Sometimes, you get this sensation that everything around you is made of the stuff dreams are made of. Can't be touched, can't be budged, can't be changed. This seems to be the case with global warming. Whatever you do, whatever you say, whatever you try, everything seems to move slowly and ponderously as in a dream; in the wrong direction.



http://www.climatememe.org/2014/01/24/why-global-warming-a-conversation-killer/

Why is Global Warming Such A Conversation Killer?!!

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Joe Brewer in Cultural Tipping Points, Design for Action

The first thing we want to acknowledge is the bravery and generosity of all the people who have already engaged in the conversation and were moved to donate to the campaign. We know how busy life gets and how much generosity and effort it takes to stand behind something.  Thank you.
We would also like to share something strange that happened earlier this week.  We launched a crowdfunding campaign that fell completely flat.  Our friends — wonderful people who care so much about making a difference in the world — responded to the announcement by, with… silence.

We were surprised to discover that people who normally write back to emails didn’t write back.  People who like content on our Facebook walls didn’t engage.  People who support climate action didn’t support the campaign with pledges of support. It was as if we called out from our front porch with a “Y’all come for good food and great conversation!” and no one showed up. Building on the research study we conducted last year, we realized that this campaign got right down to the difficult and provoking conversation that causes most of the world to shut down or walk away. This was fascinating!

We saw a similar pattern in our mailing list.  Lots of people open our emails (typically 35-40%) and many of them click through to the offerings we provide (somewhere around 15-20%).  And yet when we launched ClimateMeme2 there was a tepid 4% rate click-through.

The question we are grappling with now is: Why is global warming such a buzz kill? Climate change clearly is not a trendy topic right now.  The total lack of buzz among our highly engaged passionista community earlier this week was a clear message and wake up call. We are also asking ourselves: Where did we mess up or poorly communicate? We really want to know!  Human-induced climate change is a planetary threat to the entire human tribe.  And yet most members of the human tribe manage to deny it, have a cynical opinion and avoid thinking about it (or acting upon it) in their daily lives.  There is something larger going on, and we want to observe and play with this.
And so we are shifting our focus from the horizon where we planned to conduct another detailed study on the memes that people have in their heads instead of global warming.  Now what we want to dig further into what are the belief systems in place that are blocking the climate change conversation from happening.

We would love to engage in a conversation with you about this.  We welcome your candid and honest feedback in the comments below.

Some inquiries we would like to pose to the group:

1. If you were engaged and clicked through or donated, what about our project engaged your passions?
2. If you weren’t, why not?  What was it about the project that turned you off?
3. Is there some other topic that would have gotten you engaged?  What would you rather see us doing right now?
4. What will it take to transform global warming into a trendy and important topic that people want to talk about? What examples of empowering climate change conversations have you seen or been a part of? What about it gave you power and hope?

We would love your participation and perspective. It’s only fun when people participate. This is important for learning deeper about this topic, and we are excited to explore and learn with you all. We really appreciate your contribution, perspective, spirit and generosity. Let’s work together to create a better future on this Planet.

Joe, Lazlo and Ting

Sigh, indeed.....

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/cold.png

The war against science: launching a full scale attack against scientific knowledge

The war against science started with attacks against single scientists. Now, it seems to be moving to a full scale attack aiming to destroy the basis of scientific knowledge. It is starting in Canada (image from "Obsidian Portal")

By Max Paris, Environment Unit
6 January 2014

(CBC News) – Irreplaceable science research may be lost when Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries across the country are closed down, researchers fear.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada hopes to close seven of its 11 libraries by 2015. Already, stories have emerged about books and reports thrown into dumpsters and the general public being allowed to rummage through bookshelves.
"We actually spent about three days in the Eric Marshall library boxing up materials," explained Kelly Whelan-Enns of Manitoba Wildlands, an environmental public research organization. That library was in the Freshwater Institute, the Fisheries Department's central and Arctic regional headquarters in Winnipeg.

