Rating climate science deniers to decide how/if to engage

Climate science deniers can be grouped in different ways. Having observed them for more than a decade now, this is how I see them:

1. The uninformed - ignorant about climate, doesn't read articles on climate. Strictly speaking the uninformed are not science deniers. They just don't know anything about climate.
2. The misinformed - previously uninformed who've read & unwittingly accepted climate disinformation.
3. Wilful deniers (aka wilfully ignorant) - previously misinformed but have since been exposed to climate science findings and rejected them (usually for ideological or other reasons). All of this category by definition are conspiracy theorists.
4. Climate disinformers - know the facts but are in the business of spreading lies to feed the previous categories (usually for monetary gain and/or ideological reasons). All of this category are by definition weavers of conspiracy theories.

I'd be interested to read how other people might categorise climate science deniers.

G'Day - Not today, mate!

Australia's politicians from the Liberal, National and Labor parties all vow that now isn't the right time to talk about climate change.

Soon there'll be not the tiniest gap between the droughts, fires, heat waves and floods so they'll be saved from ever having to talk about climate change and what they aren't doing about it.

Courtesy of Australia's national broadcaster:

During the #bushfire crisis, many politicians have been hesitant to answer questions about climate change. But now, there's a new program more willing to accommodate their unwillingness to address the issue. #NotToday. #abc730 @markhumphries @evanwilliams @jonocoleman #auspol pic.twitter.com/8E16QmYewK

— abc730 (@abc730) November 14, 2019

If you're wondering about some of the references, here's a guide:

• Karl Stefanovic - I don't know who he is (I don't watch television). I gather he's some tv host who's changed time slots or channels or something. You'll have to Google him if you're interested.
• Dr Karl - is a popular Australian science lover who is in turn loved by many.
• Quiet Australians - our Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to silence any Australians who speak. He only want's to listen to "quiet Australians" because they say nothing, don't make his head hurt and don't interrupt him when he's singing in tongues to his god.

If only Scott Morrison would stop telling his god what to do and start listening to what his god's been telling him for the past few years: Millennium Drought, Canberra fires, Black Saturday fires, Alpine fires, big wets and big dries, dead fish, dried up rivers, towns out of water - and all the other weather catastrophes this century including the current ones.

Some people at WUWT agree with climate scientists: let's not go "howlingly barking mad"

In the absence of anything much at WUWT, I was going to write about the proposed Geoengineering research program. Slate published an article by the eminent climate scientist, Professor Raymond Pierrehumbert, with the headline and sub-head:

Climate Hacking Is Barking Mad

You can’t fix the Earth with these geoengineering proposals, but you can sure make it worse. 

Opposing geoengineering of climate does not equate to not exploring options

Prof Pierrehumbert, a fierce opposer of geoengineering, has co-authored an NRC proposal that a research program be established to consider geoengineering proposals. As he wrote:

This week, the National Research Council (NRC) is releasing a report on climate engineering that deals with exactly those proposals I found most terrifying. The report even recommends the creation of a research program addressing these proposals. I am a co-author of this report. Does this mean I've had a change of heart?

No.

The nearly two years' worth of reading and animated discussions that went into this study have convinced me more than ever that the idea of “fixing” the climate by hacking the Earth’s reflection of sunlight is wildly, utterly, howlingly barking mad. In fact, though the report is couched in language more nuanced than what I myself would prefer, there is really nothing in it that is inconsistent with my earlier appraisals.

Geoengineering and public opinion

Before I got to write about this, I saw that WUWT has picked up on the subject of geoengineering with two articles. Many science deniers don't want geoengineering any more than scientists do.

Calling scientists frauds and fakers just pisses them off!

There's an article at WUWT (archived here, latest here) about a new paper in Nature Climate Change. The paper is another one of those that looks at the differences between people who accept climate science and those who reject it. It's about the social dynamics of denial. (I was really interested in the paper and got a bit carried away. That means that this article is another one that's too long.)

More denier self-portraits, including around 60 35+ engineers

Update: In the article and comments, I've counted 35 deniers professing to be engineers.  Did an actual count (but didn't double check).  Could be more but definitely fewer than the 60+ I initially thought.  The word "engineer" comes up 75 times so far. - Sou Sunday 28 July 13, 2:54 pm AEST.

The confessions from science deniers at WUWT keep coming.  I commented just a short while ago about Jonathan Abbott's heart-wrenching story about his short path to fake scepticism.  Did he read science papers? No.  Did he read the IPCC reports? No.  Did he do any research at all? No.  What he did was hear about global warming on the BBC, decided it wasn't for him, so he went looking for other people who rejected science.  He found a denier film and a denier blog (WUWT) and has since stopped "looking". Actually, like most fake sceptics, Jonathan didn't ever start looking at science.

Here are a few other stories, most of a similar vein.  The starting point varies but for most deniers, the journey stopped at the first denialistic journalist, author or youtube video they found.

Bloke down the pub didn't want to "believe" so, ignoring the fact that CO2 has been higher in the past and earth has been warmer as a consequence, when he discovered there were others like him, the rest, as he says, was history:

July 25, 2013 at 11:55 am  My academic standard only reaches Geology A’level. From what I had learnt though, I was pretty sure that the global temperature had previously been much higher than present. That seemed to torpedo the warmist’s claim that feedbacks were catastrophically positive. My first contact with sceptics came from Chris Bookers column in the Sunday Telegraph who guided me to WUWT and the rest as they say is history.

Shano got his "science" views from a Crichton novel and youtube:

July 25, 2013 at 12:02 pm  Well put. My journey toward climate skepticism began with reading Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. I was so intrigued that I checked the data, listened to skeptical speakers on you tube, and visited the sites you mentioned on line.

