Met Office scientists fear distorted climate change claims could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions.
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Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent "apocalyptic predictions" about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. Such statements, however well-intentioned, distort the science and could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions, it says.
In an article published on the
Guardian website, Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, calls on scientists and journalists to stop misleading the public with "claim and counter-claim".
Comment: This is a rather lengthy commentary separate from the article itself. It is intended as such to let the reader read the above article as it is written. Then we are going to attempt to practice a little
perspicacity, seeing if we can really see what is actually being said through another pair of eyes.
This is a great article. It appears on the face of it to be a call for reasonableness in the climate research field, a rebuke of both scientists and the media for promoting alarmism and the hystericization of the public.
Well think again. Let's take another look at the entire article, top to bottom.
Title: 'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public, say experts
Right off the bat we are lead to believe that
experts are calling for some reasonableness in this issue and it must be very important as the public is being
misled.
Summary: Met Office scientists fear distorted climate change claims could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions
We are given a hint about what this article is really about.
The undermining of the agenda to control carbon emissions!
Article: Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
Notice we get the '
Experts' are speaking meme once again and not only are they
experts but from a
top climate research centre.
Was it really a blistering attack? No. It was 'Dr. Vicky Pope, head of climate change
advice at the Met office,' speaking and trying to salvage damage to the 'global warming' and 'carbon emissions control' effort.
The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent "apocalyptic predictions" about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. Such statements, however well-intentioned, distort the science and could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions, it says.
Again, emphasis on the elite nature and authority of who is speaking, '
most prestigious research facilities in the world'! And once again, why they are speaking, which is to shore up the image of the '
carbon emissions control' effort.
In an article published on the Guardian website, Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, calls on scientists and journalists to stop misleading the public with "claim and counter-claim".
She writes: "Having to rein in extraordinary claims that the latest extreme [event] is all due to climate change is at best hugely frustrating and at worse enormously distracting. Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening."
The undertone here is that radicalism on both sides of the 'Global Warming' science issue is not doing anyone a service, but especially it is doing a great disservice to the promoters of global warming and the promoters of the control of carbon emissions. It is nice that Dr. Vicky Pope at least includes her side in the rebuke. But I think the reader can get the flavor of where this article is going even in the subtle backhanded way that it accomplishes it.
She adds: "Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically."
Did you grasp that? Radicalism on both sides undermines the foundation of one side of the equation. It undermines the global warming cause. It undermines the efforts to 'control carbon emissions'.
But that is the pro-Global-Warming alarmist side to begin with!
Nothing alarming here!
The implications are profound if super human drastic efforts are not undertaken immediately!
Dr Peter Stott, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said a common misrepresentation was to take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues. "You just can't do that. You have to look at the long-term trend and then at the natural variability on top." Dramatic predictions of accelerating temperature rise and sea ice decline, based on a few readings, could backfire when natural variability swings the other way and the trends seem to reverse, he says. "It just confuses people."
Duh!
And why has it taken so many years for the Met and the global warming camp to come out with this? It is the very process of 'Dramatic Predictions' in the global warming camp that brought us Kyoto, that created the political wind and mind signal that man made carbon emissions are going to doom the planet.
But that is the point of this article and Vicky Pope's concern, is it not? To preserve the radical predictions of global warming and to preserve the mind signal that is being broadcast to all, that it is man made carbon emissions which will doom us all.
Pope says there is little evidence to support claims that Arctic ice has reached a tipping point and could disappear within a decade or so, as some reports have suggested. Summer ice extent in the Arctic, formed by frozen sea water, has collapsed in recent years, with ice extent in September last year 34% lower than the average since satellite measurements began in 1979.
So why didn't Pope speak up when the 'sea ice is melting tipping point' alarmism was foisted on the public tens of thousands of times in multiple waves in the past 4 years? Search Google
arctic ice "tipping point".
The Tipping Point BroadcastDec 16, 2008
Oct 28, 2008
August 2008
Apr 24, 2008
Dec 12, 2007
Sep 28, 2007
March 2007
May 15, 2006
Sep 16, 2005And is this really just "
as some reports have suggested"? Really? Some reports? What kind of idiots does Pope and the media giant creating this article think the readers are?
Do you feel the signal coming through?
Notice how even though Vicky Pope mentions the sea ice drama, this article then turns around and makes sure the reader knows that sea ice has collapsed in recent years and this past September it was 34% lower than average.
Let's not promote alarmism, but by the way you should be alarmed!
Isn't that a little backhanded? Write an article pronouncing that scientists and media need to stop presenting skewed views and then skew the view in the article that says "play nice".
"The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years," she says.
"It is easy for scientists to grab attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change."
Distorted?
How about "
the record breaking losses"? Does Dr. Vicky Pope mention that the record breaking losses in the past two years were accompanied by record rapid recoveries of sea ice extent? Nope! But she finds it necessary to throw a skewness in to the signal being broadcast to the public. Is this a psychological technique of some kind? Or is it just hypocrisy?
"This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off."
It seems that the problem in the global warming camp is that too many people in the wider audience are switching on, waking up, and that is her problem and a threat to the global warming camp.