Whelan-Enns described bookshelves in shambles, periodicals strewn across the floor of the library and maps — old and new— left lying around.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada told CBC News that all of its copyrighted material has been digitized and that the rest of its collection will be soon.
"Users will continue to have completely free access to every item in DFO’s collections. All materials for which DFO has copyright will be preserved by the department," Fisheries Minister Gail Shea wrote in a statement to CBC.

But that doesn't calm the nerves of some researchers.

"It's not clear what will be kept and what will be lost," said Jeff Hutchings, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University.

The Fisheries Department had 660,000 documents in 11 libraries spread across the country. The plan was to consolidate its collection in two main facilities in Dartmouth, N.S., and Sidney, B.C. Two other auxiliary facilities in Sydney, N.S.,
and Ottawa would house coast guard documents.

That meant closing archive facilities such as the Eric Marshall library, the library at the St. Andrews Biological Station in New Brunswick and the Maurice Lamontagne Institute's library in Mont-Joli, Que.

A Radio-Canada story in June about the Mont-Joli library showed thousands of volumes of the department's literature in dumpsters.

Fisheries and Oceans said the closings and consolidation would save the $443,000 in 2014-15.

Hutchings said he doesn't know how well the department's plan is going to work.

"We're dealing right now with a department that has lost people, resources, money. It's shutting down facilities. One wonders where they are going to find the resources to digitize this extraordinary amount of material," said Hutchings.
The department website says 30,000 documents are available online and that "outstanding items will be digitized if requested by users."

The website also says only duplicate items will be removed from its collection. 
It does add, though, that "in rare instances, materials which fall outside of the subject disciplines pertinent to the department's mandate" may be removed.
The Fisheries Act went through a major overhaul in 2012. At the time, critics said it was to get rid of environmental elements of the act that hindered the government's plans for resource development and export. [more]

A couple of guys with clear ideas on climate change

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/what-the-world-would-look-like-if-all-the-ice-melted-015759322.html




    Norman 9 days ago
    
     "CO2 , may be a factor in raising the Earth's temperature but I believe only a minor one. Science itself states that at certain altitudes it acts as a coolant mechanism. I believe that the principal reason for the rise is and has been a gradual decrease in our average distance from the Sun brought about by gravitational interactions between Earth and Jupiter. I further believe that this is a long term pattern which will reverse itself in due course and begin to swing in the opposite direction. Venus may play a part in this because it has the ability to slightly increase the distance of Earth from the Sun under certain conditions and co positions of it and Earth. Man's population will decrease from other natural population inhibiters built into the animal species. To wit, food resources. No animal can survive beyond its food resources."


____________________________________________________


And this is Lubos Motl (I wouldn't even remotely consider to link here to the source of this text. To find it you can google ""The reference frame" "Schellnhuber" and "master plan" )




"It may be a good idea for the German - or other - intelligence services to physically deal with Herr Schellnhuber and his thugs before it's too late. I assure you, Mr Schellnhuber, that if you will try to apply just a fraction of this insane megalomania on the territory of the Czech Republic, we will give you the same treatment as we offered to the Herr who was a de facto leader of the Czech lands until 1942."

"This Schellnhuber's lookalike, soulmate, and countrymate was serving in the years 1941-1942. Because it turned out that he was trying to help the set of people who would live in the 1000-year empire in the future, rather than the living generations of the Czech lands, our democratically elected government in London (representing the living generations of the Czech lands, rather than hypothetical future generations of the Third Reich) fired this blonde beast in May 1942 - by fireguns. Goodbye, Mr Heydrich."

The problem with pattern recognition

The news is spreading about the shutting down of "Pattern Recognition in Physics" by the publisher, Copernicus. In the message announcing the demise of the journal, they say that it was closed, among other things, because of " the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis"

That, however, is just a part of the story and most of it had to do with the denialist stance of the editors on the matter of climate. But the problem with this journal was even deeper. What is exactly to be intended as "pattern recognition in physics"? I mean, when you studied physics, did they teach you about "pattern recognition?" If you are doing research in physics, you detect signals, apply theories, build models and things like that. But when do you do "pattern recognition? It is, at best, the "curve fitting" approach to physics which may be a lot of fun, but if it is not based on a good physical model is just normally an exercise in irrelevance.

