Category Archives: Communication

PLEA Network

2 September 2015, The Guardian, The easiest way to respond to a natural disaster? Blame God or global warming. For politicians, it’s convenient to have an incorporeal bogey man for a scapegoat. And the bonus is that global warming doesn’t vote. Katrina was the big bad storm for which we were totally unprepared. It’s like adulthood. You know it’s coming. You think you’re ready but you’re not. You’ve completely underestimated its force and power. Of course we can blame our buddy Brownie and company for how the emergency response was mishandled, but what actually caused the storm, again? It’s uber fashionable to blame global warming in some circles and god in another – but what do scientists have to say? Savvy politicians blame natural disasters like Katrina on global warming, but then deny global warming exists when it becomes too expensive to do anything about it or when they need campaign donations. It’s convenient to have an incorporeal bogey man to blame. And bonus: global warming doesn’t vote. When pressed by concerned constituents to say what they’re actually doing about this growing environmental menace to society, politicians spring into action by assembling task forces (because people work so well in groups). At the speed of evolution, politicians will superficially review the task force’s findings, dispute the findings, shelve the findings and start the process again – but only if pressed. This data dance might take about 10 years to do, which is just in time for the next natural disaster. Read More here

PLEA Network

25 August 2015, The Guardian, Here’s what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers. A new paper finds common errors among the 3% of climate papers that reject the global warming consensus. Those who reject the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warmingoften invoke Galileo as an example of when the scientific minority overturned the majority view. In reality, climate contrarians have almost nothing in common with Galileo, whose conclusions were based on empirical scientific evidence, supported by many scientific contemporaries, and persecuted by the religious-political establishment. Nevertheless, there’s a slim chance that the 2–3% minority is correct and the 97% climate consensus is wrong. To evaluate that possibility, a new paper published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology examines a selection of contrarian climate science research and attempts to replicate their results. The idea is that accurate scientific research should be replicable, and through replication we can also identify any methodological flaws in that research. The study also seeks to answer the question, why do these contrarian papers come to a different conclusion than 97% of the climate science literature? Read More here

PLEA Network

11 August 2015, DeSmog, Australian Psychological Society “Disturbed” By Climate Denialist Group’s “Misleading” Newspaper Advert. Australia’s peak body representing psychologists has attacked a climate science denial group for a prominent advert taken out in a major national newspaper. The Australian Psychological Society (APS) says the advert from a little-known group “misuses psychology-based arguments” to “mislead the public” on the science of climate change. In a stinging letter to The Australian newspaper, which ran the half-page advert, the APS said the authors had shown “cognitive biases” in ignoring a “huge body of scientific evidence” on climate change. The advertisers identified themselves only as “The Climate Study Group” in the page five advert that appeared on 7 August under the title “Psychology and the New Climate Alarm”. DeSmog has found the group members have links to mining, finance, agriculture and free market “think tank” the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). Professor Lyn Littlefield, APS executive director, wrote in the letter: “The Australian Psychological Society was disturbed to see psychology being misused to mislead the public on such an important topic as climate change, and for this to be published in a reputable newspaper.”  Read More here

PLEA Network

5 August 2015, Renew Economy, Unpacking Charles Koch’s misinformation on climate change. The Washington Post recently interviewed billionaire political activist and fossil fuel titan Charles Koch. He and his brother David have been doing a public relations tour in response to repeated criticisms of their political activities, including funding groups that reject climate science and oppose climate policy. Below is a brief examination of Charles Koch’s answers to two questions on climate policy and climate science. It’s clear to me that he would benefit immensely from a meeting with climate researchers. It would also be good for him to sit down with former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) and other conservative leaders who are interested in developing climate policy alternatives to EPA regulations. Koch runs through a litany of debunked and suspect claims about the economic effects of the Clean Power Plan, which was just finalized yesterday. Read More here