A denier on WUWT called Eric Worrall, who finally got turfed from Watching the Deniers, a very tolerant website, is horrified. This is the same Eric Worrall who persistently expressed his opinion that climate science is like eugenics in the 1930s.
Eric is horrified (archived here) that someone would write:
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
The person who wrote the above is Dr Rod Lamberts, deputy director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science (CPAS) at the ANU, a founding partner of the Ångstrom Group, and a former national president of the Australian Science Communicators. It was part of an article he wrote for The Conversation.
In that same article, Rod Lamberts also wrote:
At best, presenting people with facts to counter their beliefs makes them ignore you; at worst, it drives them further away. How much more evidence do you need than the singular failure of scientific facts to convince deniers that humans are buggering up the climate?
What delighted Eric Worrall was that Rod Lamberts criticised Tim Flannery. Rod wrote:
A colleague of mine recently received an invitation to a Climate Council event. The invitation featured this Tim Flannery quote: “An opinion is useless, what we need are more facts."
My first thought was that my colleague was taking the piss. Tim Flannery is an experienced science communicator, but that phrase made my jaw drop. It was apparently meant in earnest, but it’s wildly off the mark.
The quote is ludicrously, appallingly, almost dangerously naïve. It epitomises the reasons we are still “debating” climate science and being overwhelmed by climate skeptics/deniers/contrarians in the public space.
The Conversation article offers some food for thought into how to communicate the dangers we are hurtling toward with such nonchalance. These same dangers that the Eric Worrall's and Anthony Watts of the world want us to hurtle towards faster and faster.
Rod Lambert is in no way suggesting that facts are not important or that we don't need more of them. He argues:
Ultimately, we can only say “that’s not cricket” for so long. Eventually we have to stop tutting and accept that others aren’t even trying to play cricket – they’re boxing. We can decry climate deniers for their unfair, lowbrow tactics, but their tactics are getting them exactly what they want. Ours are not.
The continuing focus on gathering and presenting more and more scientific data to reinforce a position the vast majority already holds is not leading to the changes we need. Yes, scientists should keep monitoring, researching and reporting on the climate. But assuming that we want people to act according to the science, the focus must now be on influencing positive action.
The question is - will more "facts" make a difference. We've got facts coming out our ears. Here in Australia we've just had another "hottest year on record" and yet we elect a Prime Minister who has said the science behind climate change is "crap". Tony Abbott's first attacks against our nation when entering office were to dismantle as much as he could of any offices that monitor climate and and mitigate climate change and shift to a new clean energy economy. He's appointed climate science deniers not just to any important posts, but to positions of responsibility in relation to climate change.
So how to get the message out there? How to persuade voters that putting people like Tony Abbott into arguably the most powerful position in the country is risky at best if not downright harmful.
My thinking is we need both. The Climate Council has influence. It gets airplay. When it broadcasts the fact that a hotter Australia is a more dangerous place to live, some people hear it - but is it enough?
As Rod Lambert says:
The biggest impediment to climate action these days is not because of the human frailties that science is hell-bent on resisting – those alleged failings of opinion, belief and emotion. Ironically, it’s exactly because we are still trying to suppress them that we are now stalled.
The Lie about Tim Flannery
Eric finishes up his WUWT article by resurrecting an old denier myth. He claims that Tim Flannery once said it would never rain again. He didn't. It's little wonder that Eric Worrall and Anthony Watts don't link to anything supporting this wrong claim. The closest they got was an article by Andrew Bolt repeating the lie with a teeny tiny cherry pick from a longer segment on youtube - see the transcript here. He said in the interview with Lateline back in 2007, referring to the Big Drought:
So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that's a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we're going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.
And we did have serious problems. Particularly for irrigation. That drought that Tim Flannery was referring to in 2007 didn't break until 2010! The major dams that got perilously close to empty finally started to fill up again. Only to be followed by those record-breaking floods that were so bad that they caused a dip in global sea levels.
Why are there still climate science deniers in Australia?
What is the bigger wonder than the Big Drought and the Big Flood and the Big Fires is that there are any climate science deniers left in Australia. We are used to extremes of weather, but the extremes we've been seeing go beyond what we're used to.
I'm thinking that we need both facts and opinion.
We need the facts, like those reported by the Climate Council and RealClimate.org and ClimateProgress and SkepticalScience.com.
We also need strongly worded opinion, as is being advocated by Rod Lamberts to counteract the three word slogans of idiots like our Prime Minister and deniers at WUWT.
PS There's a new article by Victor Venema that is worth a read in this regard. He is exploring why science deniers are not interested in facts. In "fact" they eschew facts for fiction.
From the WUWT comments
There are lots of opinions being expressed in the WUWT comments,
As Chris4692 says of Eric Worrall's opinion:
March 15, 2014 at 5:07 pm
If you have no facts, you have nothing else but opinions.
Robert of Ottawa's opinion is quite clear. He says:
March 15, 2014 at 5:09 pm
Australia has a government that rejects the Warmista scare and is gradually dismantalling the state apparatus that propagates it. Hence the hysterical squeals of the Warmista pigs (those at the public trough)
PaulH needs a lesson in Strine and says:
March 15, 2014 at 5:15 pm
My first thought was that my colleague was taking the piss.
I have no idea what that means.
Latitude comes up with a novel opinion and is a very deep thinker:
March 15, 2014 at 5:19 pm
of course they can’t win it with facts…….
DirkH has about as much depth as Latitude and says:
March 15, 2014 at 5:37 pm
“What we need now is to become comfortable with the idea that the ends will justify the means. We actually need more opinions, appearing more often and expressed more noisily than ever before.”
Oh, I misunderstood him. What he means is, every warmist will now have to choose between being honest or being efficient. Now that’s a whole new approach. (sarc)
pottereaton is just another dumb fake sceptic who favours WUWT opinion over science and says:
March 15, 2014 at 6:03 pm
The problem with “consensus” climate science from the beginning is that it has been mostly opinions– i.e. speculation and conjecture– and not facts–i.e. solid data and verifiable hypotheses arrived at with scrupulous statistical methods.
Konrad must think there is somewhere hidden group of "sceptics" that haven't yet reared their heads. Does anyone out there know of a "sceptic" that uses facts or has a case to argue? Konrad says:
March 15, 2014 at 6:33 pm
“Facts won’t defeat the climate deniers – using their tactics will”
When when this fool finds someone who denies that planet has a variable climate he can use whatever tactic he likes.
If however, this propagandist twit Lamberts is referring to sceptics then he is on a hiding to nothing. After all the sceptics main tactic is to use facts to argue their case.
Of course, a lot of WUWT-ers twist Rod Lamberts' article to mean something quite different. Like conspiracy theorist Chad Wozniak who says (excerpt):
March 15, 2014 at 5:32 pm
How typical of the AGW crowd – why tell the truth when lies serve your corrupt, perverse purposes better?
What Rod Lamberts is suggesting is that we don't merely quote dry scientific facts at people, we counter the deception of science deniers and show people what those facts mean for them personally and for our nations and for the world as a whole.
