Is it possible to combat all misinformation about global warming?

Question

Considering the amount of money Exxon-Mobile dumps into creating the perception of scientific dispute about man-made global warming, such as

JunkScience.com, where peer-reviewed papers are deemed "junk science" and corporate-sponsored studies are deemed "sound science".

The Oregon Petition which was circulated to tens of thousands of people with any degree, along with a "review" of climate science written by a Christian fundamentalist with no climate science background, and signed by 17,000 people based on that "review", most signees having no background in climate science. Yet it is cited as a petition signed by 17,000 climate scientists.

People like Rush Limbaugh who flunked out of college and has no science background whatsoever and yet has a rapt audience who treat his opinions as fact.

All the BS on the internet claiming that soda pop, water vapor, solar variations, volcanoes, etc. are the primary cause.

When people want to believe this misinformation, how do you combat it?

Answer 1

sure its possible to combat the misinformation. You are doing it just with your question. point people who have doubts to such resources as realclimate.org or the gristmill webpage how to talk to a climate skeptic. newscientist.com has an excellent page refuting climate deniers. It is at http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/

keep up the good work
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Answer 2

Its possible yet unlikely to be helpful. i in my opinion locate the entire worldwide warming marketplace to be between the biggest bummers of my lifetime. this is totally almost as though we've all been transported to a junior extreme college crammed with the worst form of classmates and are being compelled to stay with the controversy group working the coach. those human beings have been by no potential cool, the Clinton's, Gore's and their pals have by no potential accomplished something even remotely properly worth stating different than getting right into a severe volume of money. I do my ultimate to concentration on issues i will administration. If that's bothering you, you're no longer on my own. we live in an age the place management would not exist. it may bypass it may no longer, ignoring those human beings of 0 cool seems to artwork for me.

Answer 3

If there is any misinformation it is coming out of your part.

Is the "debate really over", "the science is settled", "there is consensus" propaganda:
In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.

The 20th century is the warmest on record. That is based on temperature reconstruction studies supported by few. Soon and Baliunas (2003) studied over 100 temperature reconstruction studies from all over the world. What do AGW say about Soon and Baliunas? "Soon & Baliunas 2003 cited 144 studies, of which only 14 were global, including Mann. Eleven of the 13 other global studies supported Mann's conclusions in whole or in part. Of the 138 non-global studies cited by Soon & Baliunas, 112 supported Mann's conclusions in whole or in part. This hardly constitutes a refutation."

This is their conclusion and you tell me why it is not a refutation.
"Climate proxy research provides an aggregate, broad
perspective on questions regarding the reality of Little
Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century
surface thermometer global warming. The picture
emerges from many localities that both the Little Ice
Age and Medieval Warm epoch are widespread and
near-synchronous phenomena, as conceived by Bryson
et al. (1963), Lamb (1965) and numerous researchers
since. Overall, the 20th century does not contain the
warmest anomaly of the past millennium in most of the
proxy records, which have been sampled world-wide.
Past researchers implied that unusual 20th century
warming means a global human impact. However, the
proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually
warm or extreme."

I can go on and on. But who is misleading who?

Answer 4

The relevant question isn't whether global warming is occurring, the question is how much of an impact does human behavior have on global warming. People with a financial interest in maintaining the status quo are really good at distracting our attention. These few people profit greatly by promoting unrestrained consumption. Often they redefine terms, restate questions and instill fear through false choices to enlist the support of people against their own interests.

Through the fog of distraction keep the following in mind; there is no way we can be doing anything but harm to our environment when we spew poison into our air, foul our water supply and bury mountains of non-biodegradable garbage in our earth. We don't have to halt our economy to turn things around. All we have to do is take a stand against greed that has no concern for the future generations that will follow us.

Answer 5

You can't. The more you holler and hit back and call names and throw people out who disagree,, the firmer the opposition. But if you were to say, take the blinders off, welcome debate, welcome facts even from those groups you love to hate, perhaps the Truth might sneak out. And be acted upon in good accord.

But I remain unconvinced over such things as nobody yet has shown me that the computer programs used to Prove GW will take the known data starting at perhaps 500 AD and correctly predict the MWP and the LIA.

