unmoderated post from an old Peter Specer thread:

      [Snip. Keep this up Matt, and you will be permanently moderated -Fly]

      253

      • #
        Safetyguy66

        Bob Brown said “Fellow Earthians,” we stand on the brink of extinction. Indeed, the other beings from other planets were “extincted”.

        http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/bob-browns-alien-theory-is-off-the-planet/story-e6frfhqf-1226312863119

        By your curious law of vicarious position logic, I guess we can assume you wholly support Bob’s position?

        Weak…..

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      • #

        Just go tell your friends that everyone here was all for what the farmer did. You’re going to do it regardless of what the replies say so why bother with the post?

        250

      • #
        Winston

        Matt,

        You have plumbed new depths of stupidity.

        Even if someone warned, at this or any other site, that government policies that ignored the rights of property holders to safely manage their own resource as they saw fit would lead to consequences where disenfranchised owners may act in a rash or unlawful manner, does not in any way constitute being favourable to that course of action, nor does it allow people such as this gentleman to take the law into their own hands and kill or maim a government employee for merely doing their job. Such actions are NEVER justified, are not advocated in any way by anyone here, nor would anyone be other than outraged that such an action has been undertaken with such devastating consequences.

        Mind you, some percentage of the culpability in events such as this can be apportioned to faceless bureaucrats making arbitrary decisions with the flick of a pen which are adversely affecting people’s livelihoods (people not dissimilar from you actually, Matt) when they are remote from the location and have never set foot there, have no idea what the specific logistical requirements of farmland management actually are (since most have never stepped from behind a desk, and would need a road map to find their own @rse), and don’t give a tinker’s cuss about compromising a farmer’s businesses’ viability needlessly merely in order to justify their existence as anything other than useless oxygen thieves looking for a molehill to make mountains out of. The callous indifference of government officials, politicians of all political stripes, the egregious legal profession and its band of Armani-suited parasites, and the bureaucrats whose sole aim is to choke the masses in an ever-tightening regulatory noose out of sheer bloody mindedness was always going to come home to roost somewhere, and a tragedy like the should give one pause to think how such events could be prevented in the future with a bit of consideration on both sides, particularly by those wielding power to do so responsibly.

        No doubt about you, Matt, once you scratch beneath the surface of any comment you make, you just find more surface, and a pretty tarnished surface at that. Must be the effect of liberal doses of sanctimony, mixed with a smattering of smug superiority.

        591

        • #
          The Backslider

          Must be the effect of liberal doses of sanctimony,

          No, that’s leftist greentuard sanctimony.

          50

      • #
        Yonniestone

        Mattb why speculate on the trials outcome at the start? you just exhibited the very mindset warmists have had for years, making assumptions/accusations of anyone that doesn’t agree completely with their ideals, the truth be dammed eh?

        Let’s hope skeptics are on the jury for any chance of evidence based justice and truth to be served.

        [We want no more comments on this sub-thread. It has gotten out of hand -Fly]

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      • #
        James Bradley

        Mattb,

        Your own Green and Global Warming Alarmists are the only people documented as advocating death penalties to those who don’t agree with your views.

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    • #
      Mattb

      I note you snipped the link too now?

      029

      • #
        Peter Miller

        Those who are against the occasional chastisement – a smack or two – for a deliberately vexatious and disruptive child have a lot to answer for.

        This continual and tedious stamping of tiny little feet is ample evidence of this.

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      • #
        the Griss

        [snip]

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      • #
        James Bradley

        See that Mattb,

        That’s real people power, it’s why we don’t really need an 18C to watch over us.

        Reasonable people coming together independently for a common cause do a better job of defending liberty and free speach, and deaLing with the haters who incite violence and extremism, than do governments.

        170

        • #
          Tim

          Congrats Mattb;

          you have effectively achieved your purpose of deflecting this topic into a side road of your choice. Some twenty posts so far have been thus deflected at a rough count. Will that earn you bonus points from your employer?

          Your task is finished here today. You can leave us now to the discussion that you obviously needed to derail.

          There now. You’ve railed me in as well, dammit.

          40

          • #
            Jon

            I am amazed over all the energy and time you spend on just one ideological troll? Just leave them and what they do will be counterproductive.

            00

  • #
    Safetyguy66

    How many people you can get to bleat in unison, is farm more important than the content of the bleating.

    Alarmists themselves admit this freely and happily with their claims of consensus and 97% agreement etc. What exactly it is they are agreeing on has become of little or no importance. Just water down a statement far enough and your bound to get someone to agree.

    Climate alarmism is about sweeping generalisations, confected moral high ground and a fallback argument of “just in case”. I particularly love the ridiculous analogy of home insurance that the new ones to the debate wheel out, until they think it through. I mean as Jo says, stating you wont do something that’s never going to happen is a nonsense in itself. So suggesting you “wouldn’t dream of not insuring your home”, assumes that insurance covers every eventuality. A better analogy would be “would you insure your home against falling elephants?” Its about likelihood and the likelihood of catastrophic climate change affecting western lifestyles in any way (that doesn’t involve an enforced market or tax) is laughably remote. The correct question is “why would you insure against it?” The answer is, if your a sucker.

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    • #
      Gordon of 2902

      A colleague insured his home. Cockatoos savaged his cedar window frames. The insurance policy did not cover attack by wild animals. Tough.

      120

    • #
      the Griss

      ““would you insure your home against falling elephants?” ”

      You might if you lived near a flying circus. ! 🙂

      210

    • #
      Jon

      The real question is, would you insure your home if the premium is 50 times more than the house value?

      10

  • #
    pat

    jo,
    am i missing something? the guardian piece is by Suzanne Goldenberg and Nishad Karim, not Fiona Harvey. maybe i’m not seeing another link. of course, the piece is spun out of all reality, like most stuff the MSM reports.

    meanwhile, more hypocrisy discovered amongst their own. how long before the few devoted CAGW followers left know they’ve been conned?

    4 Aug: Salon.com: Lindsay Abrams: The country’s largest environmental group is profiting from oil drilling
    The Nature Conservancy could have done more to keep an oil company off its land, Naomi Klein argues
    Why did the Nature Conservancy, the world’s largest environmental NGO, permit an oil and gas company to drill a well on land it pledged to protect?
    The disturbing allegation — verified to the New York Times by the green organization — is revealed in Naomi Klein’s forthcoming book on climate change. In 2007, Klein reveals, the Nature Conservancy allowed the company to drill a well on land that had been set aside to protect the critically endangered Attwater’s prairie chicken, and has since been profiting from the operations. It’s a decision that the group’s framing as the regrettable outcome of a tricky dilemma, but which raises questions about its commitment to conservation…
    Klein’s book isn’t out until September, but according to the Times, she uses the Nature Conservancy revelation to raise larger questions about the ways in which corporate influence might be affecting environmental groups’ ability to fight climate change; and the Nature Conservancy is tighter with corporations than most. That can lead to scandal — in the wake of the Gulf Oil Spill, the Washington Post revealed that the organization had accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions over the years from BP — and it can lead to a crisis of faith. The Times ends with a quote from Klein that cuts right to the heart of that: “If the largest environmental organization in the world can’t figure out how to stop pumping oil and gas,” she asks, “how are they going to help the rest of us figure it out?”
    http://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/the_countrys_largest_environmental_group_is_profiting_from_oil_drilling/

    You are right Pat. I’ll fix. Fiona Harvey wrote the other Guardian article I linked too. Thanks. Jo

    80

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Its reasonable to assume that human greed enjoys a similar distribution in the environmentalist community as it does in the general community.

      Despite their constant self delusion, these people are not above us.

