For the last five years I’ve felt very isolated in my circle of friends. Global warming was not an easy subject and led to many arguments; it was best avoided. This weekend I was sitting with a group of (unrelated) people I’d known since a child, and the subject of wheat farming and weather forecasts came up and almost without prompting someone else mentioned their dislike of the politicisation at the Met Office, the way the forecasts were always wrong and their suspicion about what we are being told about global warming. And, then the rest of the company agreed with them.
None of these people had any financial interest in the subject, they were all educated in science at leading Universities, but they are not only questioning the assertions of global warming, they were actively sceptical.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. In many other ways this is a very pro-environment group. They e.g. religiously recycle, pick up litter and have a passion for the countryside. The conversation went as easily from where the best place was to put insulation in the home to their disquiet about the science of “global warming”.
This tells me, that the scientifically literate within the whole UK have turned against the global warming propaganda; not quietly as if they were ashamed, but openly discussing their scepticism. They will not be marching on Downing Street, nor occupying the buildings of the British Wind Industry, but they are by far and away the most influential group within UK society: they are the people from whom others will take their cue. In thousands of such conversations up and down the UK, these scientifically literate individuals will be offering their judgement of the “science” of global warming and now that verdict will be severe.
It is now only a matter of time before the global warming scam falls apart. How can it do otherwise? There is no new evidence stoking up the scare on the horizon. So much of the scare was cherry picking short term trends that are clearly zeroing out to nothing over the longer term or patently have other causes, that the “evidence” base for the scare is eroding. In a real sense, it has already fallen, because the dynamics are such that it cannot possibly keep standing.
How long?
I would say that this same group just after climategate would have been largely pro the warmist view. Now roughly the same group is largely anti the warmist view. From the way the news reporting is changing, that swing in attitude is already affecting the media, and I suspect within the year, the media will be similarly largely hostile. Then we have the last to know anything: the politicians. I give them two years at most – indeed the policy focus in Scotland has already changed from CO2 to peak oil. Two more years and a majority are going to be sceptical.
But a warning! Too many politicians in the parliaments and the scientific institutes have built their reputations on the myth of global warming to allow simple facts or voter opinions to sway them. Such Politicians cannot just say everything they once said was wrong. Everything can be against them, but they cannot easily do a U turn. I suspect only their removal from office will change their view on the subject.
The Biased Broadcasting Company
In some senses, the real heart of the global warming scandal has been the BBC. It’s so endemic in the BBC, that I’m not sure any amount of evidence will ever persuade the BBC to admit it was wrong.
ScottishSceptic 
When can a rumor become a rout? When people think they’ve been lied to and ripped off by their leaders. This is not the same as building a faith by years of preaching and gradual conversion. This, instead, is much quicker and more violent a process. If nothing else, the Beeb should keep it’s ear at Speakers’ Corner attuned to swings in sentiment and adjust their spleen accordingly. Forewarned is forearmed, heh?
This tells me, that the scientifically literate within the whole UK have turned against the global warming propaganda
Were they all there then? How many ‘scientifically literate in the whole of the UK’ are there, in your estimation?
As I said, it was group that is generally pro-environment. They are unconnected with the climate and therefore more than likely to be representative of the general view than you or I and if anything would tend to err of the “pro” side.
I can think of no other reason for the scepticism except that because they are scientifically literate they have looked at the evidence and found it wanting.
@ Scots Renewables says:
“Were they all there then? How many ‘scientifically literate in the whole of the UK’ are there, in your estimation?”
Yes, everyone, 62435709. Invitations were not extended to the nobility or aliens. (Many are called but few are chosen.)
You must be Very Upper Class.
Tell that to John Swinney, as reported by the BBC today…
‘Scottish government’s strategy targets green economy’
‘Finance Secretary John Swinney says the economic plan will see an “investment in people”
As many as 600 companies which could produce goods and services for the “green economy” are being targeted as part of a new economic strategy.
The move to a low-carbon economy is the most significant addition to the Scottish government’s strategy.
Economic agency Scottish Enterprise wants companies to tap into the boom in orders for renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-14879896
How is possible for such a smart guy to be SO out of touch with the ever-increasing collapse of the AGW scam? And the fact that the one of the most useless public sector bodies in Scotland (Scottish Enterprise, loathed even by civil servants) is involved, almost guarantees this will all end in tears.
@Paul
“How is possible for such a smart guy to be SO out of touch with the ever-increasing collapse of the AGW scam?”
Because he is smart and knows that no one ever got fired for buying Big Blue (IBM)
He knows that being hoodwinked by the purveyors of “Consensus of the Best Scientific Opinion and Advice at the time” is an unassailable defence!
These guys can’t lose however much we do.
@RoyFOMR
I’ve been considering for a while now that the Scottish government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Anne Glover, should be being asked a few more public questions about the pseudo-science. Without doubt, we’ll get an appeal to authority; but the time has come for these architects of Scotland’s greatest business folly since the 1690’s Darien scheme in Panama need to know that they’re going to be held accountable.
Professor Anne Glover: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Business-Industry/science/OCSA
@Paul
I would really love to agree with you but I can’t.