The criticism reflects mounting concern at the Met Office that the global warming debate risks being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests. It comes ahead of a key year of political discussions on climate, which climax in December with high-level political negotiations in Copenhagen, when officials will try to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto protocol.
Now the issue of global warming is cast by the media author as the "global warming debate", and the global warming debate is being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests. In literal terms this means the "human caused global warming" due to the "human caused carbon emissions" is a fact that cannot be disputed, that cannot be examined and called into question. That is what the 'Met Office' and Vicky Pope and the media author of this article are saying is at risk. What else is at risk of being hijacked? The science on the threat of global cooling? The science on the threat of climatic catastrophe due to
a quiet sun leading to lower ozone levels, negative ocean oscillators and shifting transporters of water vapor to the poles?
What is it that is at the risk of being hijacked? In literal terms "the risk of being hijacked" refers to one thing only; the risk is to the suggestive signal being broadcast to the global populace of "human caused global warming" being due to the "human caused carbon emissions". That is all that the Met and Vicky Pope are talking about.And this article just shows how those in the positions of power and influence maintain the state of hystericization of the public, in anyway they can, not least through backhanded psychological manipulation.
By the way, where was the voice of Vicky Pope asking for calm and reason in the media and amongst scientists when various global media representatives called for meteorologists to be stripped of their credentials for being critical of "global warming"? Where was Vicky Pope when various global media mouthpieces likened global warming critical analysis to "Holocaust Denial" and called for Nuremberg style trials to bring critics up on charges of crimes against humanity? And where is Vicky Pope's call for reasonableness when James Hansen goes on one of his many tirades calling for petroleum executives to be brought up on charges?
Enforcing the Global Warming Signal Weather Channel Climate Expert Calls for Nazi Style Silencing of Global Warming Skeptics - Strip Them of Their Credentials
Life Is Convenient When You Define 'Truth'
As Predicted: Global Warming Skeptics Linked With Holocaust Denial
CBS 'Global Warming Special' Host Likened Warming Skeptics to Holocaust Deniers
Witch Hunt: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
Search "global warming" "holocaust deniers" 43,800 hits
Search "global warming" "crimes against humanity" 118,000 hitsAs long as the media serves the enforcement of the signal, as long as it serves the agenda that Vicky Pope broadcasts, it is good. At least as long as they can get away with it.
Perhaps the Met Office and Dr. Vicky Pope are just trying to cover their hind ends for the latest faux pas from the global warming promoters at RealClimate. Read the Steig Paper links for more practice with your perspicacity skills.
The Steig PaperThat famous consensus on global warming
Pro-Global Warming Study Receives Worldwide Headlines; Discovery of Error in Study Garners Op-Ed in One Paper
West Antarctica warming data flawed and manipulated
All's Fair in Love, War, and ScienceThis article and the behaviors displayed by its author and the behavior displayed by Dr. Vicky Pope are excellent examples of what Andrew M. Lobaczewski calls
ponerization.
Lobaczewski writes: The psychological features of each such crisis are unique to the culture and the time, but one common denominator that exists at the beginning of all such "bad times" is an exacerbation of society's hysterical condition. The emotionalism dominating in individual, collective, and political life, combined with the subconscious selection and substitution of data in reasoning, lead to individual and national egotism. The mania for taking offense at the drop of a hat provokes constant retaliation, taking advantage of hyperirritability and hypocriticality on the part of others. It is this feature, this hystericization of society, that enables pathological plotters, snake charmers, and other primitive deviants to act as essential factors in the processes of the origination of evil on a macro-social scale.
Here is a final quote from Vicky Pope from her
original article that this article we are examining refers to:
When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we "believe in climate change". Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity's activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.
No bias here? No reinforcing of the "global warming is caused by man" broadcast signal here? No hystericization of society here? No alarmist hysteria here? Is this person, Vicky Pope, really this blind to her own manipulations? Chastising the media and scientists for being dramatic and apocalyptic and then broadcasting the signal that man is the cause, the evidence is overwhelming. Notice how she unequivocally speaks for everyone through the subliminal doublespeak - "
scientists like me" - "
Our concerns". And the tone is emphatic, there can be no other view, the evidence is indisputable. There can be no dissent.
The global warming agenda has certainly created a mass hystericization of society. The question is who created it and why are there so many examples of it in our current day? We have the "the terrorists are out to get us" hystericization. We have the "Iraq has WMDs" hystericization of society. We have the "Iran are terrorists" and the "Palestinians are terrorists" hystericization of society. We have the "Global Warming - CO2" hystericization of society. We have the "Worldwide Depression" hystericization of society. The one thing it does accomplish is to provide cover for the pathologicals to act while the masses are distracted and traumatized.
Whether Vicky Pope knows it or not, she is part of the problem or at the least, a tool of its implementation. The global warming and carbon emissions control issues long long ago abandoned true science and joined the likes of "the terrorists are out to get us" hystericization.
See Related stories:
The Collapse of Climate Policy and the Sustainability of Climate Science
UK Met Office Issues 'Blistering Attack on Scientific Colleagues' For 'Apocalyptic Climate Predictions'
Comment: Take this story with a grain of salt. It is however interesting that NASA did release predictions of a lack of solar activity and it is currently happening.