      50

  • #
    pat

    naturally it’s a big story on thinkpro(re)gress, & we can look forward to ABC/Fairfax finding space for it.

    this piece gets funnier and funnier, so make sure u read it all:

    4 Aug: ThinkProgress: Ari Phillip: PR Firms: We Don’t Want To Work For Climate-Bashing Clients
    Kert Davies, the founder of Climate Investigations, told ThinkProgress that what the Guardian report didn’t include is that a lot of these companies have internal carbon accounting. Even the world’s largest independently owned PR firm, Edelman, with clients like the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Koch-funded American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC), has an internal carbon policy. Davies said this type of GHG emissions awareness can develop for a number of reasons, not just the notion of being environmentally friendly. For instance one company started keeping track of emissions because they took on IBM as a client and IBM requires contractors to track carbon and report it to them as part of their upstream accounting…
    “What is interesting about this study is that a lot of firms in the PR industry treat themselves like law firms,” said Davies. “They consider themselves above the fray and they sort of absolve themselves from having a role in perpetuating the dialogue. But they do try and exert an influence, so its not fair for them to say or behave as if they are agnostic. They like to pretend they’re just the megaphone, not the voice.”
    Davies said that while some firms responded with wishy-washy answers, nuanced replies that left something to be desired, or overly enthusiastic PR-speak, the study is important because it puts the companies on the record and can help reveal any duplicitous activity. He said he’s seen this type of accountability on climate done for a number of other industries, such as the ***financial sector and business groups, but never for the PR world…
    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/04/3467162/pr-firms-climate-change-clients-deniers/

    ***accountability and the financial sector? there’s an oxymoron if ever i’ve heard one!

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Betting on your business is never a good idea and this is essentially what these few firms are doing. Its no different to them refusing to work with one political party or another close to an election so they can try to back the winner and lock in the Govt. funding. If you get it right, great, if you get it wrong, your the best friend of an opposition with no ability to generate business for you.

      The smart money in business is on all money. If its legal, why not. I bet you at least on of these self deluding, moral high grounders has an account with an alcohol or tobacco company. Are they suggesting nothing they have ever taken money for has done harm? A couple of thousand people a year die on the roads, would they refuse to advertise for Ford?

      Picking winners is for punters staggering around the front bar of the local pub. In business, its just stupidity. Now there is a commodity that’s increasing and many have worked out how to make an income from it, WWF, Greenpeace etc etc.

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  • #
    Neville

    Lomborg gave his testimony to the USA senate a few days ago and once again we can easily understand the fraudulent nature of so called CAGW mitigation. Here is his quote about the impact of Kyoto if every country on the planet had signed up straight away.

    “The Kyoto approach is not working for three reasons. First, cutting CO2 is costly. Second, the approach won’t solve the problem. Even if everyone had implemented Kyoto, temperatures would have dropped by the end of the century by a miniscule 0.004C or 0.007F. Third, green energy is not ready to take over from fossil fuels.”

    Will these fools ever wake up to their idiocy?

    http://judithcurry.com/2014/07/30/lomborgs-senate-testimony/#more-16427

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      So Bjorn is convinced that you can raise or lower the temperature of the planet like a thermostat by just adjusting the CO2 levels? Hes a total tool.

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  • #
    pat

    just how naive is Joanna?

    4 Aug: Salon.com: Joanna Rothkopf: Top P.R. firms will no longer represent climate deniers
    P.R. firms have the power to influence major policy decisions; now, some are taking a stand against bad science
    Still, what happens when P.R. firms have agendas? While rejecting climate deniers is an obvious coup for science, what would happen if the board of a major firm is dominated by representatives of a less noble cause?
    http://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/top_pr_firms_will_no_longer_represent_climate_deniers

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Thanks for that piece of information.

      I have several clients who spend six figure sums on P.R., annually. These companies happen to be skeptical about climate change, because they are realists, and it doesn’t impact their businesses.

      I am sure they can find several smaller P.R. firms that they can place their accounts with, who will simply be salivating over this opportunity.

      I suspect that Joanna Rothkopf is not the sharpest knife in the draw. In fact it would appear that she has totally lost the plot, when it comes to business.

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      • #
        the Griss

        Dangle that 6 figure sum… does anyone really think they will say no !

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        • #
          Robert

          Agreed. This is simply the PR firms doing a little PR for themselves. However if one were to throw enough money their way it wouldn’t take them long to not care who they partner with or what their new partner believes. As long as the checks clear they’ll do what is needed to keep the checks coming.

          00

      • #
        Glen Michel

        And redheads were thought to be smart

        10

    • #
      the Griss

      “top_pr_firms_SAY they will_no_longer_represent_climate_deniers”

      There fixed it for them.

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    • #
      James Bradley

      Two words never associated with PR and Advertising – noble and moral.

      Just conjured up images of Steve Vizards skits of ‘De Shonko and Li’ar’.

      40

    • #
      Bulldust

      What a sad little blog that is.

      10

  • #
    pat

    btw Kert Davies is really just a long-time Greenpace activist, &
    was with OzoneAction; also one often sees mention on WUWT how Ross Gelbspan is instrumental in starting up the “deniers” meme. u can find many links which include Gelbspan & Davies online.

    Jan 2013: IPCC Lead Author is Greenpeace PR Agent?
    Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001)
    Andrew Weaver, a longtime Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Lead Author, who proudly wears his green heart on his sleeve, now appears to be peddling Greenpeace propaganda…
    from comments:
    Then notice in this web archive bio page how the current GP USA executive director and research director – Phil Radford and Kert Davies – worked at Ozone Action.
    Long story very short, Ozone Action, in association with anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan, has every appearance of being the epicenter of the successful smear of skeptic climate scientists. That is to say, the accusation claiming skeptics are paid by the fossil fuel industry to lie about AGW…
    http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/ipcc-lead-author-is-greenpeace-pr-agent/

    MSM loves these characters, of course, tho at least this had some sceptics too:

    2006: ClimateScienceWatch: Rick Plitz: “The Denial Machine”—Canadian TV to air investigative documentary on global warming denialists
    Canada’s premier investigative documentary program, the fifth estate, will first air “The Denial Machine” on CBC-TV on Wednesday, November 15, at 8:00 p.m. The program’s Web site promo says: “Call them sceptics, deniers, or naysayers”…
    Among those interviewed for this program were White House CEQ Chairman James Connaughton, Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, Ross Gelbspan, Kert Davies, and Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz…
    http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2006/10/26/the-denial-machinecanadian-tv-to-air-investigative-documentary-on-global-warming-denialists/

    Who is Kert Davies?
    Kert has been interviewed and quoted by PBS NewsHour, ABC World News, NPR, Democracy Now, CNN, BBC, CBC, Al Jazeera, NBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, the Guardian and numerous other media outlets worldwide. He is the frequent host of the Greenpeace Radio podcast and radio program.
    http://www.exposethebastards.com/who_is_kert_davies

    meanwhile, jo keeps blogging, and makes a bigger impact!

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    The issue of warmists refusing to debate (for obvious reasons) should have triggered an immediate suspicion of honesty from the public, but thanks to the extremely powerful MSM PR machine on side to cover up this glaring flaw in the CAGW lie the insanity continues.

    Lord Monckton highlights this perfectly in the authors note at the start of this article http://o.b5z.net/i/u/10152887/f/A_debate_at_last_Sept_2009_Lord_Monckton.pdf this type of detailed chronicling will be an excellent resource for future scholars when researching groupthink alarmism.

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  • #
    gnome

    Oh No- Bullshit artists refusing to take money to peddle the truth!! This could be one of the signs of the end times predicted in the bible (or something).

    (Maybe they’ll still do it for money, but maybe no-one from the side of science has ever felt the need to offer them money for their “services”.)

    60

  • #
    QuixoteNexus

    Interesting to note your use of the word “Klingon” as I have been using that to describe those who are clinging on to the theory of CAGW. Since they delight in naming us deniers ,I think we need to come up with a suitable name for the alarmists. Lord Monkton tends to call them Thermogeddonites ,I have used Alarmistas ,in conjunction with “ballerinas doing the dying swan” ,Tin hat wearers. Lets come up with the ultimate put down term for the sanctimonious,hand wringing,tree ring hugging,deranged muppets.

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    • #
      the Griss

      I use “alarmista” quite a bit too.

      Also “Climate Bletheren”

      I do rather like “Green Blob” as an amorphous collective description.

      There are just way too many possibilities, to get us realists to have a consensus on one word.

      We just don’t do “consensus” very well, y’see. 😉

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I refer to them as being vapourous. A word that was fashionable in Victorian and Edwardian society. It was applied to members of the “weaker sex” who found the need to faint, or “descend into hysterics”, at any and every unpleasant thought.*

      * Note to moderators, I use the quotation marks to indicate language of the period to which I refer 🙂

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    • #
      Sweet Old Bob

      Clingon. From dingleberry.
      They talk out of their a.. and they can be a pain in the a..
      And there is a need to shower after they appear…

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  • #

    I’m 97% sure that any percentage or statistic provided by a climate activist is dodgy. (I’m also 97% sure that the Guardian will quote it.)