There can be no accountability when you have donned the armour of invincibility. They have a perfect defence and that’s good enough for any politician worth their salary, pension and expense submissions.
With no disparagement to Prof. Glover, as long as she passes on the Wafers and the Wine from the Cardinals to the Congregation then she remains unstained for the same reasons.
If she doesn’t then someone with less scruples who ‘cares more for our planet’ will be found to stand in her place.
Anyway, after 300+ years is it not time that Scotland beat its previous record?
Ach, I know the whole scam will soon collapse in tandem with the European banking system anyhow, but in the meantime, a bit of ridiculing public exposure would at least provide a wee bit of layman’s justice to a few of the wafer-passers and legistlators.
There must be some smart skeptical Scottish satirists out there that can match this peach I found via Bishop Hill.
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2011/09/01/fa-launches-%E2%80%98let%E2%80%99s-kick-climate-change-denial-out-of-football%E2%80%99-campaign/
PaulH – I have also been thinking this, ever since I heard her in a Radio Scotland interview earlier this year, where she conceded that there were sceptics, but stressed they were very much in the minority. She is an accomplished scientist, and I got the feeling there was a slight weakness in her conviction on AGW. Her fellow committee members are mainly made up by biologists and geographers – I’d say atmospheric physics was not their strong point. So I had an idea that it may be worth contacting her to request an informal meeting, and suggested in an email to BH that he (rather than me, as he has more clout) sent a speculative letter. But I don’t think he did and it was put on the back burner – mainly for lack of time and other developments. But I (and other’s I have spoken to) still think it is a good idea – and would like to see others run with it, even if I don’t have the time to participate.
Mike – I’d like to hear your thoughts on this – was thinking that you should also be involved but didn’t have your email address, and still don’t. Even if the meeting idea come to nothing, it would be good for fellow Scottish sceptics to meet up and sometime preferably over a beer, to discuss the latest developments and potential avenues. As you have just discovered among your friends, there are more than just a few of us.
Roy – you could well be right but I I agree with Paul, Prof Glover has a duty and responsibility to give the Minister’s the best scientific advice. Hence I feel that the committee members should be challenged, at the very least to make them aware of the many uncertainties of the AGW thesis (not to mention the failed models).
Lapogus?
I’m becoming more and more convinced that we need to form an “umbrella” organisation of sceptics and I think this section from the MSP’s code of conduct will explain why:
5.1.5 In addition, members should:
• consider whether a meeting with one group which is making representations on an issue should be balanced by offering another group with different views an opportunity to make representations;
Unfortunately, without any sceptic organisation in Scotland, it is possible for MSPs to claim that the rules only require them to approach groups and not individuals. Also, let’s see this from their point of view: what MSPs and civil servants want is concise, easy to digest information handed to them on a plate and the last thing they want is to have multiple approaches from individuals without a clear focus.
What people like Prof. Glover need is a group with whom they can have a meaningful dialogue – efficient presentation of the information and a single contact point they know can assist them to efficiently answer questions about the “sceptic” opinion.
This however is a huge problem:
1. We do not have the resources to create a “contact” point nor to do the research if and when it is requested information is supplied.
2. Sceptics aren’t a uniform group. I suspect that if we were asked for a coherent view, we are as likely to argue amongst ourselves as against the warmists.
3. Sceptics seem to be sceptical of “organisations”. I think we are sceptics because we are “free thinkers” and not behove to any group identity – which is a major hurdle to overcome if there is to be a “sceptic view” to put to politicians and civil servants.
Email: I suggest: mikesnaturetrick [hat] haseler.net
There’s still one other largely unreported facet to this issue that could help push it further and faster toward total collapse. The most famous of all promoters for AGW, Al Gore, not only talked about science details (which are riddled with faults), but when speaking about the skeptic scientists who strive to be whistleblowers on the IPCC, he said such critics were corrupted by fossil fuel industry funding. Simple question: did the BBC ever check the veracity of that accusation?
Just recently, I showed how a month-old book review in the UK’s “New Scientist” magazine used words from the ‘skeptic scientist accusation effort’ that are the very same as those found in Gore’s 1992 Earth in the Balance book – words from coal industry memos that he later said were discovered by somebody else. Under hard scrutiny, it can be seen that a different phrase from those old memos is used as the central bit of evidence to show the guilt of skeptic scientists, yet none of these memos are ever shown in their full context by any accuser who quotes them. Please see: “The Great Global Warming Ponzi Scheme – how the mainstream media keeps it alive” http://www.redstate.com/russellc/2011/08/17/the-great-global-warming-ponzi-scheme-how-the-mainstream-media-keeps-it-alive/
If your same friends discover that the IPCC science conclusions are wrong, AND that a collective effort was undertaken to suppress criticism by skeptic scientists, then we have a much bigger problem, don’t we?
i’m not clear on how UK politicians get into office, but here in the US, I doubt more than a small fraction of politicians are literate in any field of science (I don’t count “political science” as a science). One of the largest handicaps in science is the early polarization and politicization of field. This is what we see in climatology. It isn’t just climatology where this is pattern is a problem. When it happens in a discipline, it can distort and seriously delay the development of a viable and useful body of theory. It can also seriously handicap what research topics within a discipline are “permitted.”
