In Hot Topic, I relegated discussion of climate cranks and their arguments to an appendix. In that section I look at the roots of denial, the influence of politics on scientific debate (or not-so-scientific debate, in most cases), and tried to highlight the irrelevance of sceptical views to our predicament today. UC San Diego historian of science Naomi Oreskes – already well known in climate circles for her paper testing the reality of consensus amongst climate scientists – gave a lecture titled The American Denial of Global Warming back in December last year, and it is well worth 58 minutes of anyone’s time. The first half deals with the history of climate science, and just how much agreement existed by the ’60s. In the second half she looks at how the George C Marshall institute developed the tactics of denial to defend Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative, and then applied it to tobacco, the ozone hole, and, eventually, climate science. The roots of all the sceptic tropes used by our tame NZ CSC are laid out for all to see. Highly recommended.
Hat tip: dbeck in comments at RealClimate, John Mashey and Tim Lambert at Deltoid.
Related posts:
- Fight test
- Never mind the bollocks…
- Merchants of doubt: Oreskes on the history of climate denial
- Another Friday roundup
- Telling porkies to Parliament
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Hot Topic, the first popular science book to examine global warming from a New Zealand perspective, was 
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Well done on your study on the Monckton-Schulte nonsense John, very comprehensive.
Desmogblog – PDF
Yep – I’m with the other Andrew on that one. Having just spent a big chunk of the weekend going through it. I skirted around bits of the story as it unfolded last year but never really put it all together. It is clear that you, John, saw something fishy about the whole affair from the very start (judging by your comments on the various blogs) and I think the motivation of keeping a record of events is very worthwhile.
On a lesser note I have been thinking we should keep track of NZCSC’s comments over a few things recently (like Arctic sea ice extent).
Andrews:
Thanks for the kind words.
You might well consider doing a shadow site that debunks things over there. In particular, it is often very instructive to track people over time:
a) Most of the arguments change, except:
b) No regulation.
Sometimes, someone may actually sound plausible the first time you encounter them, but tracking them over time…
I wonder if I might not squeeze a little wiki into this site somewhere. For the purposes of keeping tabs on NZCSC/ICSC activities.
I’ve just been digging around at Parliament, and found the submissions made by NZ CSC members to committee considering the ETS bill. It’s all good stuff. Plenty of wild assertions: viz Vince Gray “There has been no significant temperature change in New Zealand for at least fifty years. All measurements of global temperature agree that there has been a fall in temperature since 1998, and that last month was the coldest for many years. Global warming is not happening. Arctic Ice is growing, New Zealand glaciers are advancing.”
Not much of that is true. What does that make Vincent? And is it legal to lie to a Parliamentary committee? Contempt of Parliament, perhaps?
He certainly has credentials, though if you’re presenting dodgy information it counts for squat…but who’s to know?
A little wiki sounds like a good plan (as does a little whi’ky – I might just execute that).
Gareth, with your previous form (in debating with the NZCSC) I am sure you have a lot of info that the rest of us would be very interested in.
I’m not quite sure how a wiki would operate but I would try to help.
Andrew
PS. Nice presentation (World Peace) the aging of the arctic sea ice tells a very compelling story. Which is the perfect answer to CSC claims…..do you think you are on a winner with Mr Stoat?
I’ll have to think about the wiki – I can do that on my own site, but I’ll have to see what HT’s publishers think.
As for my bet with William the “Stoat”; I still think the odds are about 50/50. The loss of multi-year ice despite a colder than recent average winter argues in favour of my winning, but a continuing La Nina might slow down the spring melt – and the new 1 year ice was more than last year (though still well below the average). I shall be watching Cryosphere Today with interest – it’s showing quite a sharp dip at the moment…
so much for ken rings prediction that there would be a cold snap in the first week in april marking the start of winter, how wrong can he get….quiet frankly the man is a crack-pot and has lost the plot…..wonder how much he makes on his books as he is scamming the new zealand public outta money….on a different note has anybody seen the satellite images taken of the poles, there doesn’t seem to be much of the so called dramatic changes as they say that has taken place, perhaps the earth has gone thru these climate changes in the past and we are going through the same changes that occurs over the centuries.????
Hi Torn
Better read this
http://whatthecrap.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/the-ban-of-ddt-science-that-wasnt/
“Thunderstorms, tornado hammer South Island
11:43AM Wednesday April 02, 2008
Severe thunderstorms lashed the South Island last night bringing lightening, hail and heavy rain to the West Coast and parts of Canterbury.
Metservice forecaster Bob Lake said there have been media reports of a tornado in Westport and although he could not verify the reports, Mr Lake said the conditions would have been conducive to tornadoes.
He said by the time the bad weather got to the North Island it had died down and it is now sitting just north of Auckland..” etc
This was not a cold snap? Then what is..!
And as for my books, you don’t have to buy them. As long as farmers do, and they do, I’m happy writing them.
cheers!
Ken
Anyone interested in how good Ken’s forecasts really are * might like to refer to my Ringworld investigation of his 2006 predictions.
* They aren’t.
Ken,
just for the record: Do you think (as you wrote in your submission to Parliament) that CO2 is too heavy (molecular mass 44) to make it above a “haze layer of a few hundred feet”. (Because “air” has a molecular mass of 29). ?
That submission of yours contained some other points that it might be interesting to go over some time as well. Like your ideas about ozone. They used to be also posted on your website but have now gone. Have you changed your mind?
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