    By the way, why is there a pic of foul air in a Chinese city placed at the head of the article about climate skeptics and PR? And there’s less separation of text and photo+description than is usual even when there is a clear connection.

    One expects juvenile, manipulative trash from the Guardian, but even their main readership of the Perpetually Concerned must know the difference between smog and CO2.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    … why is there a pic of foul air in a Chinese city placed at the head of the article about climate skeptics and PR?

    They do that because PR relies on visual images with subliminal relationships. Since CO2 is invisible, they need to substitute smog to get a visual image that people will remember. When the ozone hole was fashionable. they used images of the solar corona, for the same purpose.

    Mind you, this often backfires. When somebody looks outside and does not see smog, they assume that there is no CO2 in the atmosphere, so it is save to go outside and exhale all they want to.

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    bobl

    I just have to laugh at this, you ask who? to answer a question… A Public Relations firm? What answer do you expect from a company of professional spin doctors? One thing you can guarantee is it won’t be the truth, they gave whatever answer gave them the best leverage with their client base. This survey means notbing, completely vacuous.

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    Peter C

    Looks like the mass of companies run by skeptical CEO’s will only have 70% of the world’s largest PR firms to work with. Shucks.

    Well don’t be so sure. The plans of the Green Blob are already far advanced. For those who have access I suggest reading the article in the current issue of Quadrant (July-August 2014) by Ron Boswell (senator). titled “The Greens Audacious Bid to Control Agriculture” It is just out so still available at News Agencies. It is one of the most chilling things I have read recently.

    He details how the WWF convenes Roundtables to effect Market Transformation. Everyone from a commodities value chain are invited, then coerced to join. Those who resist are afforded special treatment by the activists.

    For example ” in 2008, Greenpeace protesters in orang-utan suits stormed Unilevers headquarters in London and factories in Rotterdam, protesting about the sources of palm oil…….Unilever quickly promised to use only sustainable palm oil and has become one of the companies involved in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.”

    Commerce is very vulnerable to this type of guerrilla tactic, hence they quickly fall into line.

    In this way we lose our sovereignty without even realising it. It is subversive. It is deliberate. And it is effective.

    Hence we are engaged in a massive and long term effort to save our democracies.

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      Rod Stuart

      This manufactured need for “certification” is an age-old con.
      A good example in contemporary society is the little Halal symbol on the label of so many things in the supermarkets.
      The Australian public is unwittingly paying a king’s ransom to the Islamic community with this little con.
      The extortion principles that convince suppliers that payment to include the little symbol on their product provides an economic advantage is the same extortion now being exposed in the current inquiry into union corruption.

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    Neville

    More evidence that extreme events happened in the Portugal region over many thousands of years, but no evidence that todays climate is extreme or unusual at all.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/05/surprising-facts-about-climate-change-in-portugal-why-the-climate-catastrophe-is-not-happening/#more-114096

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    richsrd

    just musing,

    i notice that a lot of alarmist articles include the words , might, may, could etc,

    well just googling and came across this,

    https://medialiteracyproject.org/sites/default/files/resources/Intro_to_Media_Literacy.pdf

    “11. Maybe. Unproven, exaggerated or outrageous claims are commonly preceded by “weasel
    words” such as may, might, can, could, some, many, often, virtually, as many as, or up to. Watch for
    these words if an offer seems too good to be true. Commonly, the Intensity and Maybe techniques
    are used together, making the whole thing meaningless. ”

    looking through the other 37 Basic persuasion techniques i see how the alarmist game is played.

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      Carbon500

      richsrd: A very good point! Some time ago I amused myself by counting the number of times certain words occurred on p783 of the IPCC tome ‘Climate Change 2007 – The Physical Science Basis.’
      The page sought to give answers to the question ‘Are extreme events, like heat waves, droughts or floods, expected to change as the Earth’s climate changes?’
      The word ‘likely’ appears 4 times, and ‘could’ 3 times.
      ‘Pojected’ is an interesting term – it’s IPPC-speak for ‘our computer models show this, but it might not come true, and it’s not actually a prediction that something will occur.’
      The words ‘project’ or ‘projected’ occur 8 times, and there are other vague disclaimers which are also in the text, such as ‘increased chance’,’increase in the likelihood’, ‘suggesting’ or ‘suggest’, along with ‘models also project’ and ‘modelling studies’ – the latter is seen 3 times.
      Not bad for a single page!

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        Carbon500

        Whoops – I meant ‘projected’ in line 6, my apologies!

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        richsrd

        yes weasel words from the IPCC.

        not sure if you took a look at the link but i am guessing they work very hard on the message.

        Denier

        22. Name-calling. This technique links a person or idea to a negative symbol (liar, creep, gossip,
        etc.). It’s the opposite of Glittering generalities. Persuaders use Name-calling to make us reject the
        person or the idea on the basis of the negative symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence. A
        subtler version of this technique is to use adjectives with negative connotations (extreme, passive,
        lazy, pushy, etc.) Ask yourself: Leaving out the name-calling, what are the merits of the idea itself?

        co2 causes warming

        33. Cause vs. Correlation. While understanding true causes and true effects is important,
        persuaders can fool us by intentionally confusing correlation with cause. For example: Babies drink
        milk. Babies cry. Therefore, drinking milk makes babies cry.

        26. Scientific evidence. This is a particular application of the Expert technique. It uses the
        paraphernalia of science (charts, graphs, statistics, lab coats, etc.) to “prove” something. It often
        works because many people trust science and scientists. It’s important to look closely at the
        “evidence,” however, because it can be misleading.

        13. Repetition. Advertisers use repetition in two ways: Within an ad or advocacy message, words,
        sounds or images may be repeated to reinforce the main point. And the message itself (a TV
        commercial, a billboard, a website banner ad) may be displayed many times. Even unpleasant ads
        and political slogans work if they are repeated enough to pound their message into our minds.
        “evidence,” however, because it can be misleading.

        8. Fear. This is the opposite of the Association technique. It uses something disliked or feared by
        the intended audience (like bad breath, failure, high taxes or terrorism) to promote a “solution.” Ads
        use fear to sell us products that claim to prevent or fix the problem. Politicians and advocacy groups
        stoke our fears to get elected or to gain support.

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        • #

          Richard writes something very interesting where he says this: (my bolding)

          26. Scientific evidence. This is a particular application of the Expert technique. It uses the paraphernalia of science (charts, graphs, statistics, lab coats, etc.) to “prove” something. It often works because many people trust science and scientists. It’s important to look closely at the “evidence,” however, because it can be misleading.

          I know this is just my being a little picky here, but not really, because when I ask people about it they were actually unaware.

          Note that whenever graphs and charts are included, look at the scales used for the Y axis (the vertical axis usually at the left)

          Very few people I have quizzed ever look closely at the way the scales on these are actually shown.

          They see the graph and note the ups and the downs, and they look to be quite large swings, especially when the emphasis is on the rises.

          However, look closely at the scale and it is usually measured in tenths of a degree, whether in C or if they want it to look like a larger swing, then in tenths of a degree F.

          Every time I have quizzed someone on it, they only mention those rises which actually do look significant, and yet, as soon as I mention that scale in tenths of a degree, and then to correlate that back to the image itself of the graph, to a person, everyone I have pointed this out to has said that they never really noticed that at all.

          So here, the use of scale itself has been cleverly used to mislead let me say perhaps, 97% of people who see the graph itself, people who only see the graph and just do not relate it back to that Y axis scale.

          I’m not talking scientists here who look at those graphs, but just the average person in the street who sees it.

          Philip Shehan take note.

          Tony.

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            Carbon500

            Spot on Tony, the miserable lack of any dangerous man-made global warming is obvious on all the propaganda that’s pushed out to support the fairy story.
            So many anomalies, so many fractions of a degree – yet CO2 has risen from the pre-industrial 280ppm to the current 400ppm, a 43% rise!

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      Angry

      Absolutely !
      The only words these Disciples of Climatology use are WEASEL WORDS…..

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      handjive

      If I had a potato sack of green thumbs, I would dump it on richsrd’s comment & link for this post @Jonova.

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    CheshireRed

    Notice the current spate of ‘denier’ headlined media articles? There’s loads. Wonder why?