Ya know how, the stars twinkle at night due to motion of the atmosphere, due to the heat of the earth emitting it’s daily accumulation into the air? That’s called Atmospheric Scintillation.
It’s also called the STARS: TWINKLING over these TWINKS’ HEADS.
Ask one of them if, since the DEFINITION of HEAT on GAS is MOTION of that gas,
if there’s been more heating and infra-red in the atmosphere in earth-emitted spectrum,
why is the OPTICAL ASTRONOMY (they have to have assemblies of motors flex the telescope mirrors precise amounts to offset this ATMOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION: the STARS TWINKLING:
utterly silent? Why haven’t even ONE of them just TROTTED OUT the EVER MORE HEAT-DISTORTED PHOTOS of SECTIONS of the SKY?
Why is the INFRA-RED astronomy field JUST as SILENT? If there WERE more INFRA – RED you WOULDN’T BE ABLE to SILENCE their CONTINUAL CRIES, of “Look! there’s MORE and MORE INFRA-RED POLLUTION limiting HOW MUCH we can SEE!”
Instead,
in the fields IDEAL for DETECTION of the FICTITIOUS HEAT being LIED about being there
THERE is S.T.O.N.E. COLD SILENCE.
Ask one of those climate TWINKS who revoked the LAW that HEAT on GAS means MOTION and STOPPED the STARS from being MORE DISTORTED as we LOOK through the atmosphere with HUGE MAGNIFICATION of the heat distortion occurring.
Why is it the PEOPLE who MAINTAIN the ASSEMBLIES that FLEX telescope mirrors to OFFSET HEAT DISTORTION are U.T.T.E.R.L.Y. S.I.L.E.N.T?
Why? Why not ONE ARTICLE about how they are flexing mirrors more, endangering the mirrors themselves? Not ONE ARTICLE about how their NEED to OFFSET MORE HEAT is REQUIRING R.E.W.O.R.K.I.N.G. of the ASSEMBLY COMPONENTS – motors, plungers, etc.
WHY not ONE LIST of readouts showing X amount of work by the flexing assemblies ONE decade, but Y (more) the FOLLOWING decade?
B.E.C.A.U.S.E. they are S.C.A.M.M.I.N.G.
I am an atmospheric electromagnetic transmission, capture and analysis specialist. I transmit, capture and analyze electromagnetic data through the atmosphere DAILY as my JOB.
NO ONE in the electronic engineering/instrumentation/communication/radar fields believes in any of this; indeed, if there were ANY GREENHOUSE GAS EFFECT AT ALL, it would be REGISTERED by HIGHER INFRA-RED POLLUTION in those FIELDS.
Nice piece SS. 🙂
The politicians will NEVER give it up, the only recourse is to remove them as fast as humanly possible, then encourage and elect public servants who are outside the CO2 mafia.
What can we expect in the coming years?
Rising prices, financial instability & social unrest. Unless you’ve been living in a cave you’ll have noticed the trend already. There is one ray of light, the Maunder minimum was so bad that war in europe went into hibernation, The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) & the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) frame the Maunder minumum like a perfect Hollywood script.
Sunspots, the Market & the Price of Cornflakes:
http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/?p=2518
“The four waves share many similarities; the same price movements, falling real wages, rising returns to capital, growing gaps between rich & poor. Each revolution started silently, developed increasing instability, and ended in extreme crisis that combined social disorder, political upheaval & economic collapse.
These crises happened in the 14th, 17th and late 18th centuries, they were then followed by long periods of comparative equilibrium; the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Victorian era. In all these eras prices fell, wages rose & inequalities diminished. Then another great wave began & the pattern repeated itself, but not in precisely the same way.”
Spörer Minimum : Maunder Minumum : Dalton Minimum.
BBC response: silence.
CNN response: silence.
The silence of the AGW lambs?
@IAmDigitap
If what you are stating is correct and as scientifically unassailable as it sounds, then you may enjoy contributing your technical expertise to the ongoing ‘greenhouse dragon’ debate at THE scientific climate blog that Judith Curry runs.
Keep us updated please!
Paul my patience for arguing with warmers has gone down a dash since I discovered they’re all educated by Wikipedia, but if you’d ever like to hear an entire forum go pin-drop silent, point out what I said above. It’s hilarity.
Over at Ars Technica, I brought it up and you should have seen the monkeys panic. I was so impressed by the fervent, urgent cover by the SCIENCE EDITOR that I simply left the ONE post there for others to come across and go, “hmmm, first time I ever saw a science editor of a TECHNICAL site tell the readership with a Jedi hand wave, “You don’t need to read about that.”
Peace
But how will your idiot friends who have now seen the light make up for the damage they have already done to the reputation of science and the unfair impeding of my career and the career of other intellectuals who were ridiculed for not jumping aboard the global warming bandwagon? If the reformed warmists think I’m in a forgiving mood, they need to think again: I am going to relentlessly, even gleefully remind them for the rest of their careers what gullible, incompetent, and dishonest twits they really are.
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