Bob Johnston says he stopped "believing" scientists when television spruikers were wrong about house prices:

July 25, 2013 at 12:05 pm  My conversion from believer to skeptic came only after I came to rude awakenings in other disciplines. It started during the housing crisis (which is still ongoing, btw) – my occupation was residential construction and despite all the “experts” on TV and in newspapers saying it would keep going up I knew they were wrong and I was subsequently proven correct. That episode bitchslapped me into awareness – if everyone was wrong about something as fundamental as housing prices, what else are we wrong about?

kretchetov found a denier film and lots of denier websites.  His motive for looking for other science deniers was because he is a conspiracy nutter and is paranoid about global control.  He found a kindred spirit in Jo Nova :)

July 25, 2013 at 12:22 pm  I had a similar path to the author. I had lots of questions, but seeing breathless propaganda about “settled science” made me suspicious.  “The Great Global Warming Swindle” prompted me to seek answers on the internet, and I stumbled upon Jo Nova’s website, and from there, others.  Having had classic scientific education, I can judge facts for myself, and what I saw made me really angry. And I saw a fraudulent attempt to use the name of science to install global control, raise unjustified taxes and impose bogus regulations.  I still believe that CAGW ideology is more dangerous than any other totalitarian ideology or religion, as it has such popular support, yet outright wrong and will inevitably result in utter misery and death to many.

Too many engineers

Probably 60+ engineers among the 412 comments to date.  Update (28/7/13) - I've done a quick count and have come up with 35 definites, so a bit short of the 60 plus I initially thought:

• Michael J. Dunn says: July 25, 2013 at 1:01 pm I’m also a professional engineer,...
• Dave the Engineer says: July 25, 2013 at 11:31 am  Skeptic from the beginning.
• Ken Hall says: July 25, 2013 at 11:37 am  ...I was also educated in the 1980s and came to climate scepticism in an almost identical way...Being from a computing and engineering background, I instinctively distrusted climate models...
• John de Melle says: July 25, 2013 at 11:47 am  I’m another proffessional engineer. Your road of discovery matches mine, exactly....
• Richard Lawson says:  July 25, 2013 at 12:14 pm  As an Engineer who was also messing about with Bunsen burners in the early ’80′s your story is a carbon copy of mine....
• Theo Barker says:  July 25, 2013 at 12:34 pm  Another engineer with a very similar path to similar stance. 
• and many more.

In all, a search of the so far 412 comments finds the word "engineer" listed 67 75 times in that thread, only two of which were in the original article.  Most At least 35 were from people saying they are engineers.

There were eleven mentions of the word "geologist" but only four deniers saying they are geologists.

By contrast, the word "biologist" only appeared twice, both times in disparaging comments about biologists.  The word "chemist" or a variant appeared seven times, but not a single person claimed it as their field. The only time the word "physicist" appeared was a denier saying they are a retired particle physicist.

Bombshell**! Smokey admits WUWT "regularly hears from scientific illiterates"

The following excerpt is just to show that WUWT moderator dbstealey/smokey skirts perilously close to the truth on rare occasions. The italics are my comments, with the second link showing how at least two of jai mitchell's comments were censored in the past week.  Ironically, Smokey was trying to argue with jai, the subject of much censorship.

dbstealey says:
July 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm  We regularly hear from scientific illiterates here. (Sou: more than regularly.  You pretty well only have scientific illiterates, Smokey.) This site doesn’t censor their opinions, no matter how much pseudo-science they contain.  (Sou: you allow pseudo-science.  That's true. What you ban and censor is real science.)

**Bombshell is a word much used in climate discussions.  It's a dog-whistle word.

A Whopper of a Heat Wave (Updated again)

What happened last year

The Bureau of Meteorology has released the Annual Climate Statement 2012.  Some of the main points are:

...Australia had near-average rain and above-average temperatures during 2012, but the average annual values conceal a year of contrasts:

• La Niña brought above-average rain early in 2012
• Reduced rainfall in winter and spring was associated with a warm central Pacific Ocean and positive Indian Ocean Dipole
• Annual nationally averaged rainfall very slightly above average, with 476 mm (1961–1990 average of 465 mm).
• A warmer-than-average year, 0.11 °C above average 2003–2012 the fifth-warmest 10-year period on record.

Enter 2013 - with a whopper of a heat wave

2013 has started with a whopper of a heat wave extending over most of Australia.  And this looks like being record heat despite no El Nino.  This animation derived from the Bureau of Meteorology temperature charts shows how the heat wave moved across the country from New Year's Day to Saturday 12 January Thurs 10 January yesterday (click for larger version).  The forecast predicts it won't be stopping for a while yet, with temperatures in some parts projected to be more than 50C (122F) next Sunday:

Burning Up

Hot weather means Australia is burning again.  Particularly dangerous are the windy conditions experienced in south eastern Australia last Friday.  As reported by Watching the Deniers, the results were tragic and the ABC reports it is looking very bad again today.

Tomorrow, NSW is facing it's "worst ever fire danger day".

Here's a video about the Tassie fires from ABC 7.30 report, with incredible tales and images of people who survived by huddling in water under a jetty, including the story of a young mother from Dunally who'd just left her children with her grandparents while she went to a funeral in Hobart.

Here is today's record from Sentinel.  You can see the horrific fires in Tasmania still going plus fires all over the country.

The red flames are the most recent 12-hour satellite sweep and the yellow flames are from the previous 12 to 24 hours.

HotCopper Delusions of an Ice Age

Despite this some HotCopper deniers, like Chrysalis here, think we're on the verge of an ice age.

The stupid it burns ...