    Because they cannot post articles linking expanding Antarctic sea ice, the slower-than-usual Arctic sea ice melt (which is looking like being the highest extent for 8-10 years) no ‘extreme’ weather, the 8 year-long disappearance of cat 3-5 US hurricanes, the almost total failure of their computer models, the IPCC’s failure to give best estimate of CO2 sensitivity and of course the now hated near 18 year long temperature Pause.

    We would love to debate them, but they refuse to hear our words. Instead they have nothing but their own rhetoric and censorship of contrary views.

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    PhilJourdan

    Actually, working with Klingons is more likely than working with any “deniers”. One is an unrealized possibility. The other is simply a unicorn.

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    A C Osborn

    Jo, another case of a truthful Scientist’s persecution by University with ties to Wind Power.
    See
    http://antigreen.blogspot.co.uk/

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  • #

    Jo, et all –

    From a correspondent:

    “These firms all are building “sustainability” practices and you can’t get very far with prospective clients if they admit that global warming/climate change is a hoax.”

    It’s a reasonable business decision if you assume that their goal is to tap into the hundreds of billions of government money funding the climate change hysteria. While I don’t agree with it, I understand it from a business standpoint.

    Are they wrong from the viewpoint of actual facts, right and wrong? Absolutely. But if my correspondent is correct, this is a reasonable business decision. Cheers –

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      A government who’s primary action is to redistribute wealth is not sustainable. It destroys the ability of those who create the wealth to continue to create it. The reason is that retained wealth pays for having a future to be able to plan and create still more future. The less the retained wealth, the shorter the future. Ultimately, there is no more future.

      The redistribution of wealth also destroys the motivation of those who receive the redistributed wealth to use it wisely. The wealth will be spent with less regard for the what, why, and how of the spending than the original makers. Hence, rather than producing more wealth wealth redistribution destroys wealth. Redistribution stops when there is no more wealth to redistribute because there no more makers of wealth to be sacrificed. Ultimately, there is no more future.

      At its root, this kind of redistribution of wealth is based upon the principle that if you create the wealth, you have no right to it BECAUSE you created it. Further, if you receive the redistributed wealth, you have the right to it BECAUSE you did not create it. Your right to YOUR life is held to be irrelevant. With this kind of thing at the moral base of a society, the society does not long have any kind of future worth having. It will consume itself.

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        ROM

        Lionell Griffith @ 22.1

        It was called “Communism.”

        ie; What is yours is mine
        What is mine is my own.

        The ultimate ending being that saying of the Poles;

        We pretend to work.
        They pretend to pay us.

        And then there was nothing left and communism, the great hope of the far leftists for world domination where they would be king, very publicly disintegrated in just a few weeks before a disbelieving World’s eyes.

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        • #
          Glen Michel

          Exactment monsieur!

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        • #

          It is also called Democracy. Democracy is currently in the process of disintegrating. Weeee the People have decided to vote themselves the wealth of others including those not yet born. It too is unsustainable. Without a fundamental respect for the rights of the individual, there is no society that can long exist. It makes no difference what you call it. It will consume itself.

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      Angry

      Actually these firms would receive more patronage if they stood firm on the TRUTH that global warming is the greatest FRAUD in human history, instead of playing into the hands of the anti human global warming NUTJOBS …..

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      • #
        Jon

        It’s not the greatest FRAUD in history.
        GOD, Jesus, etc etc are much bigger frauds. If you look closely at the CAGW church and their methods you will find many similarities with the Chatolic Church. The last thing they are working on now is climate change and virtue. 🙂

        http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/3/3/299/pdf

        It’s not based on the enlightenment science but the Middle age religion.

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    TinyCO2

    I love this sort of story from the Guardian. It so strongly sounds like the scraping of a very empty barrel of arguments.

    The warmists are obsessed with PR. I wonder if the survey of PR companies was an attempt to find which one is spearheading the very successful sceptic campaigns funded by oil money? When they couldn’t unearth the axis of evil they went with the story above.

    The sceptic secret the PR companies will never pass on to the warmist scientists is ‘tell the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

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    • #
      john robertson

      CAGW is entirely the creation of PR activists.
      Without the skilful propaganda this nonsense would not exist.
      I hold the PR hacks as responsible as the other charlatans who have profited from this orchestrated stampede of the stupid.
      This has been one of the most successful thefts from the many, to enrich the few in history.Will the chosen ones get away with killing the poor brown people of the world?
      Time will tell.

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    Scott

    I’ve never seen a denier commercial, hundreds of green commercials but not one denier. Me thinks it’s just a little bit of PR to try and attract a few more of the billions spent on GW

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      Yonniestone

      How about ‘Global warming, where the bloody hell are ya?’

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Global warming, where the bloody hell are ya?

        And with Al Gore shouting it as loud as he can.

        That would be the next best thing to Climate Honesty, Climate Change Buyer’s Remorse.

        Jo, maybe you can trademark that one too.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          And what an impact it would have, coming as it were from the Godfather of global warming.

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          Roy I was making a parody to an Australian tourism commercial here years ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn0lwGk4u9o the ad created some angst among those who didn’t realize saying ‘bloody hell’ is quite acceptable in Australia, the girl on the beach is Lara Bingle who has since achieved a celebrity status of sorts.

          Maybe a ‘global warming, where the bloody hell are you?’ ad could be done with David Evans on the beach in speedos. 🙂

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    Roy Hogue

    Climate Change TM

    Climate Change is trademarked now? What will they think of next? Oh! I know something they could try thinking about. How about Climate Honesty? Wouldn’t that be a welcome switch?

    Jo, you better run quick and trademark Climate Honesty before someone else does it. But wait! Why would anyone on the climate change bandwagon want to be associated with Climate Honesty? Maybe you have plenty of time after all — close to infinity I reckon.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      I wonder if I can get away with refusing to do business with the Internal Revenue Service because they haven’t signed on to Climate Honesty.

      I suppose not. Besides, Obama needs the money to waste. How else can he keep on supporting the invasion of illegal aliens coming across our southern border from Mexico? How else can he maintain his lavish, if not downright extravagant lifestyle?

      No! I’ll just have to keep on doing business with the IRS.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        And anyway, a lot of DC is still working and needs to be supported. And that’s what makes all the problems so hard to deal with — we’re damned with them and we’re damned without them.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Hey though. Wait another minute. If only ten are refusing to represent those interested in Climate Honesty, that leaves a whole lot of them free to take business from all comers. Surely two or three of the less than top 10 can be the equal of one, maybe even several of the top ten. It might be cheaper too. 🙂

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  • #
    hunter

    “The number that would boycott “deniers” was described as “smaller” — too small to actually put a number on? ”
    “0” is a smaller number.

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    • #

      Roy and Hunter, since they named five companies, I think that is the “smaller” number they didn’t want to say. And one of those was a conglomerate that couldnt speak for it’s 150 subparts.

      Hence only 25% of companies responded and agreed they wouldn’t work for “deniers”.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Regardless of the number who would never provide any service to deniers or how hard it is to get agreement with all their various internal parts, they look pretty childish and silly. What else can you say about such people?

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  • #
    Djaymick

    Maybe a “denial” company from Arizona or Colorado can get a hold of one of these companies. When they get denied, they can sue on the same grounds that the gay community sued in forcing a baker in Arizona and a photographer on Colorado to proved services to a gay marriage, in spite of their religious convictions.

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    • #
      The Backslider

      Maybe a “denial” company from Arizona or Colorado can get a hold of one of these companies.

      Que? You have never been to Boulder, clearly. The company I work for just moved on outta there because of all the “liberals”.

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    Ross

    Slightly OT and I think someone else linked to this yesterday but it needs “more air”. I wish there was a PR company that would do some pro bono work for the skeptics using it.
    This is blatant fraud but Steve Goddard is on to them and like Jo he will not let go !

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/proof-that-us-warming-is-mann-made-part-2/#comments

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  • #
    ROM

    If the Climate Catastrophe industry was far more circumspect, tolerant of critiscm, accepting of alternative ideas and scenarios, prepared to be open to changing their thinking and quite moderate in language, they would never have any need of PR firms at any level.

    What other branch of non-commercial [ so called ] science has to use PR firms to promote their particular view of a very new and raw science that has almost nothing in the way of verified, long term data to support its beliefs.
    Note I said “beliefs”, not “science”.
    There is a very large difference between “belief” which requires no evidence and “science” which is based entirely or should be on verifiable “evidence” and data to build a further step on which science then can then advance another step.
    “Belief” is stationary and fixed and a mental state that can rarely be changed in a totally committed individual as appears to be the case in the most committed of the climate catastrophe believers , ie those who are promoting the use of PR firms in an endeavor to force their beliefs and proposed actions onto the public and society .

