Climate-Change Denial by Proxy, Polar Bears, Blogs and Steele

The two most recent "What's Natural?" columns worth of crazy making by Jim Steele revolves around Polar Bear studies, which Steele first misrepresents, then he offers his tortured conclusion, it's proof that manmade global warming is a hoax.  In reaching out to scientists he named, one shared the following with me when I asked about any papers that looked into contrarian deception on this topic:

“The paper by Harvey et al. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/4/281/4644513 is the best rebuttal against the deniers when it comes to polar bears.”  

I was so impressed with the read and since it has a Creative Commons Attribution, I'm going to take advantage of their invitation and share the entire paper here and hope that a few make the time to read this informative collection of facts.

EDITOR'S CHOICE

Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial by Proxy

Jeffrey A Harvey, Daphne van den Berg, Jacintha Ellers, Remko Kampen, Thomas W Crowther, Peter Roessingh, Bart Verheggen, Rascha J M Nuijten, Eric Post, Stephan Lewandowsky ... 

BioScience, Volume 68, Issue 4, April 2018, Pages 281–287, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix133

Published: 29 November 2017

Abstract

Increasing surface temperatures, Arctic sea-ice loss, and other evidence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are acknowledged by every major scientific organization in the world. 

However, there is a wide gap between this broad scientific consensus and public opinion. 

Internet blogs have strongly contributed to this consensus gap by fomenting misunderstandings of AGW causes and consequences. 

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have become a “poster species” for AGW, making them a target of those denying AGW evidence. 

Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability. 

By denying the impacts of AGW on polar bears, bloggers aim to cast doubt on other established ecological consequences of AGW, aggravating the consensus gap. 

To counter misinformation and reduce this gap, scientists should directly engage the public in the media and blogosphere.  

(CC:  May I suggest students and lay-people have a responsibility to defend the science - scientists are busy with their work!  Besides most contrarian arguments have nothing to do with the actual science and everything to do with rhetorical deception.)

Dr. Ed Hawkins not making any sense - 2000s warming slowdown?

In working on my review of Bates' article, I stumbled on another example of a presumably well meaning scientists doing more to fuel confusion and denial and distrust than to inform and learn.  That would be Ed Hawkins with his 2/24/2016 dissenting blog post "Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown."  I started writing him a comment, but it got too big to post over there, I have given him a shorter one and a link. 

__________________________________________________________

Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown

Ed Hawkins | February 24, 2016   

It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming ‘slowdown’ or ‘hiatus’, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented in a new commentary in Nature Climate Change by Fyfe et al. contradicts these claims.

The new Fyfe et al. paper is mainly in response to Karl et al. and Lewandowsky et al., who made the following statements in their abstracts:

“These results do not support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature” – Karl et al., 2015, Science

“there is no evidence that identifies the recent period as unique or particularly unusual” – Lewandowsky et al., 2016, BAMS

Firstly, climate scientists agree that global warming has not ‘stopped’ – global surface temperatures and ocean heat content have continued to increase, sea levels are still rising, and the planet is retaining ~0.5 days of the sun’s incoming energy per year. …

WAKE UP AMERICA - CARE ABOUT EDUCATION ?

While the Alt-Right and Republicans and our media and even our Democratic Party 'leaders' are putting a nice face on it, our government is transitioning into what promises to be the most Wild Wild West destructive one ever in the White House.  

The bottom-line (that everyone seems to be avoiding with determination) is that this Republican campaign has been dominated by a dialogue where truth and honesty are treated as dispensable jokes.  Facade, fabricating alt-facts, bullying opponents, bluster are all used in what's become a generally accepted amoral exercise of avoiding objective reality.  To me it seems, another example of "Seepage" in action, although this time in politics rather than science.  Though the same cynical PR machine has driven that seepage.  (FYI - http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyseepage.html). 

This election 2016 should make clear to all concerned thinking citizens out there that no body has our back, not our political leaders, not the pundits of our liking, not the news media, certainly not those egomaniacal oligarchs who are today's masters of the universe and are busy with their own disconnected agenda.   They are going to obliterate We The Proud American People and our achievements and future goals in direct proportion to how many millions of Americans get off the sidelines and take on some responsible for turning around the national degeneration we have been witnessing.  A million conversations across the left and right fences of our respective backyards.  Don't need to go far, your family, friends, co-workers, etc.

And now we come to Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, someone who hates our public education system.  Someone who is so damned full of herself, that she believes she has a personal relationship with the God of space and time, life and love.  Heck this petty, self-centered human has so little self-recognition that she believes her personal god has sent her on a national mission to rescue American education from multi-culturalism and science based learning.  God told her to do it!  Her god has also told her that this planet I inhabit is 6,000 years old and if I don't agree with her personal belief, well, that makes me an enemy - that's it.  Nothing to talk about.  Objective down to Earth evidence means nothing when confronting the self-certainty of DeVos brand of religious zealotry.  

Americans, it's your move.  Got it in ya?  Can ya stand up to their dogma based bullying?  Better do something, or get steamrollered.  Democracy, live it or lose it!

DeVos Devoted Career To Dismantling Public Education

Nov 23, 2016 by Maggie Garrett in Wall of Separation

Today, president-elect Donald Trump tapped Betsy DeVos to serve as Secretary of Education in his administration.

DeVos, though, has all the wrong credentials to serve as Education Secretary.  An Education Secretary should be devoted to promoting and improving public education, but she has devoted her career to dismantling it.  Indeed, she’s the leader of the crusade to create private school vouchers, heading up American Federation for Children and giving huge sums of money to enact voucher programs across the country.

Knowing the troubling stance Trump has taken on education, this is no real surprise.  Trump has said he wants to create an expensive, nationwide school voucher program at a staggering price tag of $20 billion.  His plan would divert that money from existing federal programs for new “choice” block grants to states, which will fund private, charter, and home schools. That means there will be $20 billion taken away from existing programs that often serve our neighborhood public schools. DeVos, no doubt, will lead the charge.