How can you tell me a "Consensus" of politicians, movie makers, International dignitaries, and assorted scientists are absolutely right in everything they say, especially when developing countries do not have to comply? And the US is targeted? And everybody else is a priori wrong?

I also noted the slams at a specific religion, Christianity, and a specific political movement, Conservatives. Apparently rightness and wrongness depends on religion or lack of same, and political leanings. Not truth in science. And to go against the "Consensus" is Herisy. My goodness, sounds like a new Religion! Do we have a Traveling Evangelist for it yet??

Hmmm...Galileo went against the "consensus" and look what it got him!

Since ALL we have are projections, smoothed curves, not actuals, and we are somewhere near the beginning of the natural cycle of Global Warming historically with higher peaks historically to come, should we jump on an unknown bandwagon and risk bringing on Global Cooling right into the next Ice Age? Which one of the GW converts can prove that it absolutely cannot happen w/o any shadow of doubt??

What did they do to the Climate in the 1950 and onward? How do we know something similar will not happen as the result of this new experiment on the whole world?

A consensus CAN be wrong. Where is the escape hatch if this one is?

And we ARE checking to make sure an errant asteroid is not going to hit in the middle of the UN building and throw the "Consensus" calculations off, right??? Such things do happen! Better be on top of EVERYTHING when you mess around with Mother Nature!!

Answer 6

At this point in time, it's no longer really a concern. The efforts of Exxon/Mobile (and other parties) have failed--as was inevitable. In the loong run scientific facts always trump propaganda.

As for those who still "doubt" global warming--we'll always have those. They are the same people who insist that there's an alien spacecraft in Area 51, that 9/11 was a hoax, etc.

In short, anyone who still insists that global warming is a "myth" or a "conspiracy" needs psychiatric help. Rational arguement is pointless in such cases.

Answer 7

Relax, Dana, No-one is against you. I actually find it quite fun arguing with you and all the Global Warming activists. Please don't take it personally. Your a good kid.

Now scientific research needs funding. As any researcher knows, he struggles trying to get the funding for his research. So it is natural to ask, well, what industry can I get to sponser my research and then convince that sponser that it is in his interest.

Now certain climatologists have got government funding to do their research. The US government alone (through its various departments) has contributed a total of $60 billion dollars dollars in research grants. This amount of money could feed all the starving people of africa, convert large deserts into paradise, or fund research on finally developing and harnessing solar energy. It's a lot of money! But it went into global warming research because scientists have been proving a major catastrophy that could endanger not only the US, but the entire planet and human existence itself!

So what happens to researchers who don't play ball? Well they need to look else where. But the fact is, Exxon was funding research but they won't no more. They consider it now bad PR to fund anti-global warming research.

No Christian fundamentalist groups will ever fund anti-Global warming research. They may fund right wing politicians who would speak out against global warming. But for all their money, they are far too antagonistic towards scientists to ever give them money and the more fundamentalist of the lot actually side with the disaster foretellers (better for evangelical sales strategy)

So research grant money now comes through the Department of Energy or Space research grants. It is nowhere the amount that at alarmist gets. So it can't be wasted on PR so you can't get certain on the news and popular press.

The major popular science publications work in much the same way the magazine publishers work, usually through a press office and news wires and fancy dinners and networking parties. This all needs a budget. When you have plenty of money, these worries don't exist. Any connection to global warming has easy funding with money to go to press and politicians jumping on the cause. This is how it is at a certain level that most people don't ever see.

(As an example, let's say a police officer pushes you when he gives you a ticket. Now if you want to make it an issue, get the press. The press gets interested if you make it a race issue. Or if you say that police are pushing people on the street to take away our right to walk. Then you make it a bigger issue by having some politician make it his campaign cause. Then there is more press. Get special interest groups involved like the Clean Sidewalk Society and any other group you can connect to it and you've made the issue even bigger. Then you make a movie about it. Then a best selling book.)

I could care less about Rush Limbaugh. But I'm not going to make a decision on what I think about global warming simply as a reaction to Rush Limbaugh or any other politically motivated speaker.