    PR is being used by climate “science” and climate” belief” organisations because they do not [ yet ] have the verified underlying base data nor a verifiable wide ranging scientifically based exposition of the drivers of the global climate that can provide a good basic understanding of the structure and incredibly complex interactions of all the innumerable factors and phenomena that affect and drive the global climate.

    So the alternative is to use the smoke and mirrors of a major PR driven publicity campaign to try and deceive the politicals and populace into believing the Climate Catastrophe promoters and secondly to hide the fact that they actually have almost nothing to back up their claims and to give some credence to the quite drastic and generally very damaging actions they are both proposing and trying to implement usually to fit some other nefarious power accumulating anti societal agenda..

    There is an old solicitor’s saying that seems to fit here.

    If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts!.
    If you have the law on your side, pound the law !
    If you have neither on your side, pound the table!

    The climate catastrophists are now pounding the table.

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    Neville

    It looks like Japan has recovered it’s brain power and will again consider nuclear power to help produce their future energy needs. Good for them, I only wish OZ could build at least ONE new, safe nuclear power station and plan for more.
    Feed in tariffs for solar were set far too high and are now being scaled back.

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/29/us-japan-solar-idUKKBN0FY2AZ20140729

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    pat

    every now and then, de-population once again gets an airing:

    5 Aug: NYT: Eduardo Porter: Reducing Carbon By Curbing Population
    When population was growing at its fastest rate in human history in the decades after World War II, the sense that overpopulation was stunting economic development and stoking political instability took hold from New Delhi to the United Nations’ headquarters in New York, sending policy makers on an urgent quest to stop it…
    By 1994, when the U.N. held its last population conference, in Cairo, demographic targets had pretty much been abandoned, replaced by an agenda centered on empowering women, reducing infant mortality and increasing access to reproductive health.
    “Some people still regret that; some applaud it,” said Joel E. Cohen, who heads the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New York. “I’m not sure we need demographic goals but we need forward thinking.”
    Well, concerns about population seem to be creeping back. As the threat of climate change has evolved from a fuzzy faraway concept to one of the central existential threats to humanity, scholars like Professor Cohen have noted that reducing the burning of fossil fuels might be easier if there were fewer of us consuming them.
    “Population wouldn’t be the whole story but it could make a big difference,” Mr. Cohen said.
    An article published in 2010 by researchers from the United States, Germany and Austria concluded that if the world’s population reached only 7.5 billion people by midcentury, rather than more than nine billion, in 2050 we would be spewing five billion to nine billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the air…
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/business/economy/population-curbs-as-a-means-to-cut-carbon-emissions.html?_r=0

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    pat

    Reuters Point Carbon piece already in almost all MSM:

    5 Aug: SMH: Reuters: Beijing to ban coal use to curb pollution: Xinhua
    Beijing will ban coal use in its six main districts by the end of 2020, state media cited the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau as saying, as the Chinese capital steps up efforts to combat air pollution…
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/beijing-to-ban-coal-use-to-curb-pollution-xinhua-20140805-100fv6.html

    ***guess the MSM didn’t like this AP line!

    5 Aug: AP: China to ban all coal use in Beijing by 2020
    Beijing’s Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau posted the plan on its website Monday, saying the city would instead prioritize electricity and natural gas for heating…
    ***Even with the Beijing ban, coal use is expected to soar in China…
    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/china-ban-all-coal-use-beijing-2020

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    pat

    no MSM whatsoever publishing this Point Carbon piece:

    Forestry firms flee New Zealand carbon market
    Aug 4 (Reuters) – More than 700 forestry firms left New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme in fiscal 2013/14, according to government data released on Monday, causing the number of permits handed over to the authorities to comply with the scheme to spike 68 percent…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.6237491

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    pat

    u just know what will pop up in this:

    6 Aug: Bloomberg: Tom Randall: Five Threats More Terrifying Than Ebola Arriving in the U.S.
    1) Electromagnetic Pulses From Outer Space: Yup, it’s a thing…
    2) Climate Change: Just 500 years ago, many humans still thought you could sail a ship too far and fall off the planet. Everything seemed so magnificent and untouchable. Now, it turns out, we can just drive around playing Candy Crush and totally trash the planet without lifting a finger off the touch screen. Once-verdant land is drying up while coastal cities are at risk of getting washed away. Coral reefs? Don’t even get me started…
    ETC ETC
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/five-threats-more-terrifying-than-ebola-arriving-in-the-u-s-.html

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    Safetyguy66

    I wonder which advertising company took this movie on in Australia.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/

    Clearly they would have to be deniers of the highest order lol.

    On the other hand though, after listening to Tim’s hair brained ideas about how to take “direct action” I wouldn’t rule out anything.

    https://www.ipa.org.au/publications/1362/would-you-swap-climate-change-for-acid-rain-

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    • #
      LevelGaze

      Actually, SG66, it’s an OK movie.

      But the conceit is that attempts to cancel global warming by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere overdid it and tipped the world into an ice age. (No, Flannery wasn’t duly credited with that idea, quite unfair really.)
      So it’s worth seeing, just for Tilda Swinton’s character alone.
      Cheers.

      10

      • #
        the Griss

        One of the “Highlander” movies did something like that….

        Shows how old the idea is ! 🙂

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        • #
          LevelGaze

          tG,
          Uh, yes, Highlander II: The Quickening – I’d forgotten that one. In my defense, all the Highlander movies were magnificently forgettable.

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    Ross

    OT but great news from NZ. Our Charities Commission declined Greenpeace their ongoing charity status a year or so ago (ie. they have to start paying tax ).GP took it to Court and lost and so they appealed and have lost again.

    https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/24644875/greenpeace-loses-charitable-status-appeal/

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      the Griss

      Sweeeet. 🙂

      Now may the Aussie government follow suit. !

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      • #
        Peter C

        I second that. Apparently we have 60,000 registered charities in Australia!

        What a relief it would be if 59,500 of the lost their charity status. Not only would government tax revenues increase, but we would be spared an enormous amonut of mail related to fund raising.

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    Dave

    This has probably been noted before but here goes anyway:

    Professor Henrik Møller of the Acoustics Department of Electronic Systems in The Faculty of Engineering and Science has been sacked?

    It was around March this year.

    WHY?

    Seems he wasn’t making enough money for the Aalborg University

    They said:

    The acclaimed researcher in low-frequency noise Professor Henrik Moller lost his position with the official explanation that he had the lowest ‘income generating performance’ amongst his colleagues

    But at a March 2014 WIND Industry Meeting, here is the Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen who sacked Professor Henrik Moller (the day before)?
    Executive Panel
    How to maintain global technology leadership in Denmark?
    1. CTO Henrik Stiesdal, Siemens Wind Power
    2. CTO Frank Nielsen, LM Wind Power
    3. Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen, AaU
    4. Technology Manager Torben Lorentzen, FORCE Technology

    You can’t blame a bloke for the pressure build up when the good Professor Henrik Moller published this paper exposing numerous faults with low frequency noise calculations by Danish Authorities and the Wind Turbine Industry.
    His findings of outdoor and indoor sound pressure levels at selected neighbor positions.

    The indoor data are levels exceeded in the 33% respectively 10‐20% poorest ‐ sound ‐ insulated houses.

    Guess the PR companies won’t be pushing the scientific truth about WIND Turbine noise to the different clients of The Greens, ALP, Guardian, SMH & the ABC.

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      OriginalSteve

      I read the paper….very good. He paid the price for being thorough.

      No doubt the EPA will cop it in the neck eventually…

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    tom0mason

    So CAGW needs all the PR that money can buy.
    Reasonable as when you compare the evidence of your own eyes to what the CAGW industry want you to believe. The sheeple need convincing so it needs, no requires huge amounts of money and PR to ‘get the message out’.
    The greens need the PR companies even more, as their illogical actions are destroying the planet. Ever since the old UN top man Maurice Strong said,

    “If we don’t change, our species will not survive… Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.”

    The green blob has been propagating evermore lies through PR firms.

    The skeptics cause needs no such high profile campaigns. As the old adage says – the truth will out – and no PR can fight that.

