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Monday, June 12, 2017

Hugs to climate scientists wherever you are

Sou | 9:52 PM Go to the first of 26 comments. Add a comment
Lots of HotWhoppery hugs to all the climate scientists around the world from Antarctica to the Arctic, in Australia and surrounds, Africa, America north and south, Asia, Europe or running a hopeful experiment on Planet B.

First Dog on the Moon sent a reminder that It's Hug a Climate Scientist Day. Just remember: no surprise hugs!


See the full huggy greeting cartoon here at The Guardian.

26 comments:

  1. I'm not at fan of this one. It seems to play right into a stereotype. The comic even presumes that the scientists are vegan, or that to fight climate change we'll all have to become vegan.

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    1. I've added another link to the full cartoon to make it more obvious.

      If vegans offend anyone else, from what I understand of the likely food situation ahead, eventually we or future generations won't eat meat, or eat very little. I expect there'll be substitutes, and some of them might even be indistinguishable taste and texture wise. I think there'll still be some good wine around, albeit different from what's around today, to wash it down with :)

      On the other hand, meat eaters could well become as much social outcasts as smokers are today, within a few years.

      (BTW I still eat meat and fish, but not nearly as much as I used to.)

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    2. The full comic is not any better. "Some examples of giving up science completely and going to live in the forest" - they make it sound like scientists are all just a bunch of tree huggers rather than folks intensely curious about the nature of our cosmos.

      P.S. I have nothing against Vegans, (you do you), but I hope you are wrong about the future of meat.

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    3. How about a hug, Layzej :)

      PS First Dog did say the forest dwellers were outliers.

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    4. BTW, I hear you. I get your point. First Dog isn't everyone's cup of tea.

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    5. Oh I don't know. First Dog does appear to have a good grasp of irony. The candle is tiny ie it is a token gesture, and avoids the manufactured accusations of hypocrisy such as Al Gore's jet travel etc etc.

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  2. First Dog is hilarious for exactly the reasons people are whinging about.
    BTW, Ian the Climate Denialist Potato would not support veganism either, for self-preservation reasons.

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  3. I'm a bit disappointed that no-one here seems in favour of "hug a climate scientist" day. They do terrific work and have to put up with a lot of harassment all year around. 12 June is one day where we can show our appreciation.

    Now that's coming from a person who likes her personal space, who can understand any scientist who might prefer cyber-hugs to being physically squashed by a stranger :)

    Anyway, at least climate scientists and climate hawks on Twitter appreciated a hug :)

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    1. I'm totally in favor of it and expressed hugful thoughts to a few (have to say seeking one out and asking to hug them seems a little weird).

      I hope everyone understands this is all just a warrm-up for Bloomsday, my favoritest holiday, coming up Friday.

      There are lots of first-class meat substitutes already with more on the way, so the bloodthirsty among us won't have to miss out on the taste experience traditionally associated with murdering defenseless animals. ;(

      Anthony: Nor would a certain Brussels sprout. But AIUI a conspiracy is underway even now to toss him onto the political compost heap.

      Sou: First Dog cares not about tea. What he'd like to be is everyone's glass of whiskey.

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  4. Did lack of hugging contribute to Climate Debate Daily's demise?

    We look to you for a report on what happened to it after Dennis Dutton died

    https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/06/another-echo-chamber-bites-dust.html

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    1. I'd nearly entire forgotten that particular waste of pixels, Russell. Thanks for noting its official demise.

      I have to disagree with the editors on one point, though: One mind very definitely got changed, in the firmest possible way. Yet another proof of Planck's dictum.

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  5. A bit off topic, perhaps, but I have to ask somewhere if I am the only one who cannot seem to access realclimate.org for the past day. First I got 500 internal server errors, now I'm getting 504 gateway timeout errors.

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    1. No sooner asked about than problem goes away. Access is fine now.

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  6. I see that after ten years of defaming and smearing scientists, Watts has discovered that doing science is hard, has conceded that he does not have the ability or energy to do quality science journalism and he's throwing in the towel, at least for a while.

    Will he be back? Does anybody care?

    He posts a meagre list of a decade of WUWT 'accomplishments' and pleads for money to enable him to go off on a nice restful holiday away from the stress of constant spin and denial. Cue violins.

    What accomplishments, you ask? When you click the links you discover they're largely the work of others, and/or taken from misleading and dishonest tabloid science reports, as often as not from the ludicrous David Rose, and utterly, utterly insignificant in the overall spectrum of science and science communication. Watts takes credit for the ClimateGate Nothingburger, though all he did was um, have a blog. The Himalayan Glacier IPCC error gets two links, even though somebody else spotted it and, as Realclimate pointed out, the error was not in the 'Physical Science' chapter on the glaciers, which are nontheless in trouble, and fixing it involved deleting two sentences from a report running to several thousand pages. Watts 'exposed' Al Gore and Bill Nye as 'incompetent liars' because he could not reproduce a tabletop experiment to demonstrate the greenhouse effect. The experiment was indeed flawed - does this mean Gore was wrong to describe the greenhouse effect as 'high school physics' Nope.