Dana, I'm afraid I don't see this issue as that black and white. I believe it may be because I'm much older than you and perhaps many people discssing this issue, and I have grown far too cynical about the world from my years of personal experiences.

Hope you feel better and keep up with what you are doing. Don't feel frustrated by debate. Use these debates as an opportunity to make clearer your own understanding of the science your trying so hard to propogate.

Answer 8

Combat it with what? More misinformation?

There is but one fact concerning man-made global warming: nothing has been proven.

There is but one consensus concerning global climate: Past ice ages and warming periods show natural, cyclic variations.

AGW "science" is essentially at the same place dotcoms were in the late 90's: over-hyped, overstaffed, over-funded producers of vaporware. It sounded great to the very gullible, and hey, those computer-whiz kids must know what they're talking about more than anyone!

Arrogant science is never good science, but it's even worse when you have no skins on the wall as is true of most climatologists (ie, what in the heck have you done to be arrogant about?)

And belladonna: good video. I appreciate people that have their ideas and just act on them, instead of trying to convince everyone how great their idea is. Nothing speaks as loudly or is as rewarding as success. If your actions are worthwhile, then they will serve as a beacon.

Instead of the AGW crowd trying to convince everybody else how "right" they are, they should just do what they want everyone else to do. If it works, then it will make combating "misinformation" pretty darn easy.

Answer 9

First, which is the misinformation? That claiming global warming is caused more by nature than by man, that claiming global warming is cause more by man than by nature, that claiming global warming does not exist? How do you know? If you personally don't understand the science behind all of this, how can you make the correct choice of which to believe? Do you have the scientific background to decide which view is correct?

Second, just because Limbaugh dropped out of college doesn't mean he doesn't have a voice on the issue. Einstein dropped out of high school. Bill Gates dropped out of college.

Answer 10

You cite all the examples of non-climatologists listed as skeptics, but what about all the non-climatologists listed as experts by the AGW promoters?

The truth is there isn't as many climatologists ON THE EARTH as either side claims. So misinformation is on both sides. You can only combat it if you teach people to use their own brain rather than just accept things.

For example:

1) I tell you to use CFL light bulbs because they save energy. Sounds like a good idea, so I do.

2) Then I hear the story about the woman with the mercury spill due to the light bulb. I find out the bulbs do contain mercury while my incandescents don't.

3) I find out that coal contains far more mercury (for the energy required to run the lightbulb) than is contained in the CFL.

I'm pretty sure now that the CFL is better, but I'm sure this type of real point, counterpoint can occur for most subjects.

Here's another.

1) Let's expand nuclear energy... no CO2 emissions required and tons of energy.

2) Someone goes what about nuclear waste? It's a good point, radiation can kill when not controlled properly.

3) But coal contains radioactive particles. Oil too. And burning them puts them into our air. Nuclear waste in this country has been well controlled and if we could reprocess it we would be able to reduce the amount of waste drastically.

If you belive AGW is the biggest threat, why are so many against nuclear power as well? Last time I checked, very few people will die from a nuclear disaster like Chernoybl (which won't happen in the US, we don't design our reactors that way) compared to the claims of the numbers that will die from climate change.

Either their claims are wrong (considering the number of people who will die) OR they aren't really concerned with AGW, they just want to push public policy.

I understand alot of environmentalists are for expanded nuclear power, but most just scream wind and solar all day long and annoy the piss out of me.

Answer 11

I hear ya!!!! Recently I saw a program on Global Warming Debunkers & was astonished at the lengths to which these nay-sayers will go! Two of the supposedly top scientists who claim global warming is a myth are the same two who were highered by the Cigarette Co.'s back in the 80's/90's to state on record that cigarette's don't cause cancer! Now these two are beening touted as specialists in Climate Change just because they've had passed courses in Climatology, suggesting they have PHD's in this field! The kicker is that both are being paid by gas & oil companies to refute the other 2500 world scientists who continue to do work on Climate Change! It sucks big time! I quess the only way to get the truth out is to expose these so called Scientists who represent the gas & oil companies. And make these findings of exposure loud & clear to the public!!!!