    Money and advertizing. You just know what sense it makes.

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    handjive

    How much clearer can it be?
    It is a failure.

    02 Jul 2013: Scientists unveil new and improved El Niño forecasts

    “Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the study, said:

    “Enhancing the preparedness of people in the affected regions by providing more early-warning time is key to avoiding some of the worst effects of El Niño”.

    He says the new algorithm the team is using not only extends the period of its forecasts but also enhances their reliability.”

    Ludescher et al., (2013) Improved El Niño forecasting by cooperativity detection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi/10.1073/pnas.1309353110

    http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/07/scientists-unveil-new-and-improved-el-niño-forecasts/
    ~ ~ ~
    November 18, 2013: Fiercer El Nino weather ahead
    http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/fiercer-el-nino-weather-ahead-20131118-2xrg5.html

    11 June 2014: How El Niño will change the world’s weather in 2014
    With a 90% chance of the global weather phenomenon striking this year, impacts both devastating and beneficial will be felt from India to Peru
    (The Guardian with Graham Readfearn)
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/11/-sp-el-nino-weather-2014

    29 July 2014, BoM:
    Given the current observations and the climate model outlooks, the Bureau’s ENSO Tracker has shifted to El Niño WATCH status.
    This means the chance of El Niño developing in 2014 is approximately 50%, which remains significant at double the normal likelihood of an event.
    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
    . . .
    It is a abject failure.

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      Glen Michel

      Potsdam is a beaut place with the palace of Fred the Great and all that;enlightenment etc. but the Institute is not interested in enquiry no more, bur rent- seeking and the abrogation of science. Shrecklich!

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    Peter C

    Just announced at Watts Up With That:

    BOMBSHELL: Study shows greenhouse gas induced warming dropped for the past 14 years

    Posted on August 5, 2014by Anthony Watts

    Paper finds a decrease of IR radiation from greenhouse gases over past 14 years, contradicts expected increase – cloudiness blamed for difference.

    A paper published in the Journal of Climate finds from 800,000 observations a significant decrease in longwave infrared radiation from increasing greenhouse gases over the 14 year period 1996-2010 in the US Great Plains. CO2 levels increased ~7% over this period and according to AGW theory, downwelling IR should have instead increased over this period.

    That is a big set back for supporters of the Greenhouse Gas Effect Theory!

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      the Griss

      See post #30, Peter 🙂

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        Peter C

        Oh yes. I see you were first.

        All this time I have been looking for evidence of down welling long wave radiation. Apparently it is recorded by a device called AERI. I am not sure what it does or what the measurements are.

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    ROM

    You need to be about 65 years old to recall all of these;

    Where are they today?

    Deliberately buried and for the main proponents of these predicted catastrophes that never appeared, hopefully deeply buried and forgotten for ever as their failure to appear is a total embarrassment and a sad blight upon the science industry. In every case science became a used, abused, aborted hijacked chimera of true science that was used as the public vehicle to promote a radical power hungry elitist agenda amongst the populace .

    Each of these below and there may be a couple missing, were [ supposedly ] an Armageddon level event that was going to spell the end of civilisation as we knew it ;

    Only the “Nuclear Winter”, a nuclear War between east and west came close.

    1950′; The Nuclear Winter

    1970’s; New Ice Age.

    1980’s ; Acid rain

    Late 1980’s; Ozone Hole

    Late 1990’s; Y2K bug

    2000’s; “Global Warming” morphing into “Climate Change” morphing into>

    2010’s ; “Extreme Weather” & Carbon pollution / Fossil fuels

    Each of these alarmists scenarios backed to the hilt by large sections of the science industry, a point that very few have ever realised and which on the basis of the advice from the alarmist science industry has consumed immense amounts of scarce resources and created endless fear in the populace and in the end for what purpose and what ends?

    Yet science has never been called to account for any of these science based total fiascos that have created so much fear and so much angst and has consumed and destroyed so much of our resources both human and in treasure for absolutely no visible or measurable useful or beneficial effects other than to make life a lot harder for those in society’s lower stratas of wealth and health and diminish even more the scarce resources that could have been channelled to the real needs of so much of humanity .

    When we look at that record over the last half century of the science industry, it has collectively, a very serious question placed against it’s role in our society.
    It has so much to answer for in it’s serious and highly deleterious impact on humanity through it’s heavily promoted grossly alarmist credos that it’s alarmist contributions over the last three decades may even outweigh the good that the science industry is so fond of promoting as it’s saviour like role in the lives of all of humanity.

    So what future armageddon scenario will be promoted by the radical psychopaths of the alarmist industry and catastrophe promoting science industry who are often the one and same individuals, in the near and foreseeable future?

    Ebola ?

    Over population.

    New Ice age?

    Energy shortages?

    Food shortages ?

    Your guess?

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      the Griss

      Ebola ? Who knows. Quiet probably some bug will continue to wipe out large numbers of third world population, Be it Ebola, malaria, a strong strain of flu.
      Western medicine will hopefully minimise any issues in the developed world.

      Over population? In some countries, probably (See comment on Ebola). The main issue will be infrastructure to cope with energy, water and food.
      These can be overcome with a sensible planning approach. Good solid base-load electricity, more dams, and not wasting food as fuel would be a good start.

      New Ice age? Who knows. Certainly this would cause food growing issues in some places. A bit more warming would be better for all concerned.

      Energy shortages? Unless they get of this moronic alternative non-energy farce, quite probably

      Food shortages ? If it cools, and they continue to use good growing land and crops as fuel, quite probably. Again, a sensible approach not a wasteful one is needed.

      Your guess? The green agenda taking control and sending the world back to the dark ages.

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      Peter C

      Yet science has never been called to account for any of these science based total fiascos that have created so much fear and so much angst and has consumed and destroyed so much of our resources

      Yes and that is totally wrong. Scientists should be held to account for betraying the ethics of their craft and exaggerating vague fears and sometimes even telling lies. Yet often they have been rewarded, with money, awards, knighthoods and peerages.
      Jail sentences would be more appropriate.

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    pat

    Ross –

    not sure yahoo got it right, tho i find it difficult to work out the real story from what the MSM is reporting so far!

    6 Aug: TVNZ: Greenpeace wins battle to be recognised as a charity
    Greenpeace has won a long-running court battle to become a registered charity.
    The Supreme Court ruled that campaigning organisations like Greenpeace can register as a charity and that charities can engage in political activities.
    The decision overturns a ruling by the Court of Appeal…
    http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/greenpeace-wins-battle-recognised-charity-6048486

    6 Aug: Radio NZ: Greenpeace can register as charity
    The Supreme Court has ruled that groups can register as charities – even if they have political purpose…
    The Court of Appeal ruled that the group’s policies against nuclear and mass destruction weapons were not controversial and shouldn’t discount them from being a charity.
    However, it said their level of political advocacy was above that needed to achieve their aims.
    In a ruling released on Wednesday afternoon, the Supreme Court said political purpose does not discount a group from being a charity, and Greenpeace can now reapply to be one.
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/251519/greenpeace-can-register-as-charity

    the following requires someone with more legal expertise than me to explain what it means:

    6 Aug: Scoop.nz: Judgment: Re Greenpeace of New Zealand Incorporated
    Press Release: NZ Supreme Court (.pdf)
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1408/S00087/judgment-re-greenpeace-of-new-zealand-incorporated.htm

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      Ross

      Pat

      There has been conflicting views of what the ruling meant and I think TVNZ and Radio NZ have picked up on the Greenpeace PR machine comments which is spinning it as a victory for them. Experienced lawyers have made comments on blogs today pointing out it is not a victory. The Court has said Greenpeace can go back to the Department of Internal Affairs for a new ruling but all the judges are indicating Greenpeace should not classed as a charity.

      This is best explanation I have seen :

      “Having read the Supreme Court’s judgement in full (how many of the commentators above have done that?), I thought it was a very good judgement that has given both the Charities Board and the courts below a very clear message that Greenpeace should not be given charitable status.

      What the majority has said is that NZ law does not automatically exclude bodies with a political objective from being a charity (which is what the Court of Appeal had said), rather, the decision-makers have to look further at the objectives and means by which bodies with political objectives seek to achieve their objectives to determine whether they come within the four classes of “charitable purpose” that are encompassed within the existing law (the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or religion, or any other matter beneficial to the community).