So, the very concept of a physics journal dedicated to pattern recognition, alone, is very doubtful, to say the least. Then, it is no wonder that a (so-called) physics purely based on pattern recognition in physics results arrives in the denial of the physical basis of climate change. 

To understand what's wrong with pattern recognition as intended in this journal, you  may look at look to this comment. However, you can find an even better comment on pattern recognition in Shakespeare.


Hamlet. Do you see yonder cloud that ’s almost in shape of a camel?

Polonius. By the mass, and ’t is like a camel, indeed.
 
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
 
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
 
Ham. Or like a whale?
 
Pol. Very like a whale.

The unsustainable dullness of common sense

Jo Abbess correactly aims against the dullness of people who continue repeating the same silly memes about renewable energy and climate change. (image above)

Curmudgeons Happen

by Jo Abbess

I was talking with people at my friend’s big birthday bash yesterday. I mentioned I’m writing about Renewable Gas, and this led to a variety of conversations. Here is a kind of summary of one of the threads, involving several people.

Why do people continue to insist that the wind turbine at Reading uses more energy than it generates ?

Would it still be there if it wasn’t producing power? Does David Cameron still have a wind turbine on his roof? No. It wasn’t working, so it was taken down. I would ask – what are their sources of information? What newspapers and websites do they read?

They say that the wind turbine at Reading is just there for show.

Ah. The “Potemkin Village” meme – an idyllic-looking setting, but everything’s faked. The Chinese painting the desert green, etc.

And then there are people that say that the only reason wind farms continue to make money is because they run the turbines inefficiently to get the subsidies.

Ah. The “De-rating Machine” meme. You want to compare and contrast. Look at the amount of money, resources, time and tax breaks being poured into the UK Continental Shelf, and Shale Gas, by the current Government.

Every new technology needs a kick start, a leg up. You need to read some of the reports on wind power as an asset – for example, the Offshore Valuation – showing a Net Present Value. After it’s all deployed, even with the costs of re-powering at the end of turbine life, offshore North Sea wind power will be a genuine asset.

What I don’t understand is, why do people continue to complain that wind turbines spoil the view? Look at the arguments about the Jurassic Coast in Dorset.

I have contacts there who forward me emails about the disputes. The yachtsmen of Poole are in open rebellion because the wind turbines will be set in in their channels ! The tourists will still come though, and that’s what really counts. People in Dorset just appear to love arguing, and you’ve got some people doing good impressions of curmudgeons at the head of the branches of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) and English Heritage.

There are so many people who resist renewable energy, and refuse to accept we need to act on climate change. Why do they need to be so contrarian? I meet them all the time.

People don’t like change, but change happens. The majority of people accept that climate change is significant enough to act on, and the majority of people want renewable energy. It may not seem like that though. It depends on who you talk with. There’s a small number of people who vocalise scepticism and who have a disproportionate effect. I expect you are talking about people who are aged 55 and above?

Example : “Climate Change ? Haw haw haw!” and “Wind turbines? They don’t work!” This is a cohort problem. All the nasty white racists are dying and being buried with respect by black undertakers. All the rabid xenophobes are in nursing homes being cared for in dignity by “foreigners”. Pretty soon Nigel Lawson could suffer from vascular dementia and be unable to appear on television.

Continue reading on Jo Abbess's blog

Problems with communication

It was what Luntz heard from the American people that scared him. They were contentious and argumentative. They didn't listen to each other as they once had. They weren't interested in hearing other points of view. They were divided one against the other, black vs. white, men vs. women, young vs. old, rich vs. poor. "They want to impose their opinions rather than express them," is the way he describes what he saw.


From "The Agony of Frank Luntz" by Molly Ball on "The Atlantic"