    Watts also quotes Jim Hansen describing climate negotiations as a 'fraud', neglecting to mention that Hansen's belief is that they are fraudulent in claiming that the measures proposed are sufficient, that is Hansen thinks we need more action on AGW, not less.

    Even when scraping together a list of his 'greatest hits' Watts is incapable of telling the whole truth. Sad.

    While whining about how fatiguing it is to press 'Publish' on yet more Worrell guest drivel, Watt's is oddly silent on progress with his game changing study, announced to great fanfare ('
    Today, a new paper has been released that is the culmination of knowledge gleaned from five years of work by Anthony Watts ') in 2012, a study that demonstrates that the US surface temperature trend shows a 'spurious doubling'. If true, this is big news. Five years later, you might wonder why he is not dedicating his fading energies to completing perhaps the only legitimate scientific contribution to his name.

    There again, you may not.

    But hey, everyone needs a break, so enjoy your crowdfunded vacation, Anthony. In fact, here's an idea: why not get your acolytes to contribute enough to make it permanent?

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    1. Given he's got what he set out to achieve - Trump pulling out of the Paris agreement and taking strides to wreck the environment, I'd have thought Anthony might consider his job done. He still has lots of fans, though, so probably thinks he might as well press on.

      He might have already spent all the money he got from his fans when they subscribed to his society that he never got off the ground. Would that be fraud or incompetence? Not a word about it since he called for board nominations. No board has been announced let alone any journal. I don't know if he paid the money back or if he kept it.

      The fans who donate monthly or weekly (yes there are a number of them), and the advertising revenue (which wouldn't be insignificant if his hit numbers are correct), apparently don't meet his lifestyle needs.

      As you say, Phil, Anthony hasn't written much himself in ages. He acknowledged that he was mostly absent for a year or so recently, and is now wanting another holiday to recover from his break :D /sarc

      Signs are that while quite a few people are happy to give him money, not so many are willing to give him time. He said he's lost more moderators than he's gained, and a lot of his freebie authors have slowed or stopped. It's mostly down to Eric Worrall, who didn't even get a mention. Plus republishing stuff from denier lobby groups, who I can't imagine pay him for doing it. And the occasional press release from Eurekalert from Anthony.

      Blogging is demanding, particularly if you are writing the articles. Anthony's not doing much of that. (It doesn't take much effort to copy and paste and article every now and then, and write a headline with the word "claim" in front of it.) However, managing a bunch of moderators might not be easy either. (That's if he does that. They might manage themselves.)

      Panhandling might be easier than blogging. It might be more lucrative, too. We'll not know in the case of WUWT because he doesn't usually report how much he makes from his donation drives. (I wonder how much of it has to go to the tax office?)

      If he takes Janice Moore up on his or her offer - well, that will be a sight to see.

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  7. Hugs. They need them and they deserve them.

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  8. Hey Sue, someone on your blog roll has been the target of vitriol for expressing her opinion on climate change: https://sophieclewis.com/2017/06/13/shes-not-a-climate-scientist/

    Any antidote your readers could apply to her comment section would probably be welcome.

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    1. Agreed, Layzej. As I said, this is more evidence that there is a correlation between climate science denial and misogyny.

      Sophie Lewis is not one to let this sort of behaviour stop her from speaking up about climate.

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    2. Elderly white males are the majority denier demographic, and negative personality changes are a symptom of declining mental faculties. Plus, having to go to the bathroom six times a night is apt to leave them ill-tempered. So we must try to feel sorry for them, although I don't manage to do that.

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    3. A few of them are younger, practicing to become an elderly white male supremacist and science illiterati.

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    4. Well, there are marginally male people for whom driving a car has always provided a substitute for masculine attributes they lack. Attacks on their dire need to burn fossil fuels threaten their identity: hence the anger.

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    5. Help, this old white guy is being oppressed. Come and see the violence inherent in the system. The self-perpetuating autocracy of crypto enviro-fascist feminists hanging on to outdated green dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society have taken over. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses not some old crones sitting behind keyboards.

      Did you see them repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

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    6. There's a lot of this oppression about you know.

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    7. Wee men are terribly oppressed by women and minorities. It's a wonder we get anything done at all!

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  9. "Sophie Lewis is not one to let this sort of behaviour stop her from speaking up about climate."

    Neither, alas, is Elizabeth Povinelli:

    https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/08/its-naive-little-monster-but-you-may.html

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