      Even though Greenpeace has said it will change its objectives to align them with New Zealand’s current domestic law and international obligations (elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass distraction), the Supreme Court judges have clearly signaled that the fact that Greenpeace’s methods (non-violent direct action) often involve at least trespass, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to claim that their activities are “beneficial to the community”).

      If I was Greenpeace, I would not apply for registration again, since to do so will be inviting the Charities board to make full inquiry into its methods, which is probably something that it wouldn’t want.”

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    pat

    5 Aug: Washington Times: Jennifer Harper: Paging Al Gore: NASA says that global warming could be ‘on hiatus’
    On Tuesday, NASA’s Langley Research Center atmospheric scientist Norman Loeb presented a talk titled “The recent pause in global warming: A temporary blip or something more permanent?”
    The lecture explores how “global warming may be on vacation,” NASA helpfully explains.
    Uh-oh. Paging Al Gore. There’s even a new term for the phenomenon.
    Mr. Loeb’s presentation offered the most recent research related to a slowdown in surface warming referred to as the “global warming hiatus,” the federal agency says. Over the last 15-years, the global mean surface temperature of Earth has increased at a rate that is roughly one-third of that over the past 60 years, NASA notes…
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/5/paging-al-gore-nasa-says-that-global-warming-could/

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    pat

    5 Aug: Times-Picayune: Global warming and chartered flights for U.S. Senators: James Varney
    Somehow, the most galling thing about U.S. Senators moving around on charter flights isn’t so much the cost, although that’s bad enough. It’s all their sanctimonious talk about climate change.
    Neither party came out smelling like a rose when USA Today unveiled a look at how senators spent money on chartered airplanes in 2013. The Democrats spent the most – $638,000 of the $920,000 – but more Republican Senators (14) used chartered flights than Democrats (9)…
    But why should someone like Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., be jetting off so often on charter flights? After all, this is a man who voted “no” on barring the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases and voted “no” on protecting middle-income taxpayers from a national energy tax.
    What a rank hypocrite…
    Remember that the next time some politician hectors someone about their carbon footprint.
    http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/08/global_warming_and_chartered_f.html

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    pat

    bit more detail re Norman Loeb lecture on the “hiatus”:

    NASA Langley Colloquium Committee
    Colloquium: August 5, 2014
    The Recent Pause in Global Warming: A Temporary Blip or Something More Permanent?
    Norman Loeb
    Abstract
    During the past 15 years, the global mean surface temperature of Earth has increased at a rate that is roughly one-third of that over the past 60 years. This slow-down in surface warming has been referred to as the “Global Warming Hiatus”…
    Some view it as evidence that man-made global warming is a myth, while others explain that it is simply due to internal climate variability that is temporarily masking a longer-term temperature trend. This presentation provides a summary and perspective on recent research related to the global warming hiatus…
    Speaker
    Dr. Loeb is an atmospheric scientist in the Science Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center. He is the Principal Investigator of a satellite project called Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), which observes the Earth’s radiation budget from space…
    http://colloqsigma.larc.nasa.gov/past-colloquium-lectures/all-colloquium-lectures/colloquium-august-5-2014/

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      the Griss

      “During the past 15 years, the global mean surface temperature of Earth has increased ….. ”

      NO IT HASN’T !!!

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        Peter C

        Griss,

        Probably you know this. If you use the editing button b-quote, and then paste your quotation,

        NO IT HASN’T !!!

        and then end with the editing button /b-quote, you get the quotation in nice large blue letters.

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    TdeF

    Do the defenders of the holy truth of Global Warming/Climate Change/Extreme Events/Bushfires/Polar bear/Lost Caribou movement really think anyone cares what Public Relations firms think? They were all on Ship B of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the one with telephone sanitisers, hairdressers, and advertising account executives. The day anyone cares what a PR executive cares about science or the fate of the planet is the day that we need to escape before the Vorgons arrive. So now we should all shake that PR executives, the people most famous for charging people to tell them which way the wind is blowing, actually care about things? Their job is to make people care about their clients, nothing more. Perhaps the warmists should hire the world’s biggest PR firm to tell them what to do? They will do anything for the right money, that’s what PR is. Desperate cases cost more though. That’s why the Carbon Tax was so important.

    Still Lord Monckton had it right, the decision to absolutely refuse to debate science was their most effective ploy, partly as it shuts down debate and partly because they do not know any. As another blogger quoted Homer Simpson, “Facts are meaningless. You can prove anything with facts.” Warmists should avoid them. I will not charge for the advice.

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    A C Osborn

    Jo, one in the eye for Leif (constant sun) Svalgaard on the 20th century Solar maximum.
    See
    http://www.thegwpf.org/new-study-modern-solar-maximum-a-rare-or-even-unique-event-in-the-past-3000-years/

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    • #
      Mark D.

      Huh, what do you know, another hockey stick graph.

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    • #
      PhilJourdan

      I would like to see Leif’s response to this one.

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    • #

      …results “provide important constraints for both dynamo models of Sun-like stars…

      If solar heat is due to stable fusion alone then should this mean a rapid recent increase in E=MC^2? Alarming! Oh and past fluctuations.

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    Tim

    To the powers that are attempting to run the fraud, PR companies are their army. The more troops the better the chances of success. With a bottomless budget, all they need now are the maximum number of mercenaries that can be bought. Hence the survey.

    It would appear that those in the PR industry have more integrity than a lot in the scientific and political communities.

    Don’t try and spin a spin doctor-they see right through it.

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    pat

    anthony has two threads up that go perfectly with this thread, jo. our old Yale friend, Leiserowitz, involved with the first! talk about creepy!

    WUWT: The ‘Weepy Bill McKibben Effect’: Study links Emotionalism and Global Warming
    The Role of Emotion in Global Warming Policy Support and Opposition
    Nicholas Smith1,* and Anthony Leiserowitz…
    The paper is open access, read it here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/risa.12140/pdf
    (from the .pdf)ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    We would like to thank Edward Maibach, Connie
    Roser-Renouf, Nick Pidgeon, four anonymous
    reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts, and
    Mary McGrath for double coding the affective imagery.
    We also thank the generous funders who
    made this research possible: the Surdna Foundation,
    the 11th Hour Project, the Pacific Foundation,
    the Grantham Foundation, and the V.K. Rasmussen
    Foundation. The majority of this research
    was conducted while the first author was a postdoctoral
    research associate at the Yale Project on Climate
    Change Communication, Yale University.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/06/the-weepy-bill-mckibben-effect-study-links-emotionalism-and-global-warming/#more-114135

    WUWT: Speaking of emotionalism and global warming – use of ‘Extreme weather’ as an emotional motivator is up nearly 1000 percent
    Network Coverage Of ‘Extreme Weather’ Up Nearly 1,000 Percent
    Sean Long, Media Research Center
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/06/speaking-of-emotionalism-and-global-warming-use-of-extreme-weather-as-an-emotional-motivator-is-up-nearly-1000-percent/#more-114140

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    pat

    Yale’s Anthony Leiserowitz featured in the following piece i saw recently, which naturally features Katharine Hayhoe as well. it reeks of mind manipulation, rather like the study being discussed in anthony’s thread:

    26 July: Kansas City Star: Rabbi brings warnings of climate change to Kansas churches
    By GREGG ZOROYA – USA Today
    (Rabbi) Rieber has his work cut out for him in a state governed by Sam Brownback — who has blasted Obama administration rules on reducing carbon emissions — and home to the conservative-activist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, much of whose fortunes rest on fossil fuels…
    Research scientist Anthony Leiserowitz, as director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, studies the ebb and flow of discourse over environmental changes. He believes the faith-based embrace of the issue is “one of the most exciting things happening in this entire space.”
    It moves the discussion, he says, beyond science and polar bears to “a whole different set of values. Not liberal versus conservative, but now moral and religious. … It can engage people in, I think, a particularly deep and powerful way.”…
    http://www.kansascity.com/living/religion/article784440.html

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    Safetyguy66

    Global warming out of control in Canberra. We better open up a few more coal mines before we slip into an ice age.

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-coldest-stretch-in-43-years-with-fourth-consecutive-morning-below-6-degrees-20140806-100yqp.html

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      the Griss

      Don’t fret, SG66.

