Jen Alic: Climate Change: Brand or Be Branded

I’m not sure whether Alic is simply enormously confused or whether this is a particularly arrogant and offensive piece.

The general position of skeptics is not that climate does not change (we point out past climate variation ad infinitum) but that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is both highly unlikely and definitely not demonstrated.

Whatever, the much-hyped “runaway” global warming is not on the cards and enhanced greenhouse hysterics are not supported even by the IPCC. The fundamental point of “climate sensitivity” (response to change) is not resolved simply because the modelers use one at least 5 times too large to make up for other inadequacies in their models.

The PR campaigns either way are not particularly interesting – the science says there is no problem and that’s an end to it.

Lord only knows what Alic means by “media-duping “Climategate scandal”” but I certainly don’t. It is definitely exposure of a scandal in climate science but mainstream media ignored or misreported it as insignificant. Here’s the piece for what it’s worth:

It is very difficult to understand the climate change denial platform on a purely philosophical and scientific level. Climate change is a rather obvious aspect of the history of the Earth and clearly man interacts with climate in an increasingly dynamic manner. That this is even debated appears on the surface to be not a little ridiculous—somewhere on the level of discussing whether the Earth is round or flat.

It is the semantics of it all, which, when combined with politics and the necessary religio-political elements, muddies the waters. For partisan policy camps, it is probably beneficial that the average reader doesn’t really have a clue what anyone means when they say “climate change”, and throwing “global warming” into the mix only adds to the general confusion.

But here, scientists, climate change activist elite and environmental officials reading this will say that this is simplifying matters and that the real debate is not whether the climate is changing but the scale of that change as a result of our own actions. The debate, on this level, is about numbers, and it is sufficiently vague to render it a convenient instrument of politics. To this climate change elite, both “deniers” and “believers”, there is only one thing to say: You have not brought the debate to the masses in a coherent way.

On both sides of the divide, the public relations campaign has been a complete fiasco, and this is clearly illustrated by asking the average person what they think about climate change or global warming—an answer that invariably depends on the weather at the particular moment the question is asked.

From the media-duping “Climategate scandal” in 2009 to the “Unabomber Believes in Global Warming” campaign that bestowed its intelligence on us this year, we are led to understand only that our elite are not up to the challenge of rational arbitration.

Those pushing for recognition that climate change is something that should be a major concern, and even a national security threat, have painfully mismanaged their efforts. Politicians do not understand scientists, and scientists clearly have no acumen for talking to the media, whose pull-quote analysis seeks to maximum damage and entertainment.

The way “climate change” has been handled by the “acceptance” camp in terms of public awareness has accomplished nothing other than to brand the idea as something only “hippies” believe in, something “alarmist” and not grounded in reality.

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