      BOM will still have this year marked down as ” The Hottest Ever™

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    Neville

    Another new 2014 SL study finds no difference in the rate of SLR between the 20th century and the 1970 to 2008 period.

    http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2014/may/20may2014a1.html

    The 20th century rate of SLR was 1.9mm per year and the later 1970 to 2008 period was 1.8mm per year. So where is the post 1950 impact from so called CAGW?

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    Neville

    Just thought I’d link to the IEA energy pie chart for Australia in 2011.

    http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/AUSTRALI4.pdf

    This shows that OZ only derived 0.7% of our energy from geothermal+ solar+ wind in 2011.
    Of course the extremists think this is good value for money after wasting all those billions $ down the drain for nix change to the climate for thousands of years.

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    • #
      Andrew Griffiths

      Sensible post Neville,Pourquoi le pouce rouge? I thought all the trolls would still be in bed.

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    Yonniestone

    OT but I think this is fantastic scientific news for a change http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/spacecraft-rosetta-arrives-at-comet-67p-after-decadelong-journey-20140806-100gux.html hopefully this will inspire even more efforts with space exploration in the pursuit of genuine scientific discovery in the spirit of the pioneers of NASA.

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    Neville

    After wasting tens of billions $ on stupid solar and wind energy Germany only produced ( 2011) 2,2% of their energy from geo thermal, solar and wind. And stuffed up their grid as well.
    Lomborg told the USA senate last week Germany will now build 10 more CF plants in the next two years. So if s&w worked why wouldn’t you just keep building more of them? DUH?

    http://www.iea.org/stats/WebGraphs/GERMANY4.pdf

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    pat

    a Point Carbon piece that is being picked up by the MSM today. of course, all the people a month or so under 18 years of age haven’t lived in a world where the temps have gone up according to the CAGW predictions, but who cares about that?

    6 Aug: Scientific American: Reuters: Global Warming Has Become “Normal” Climate for Most People
    (Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Toby Chopra and Raissa Kasolowsky)
    OSLO: Global warming has been going on for so long that most people were not even born the last time the Earth was cooler than average in 1985 in a shift that is altering perceptions of a “normal” climate, scientists said. Decades of climate change bring risks that people will accept higher temperatures, with more heatwaves, downpours and droughts, as normal and complicate government plans to do more to cut emissions of greenhouse gas emissions…
    “Because the last three decades have seen such a significant rise in global and regional temperatures, most people under the age of 30 have not lived in a world without global warming,” Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told Reuters.
    “On human time scales the changes in our climate can seem gradual, so we will increasingly need to remind the public about just how rapid and unprecedented the changes truly are,” Jarraud said…
    ???”People have to get used to continuous change in the climate,” said Thomas Peterson, principal scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and president of the WMO Commission for Climatology.,,
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-has-become-normal-climate-for-most-people/

    a Point Carbon piece that hasn’t & won’t get picked up:

    NZ aluminium giant gets fivefold increase in free carbon permits
    Aug 6 (Reuters) – New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Ltd (NZAS) got additional free carbon permits worth NZ$4.75 million ($4 mln) after a 2013 electricity deal with Meridian Energy, fuelling concern over the effectiveness of New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme (ETS)…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.6254039

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      the Griss

      “Because the last three decades have seen such a significant rise in global and regional temperatures”

      Again.. absolute BS !!!

      RSS shows this is just NOT TRUE
      (Giss and Hadcrut pre-1979 are too mal-adjusted to bother with)

      Apart from one single step rise at the 1998 El Nino period there only been a small slight +ve trend before, cancelled by a small -ve trend after the El Nino..

      The total change in the whole RSS record is about 0.3C UNNOTICEABLE

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        Carbon500

        Griss: well, it’s in ‘Scientific American’, isn’t it? I’m not at all surprised that BS such as this has found its way into print here.

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      tom0mason

      .
      “”People have to get used to continuous change in the climate,” said Thomas Peterson, principal scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and president of the WMO Commission for Climatology”

      Oh right, thanks Thomas Peterson, and IMO you’re not worth 1¢ of what you are paid, just for saying that one comment.

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    Scott Mc

    The entire discussion is academic, Ive never seen a “denier” ad, however Ive seen hundreds, if not thousands of green ones. Seldom do you even hear anything besides the standard play book.

    “Deniers” just dont have the funding or justification to advertise, the warmests need to spend the billions and keep the funding flowing from Govt, from donors, and also to there is the justification to look good….EG Walmart, saying how green they are, installing solar panels on their roofs etc etc etc

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    pat

    MSM not really interested in publishing this. basically, this is it:

    6 Aug: CBS Local: NASA Climate Scientist Explains 15-Year ‘Global Warming Hiatus’
    Norman Loeb delivered a lecture entitled, “The Recent Pause in Global Warming: A Temporary Blip or Something More Permanent?” at the NASA Langley Research Center auditorium on Tuesday. The talk addressed challenges to scientists and increased skepticism among climate change deniers due to the recent “hiatus” of global warming…
    “Opinions vary about the hiatus, as some view it as evidence that man-made global warming is a myth,” NASA said in a press release. “Others explain that it is simply due to climate variability that is temporarily masking a longer-term temperature trend.”
    “The question is what’s driving it?” said Loeb, according to the Virginian-Pilot. But his answer reflected the complexity of climate science and did not rule out either scenario based upon the last 15 years of the “global warming hiatus.”
    Loeb said that changes in solar radiation, water vapor and aerosol particles in the air have likely played a role, but a major factor may be an El Nino-like pattern of climate variability that has historically coincided with a slowing in global warming. Loeb noted that a rise in global temperatures slowed in the 1940s as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation climate pattern was active – a pattern that similarly lasted 20-30 years.
    “For average climate records, 30 years is like one data point,” said Loeb, reiterating that while the Earth is warming more slowly, it is still warming. “It’s really forcing us to look at our models and observations and ask questions.”…
    http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/08/06/nasa-climate-scientist-explains-15-year-global-warming-hiatus/

    6 Aug: Virginian-Pilot: Aaron Applegate: NASA scientist: Despite slowdown, Earth still warming
    He cautioned against drawing conclusions about what 15 years of slower warming means, mainly because it’s a relatively short time period.
    “For average climate records, 30 years is like one data point,” he said, stressing that while the Earth is warming more slowly, it’s still warming…
    http://hamptonroads.com/2014/08/nasa-scientist-despite-slowdown-earth-still-warming

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    pat

    5 Aug: AdelaideAdvertiser: South Australian Government’s planned concession cutback raises alarm as unpaid council rates debt soar
    by David Nankervis
    TENS OF THOUSANDS of residents owe millions of dollars in council rates and debt levels are tipped to rise with the withdrawal of rate concessions for pensioners and low income earners next year.
    A snap shot of local government shows up to one-in-six residents in the state’s largest councils failed to pay their rates in 2013/14, while other councils are ramping up legal action to recover unpaid money…
    Government concessions paid to 170,000 pensioners and low income earners, worth up to $190 a year, will be cut from July 1, raising fears of a debt spike.
    *** Residents and Ratepayers Association president Kevin Kaeding said council rate bills were often a low priority for people struggling to meet soaring energy and water bills…
    http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/south-australian-governments-planned-concession-cutback-raises-alarm-as-unpaid-council-rates-debt-soar/story-fni6uo1m-1227014648160

    what part have renewables played in increasing South Australia’s power bills?

    May 2014: Energy Matters: South Australians Face Another Electricity Price Hike
    Power bills for South Australians have reportedly risen by 160 per cent since 2002 – and more pain may be on the way on July 1…
    According to SA Opposition spokesman for Energy, Martin Hamilton-Smith, South Australian households already face the highest electricity prices in the country, with the average annual bill in SA at $2335.
    South Australia already has very high solar uptake – more than 29% of eligible dwellings in Adelaide have solar panels installed. The news of this latest sting will likely push more households towards generating their own electricity…
    http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4288

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    Mike Spilligan

    May I go somewhat off-topic as this isn’t, directly, a science posting? This really is my favourite climate blog of all as the typical “man in the street” (me?) with science basics in his old head gets plenty of explanation where the science becomes post-grad standard.
    In addition you’ve got lots of super-well-informed commentors who add a tremendous amount of secondary knowledge to any posting.
    In this post I particularly liked your clever put-down of Mattb, though I didn’t see his comment; and nor did I need to.
    It also gave Pointman an opportunity to remind us of his own top-class posting of November 28, 2011.
    I’ll say it, even though there’s no need – keep up the excellent work.

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