There’s a scene in 1million years BC when the hero caveman has thrown a spear into a dinosaur and it lies on its side and all that is heard is its breathing until it stops.
Likewise, the search volumes for “global warming” go through a regularly yearly cycle with a summer minimum (during the University break). This cycle peaked in 2006/7, dropped down rapidly to 2011/12 where it remained pretty constant “gasping its last” until 2016/17. But this year the search volumes are down sharply to around 2/3 of the 2012-2016 “pause” (difficult to see below as the level was already so low).
Likewise, I searched for recent news concerning “global warming”. A few years ago there’d be a couple of news stories each hour, today that volume was a similar number a day. Of course, it would be a lot higher if Google didn’t block from their news outlet anyone scientifically sceptical like WUWT.
The key failure of climate academics
And finally. I’ve worked out the reason for this entire debacle. It comes down to a rather obscure misunderstanding of the basics of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics by climate academics (who aren’t the brightest sparks in the box). It would take a great deal of time to explain. But to put it as simply: they misunderstand heat. That in itself is not a problem many good scientists do, but that means that most (all?) have no proper understanding of statistical mechanics . Which in itself is not a problem, … but unless you have a clear understanding of statistical mechanic, you will never properly understand how to treat noise and natural variation within the climate. And that is where they completely utterly balls up. They went completely arse over tit.
But as I said: they’re not the brightest sparks in the box … and add to that their arrogance and complete failure to admit when they’re so obviously wrong. Well, it’s a bit like trying to explain to someone from a tribe in the remotest part of Amazon how nuclear reactors work. Anyone can learn given time – and given time I’m certain I could get at least some climate academics to understand. But it will just take a lot more time than most and to be frank, just as the general public don’t care about the subject any longer, nor do I.
So let them be clueless.
I agree with you as regards the so-called ‘climate academics’ who’s time has run and are now largely being ignored but the danger continues to lie with the politicians who bought into the AGW lunacy so deeply that they cannot admit their mistake ( though that goes for any politicians mistakes !). They’ll continue to gnaw at the bone of AGW and continue to cause incalculable harm both socially and economically.
The simple fact is that interest in global warming has shown the first significant drop for several years. It’s also a fact that media interest has also dropped. The key point is that a “pause” doesn’t necessarily mean an increase afterwards. It can and does also herald a decline in interest (or temps)
Good post, Mike. The following horror story underscores your point I think.
Last week, the world’s premier science journal ‘Nature’ published an article, ‘Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017’, co-written by 80 authors (yes, eighty), showing that West Antarctica ice loss shockingly tripled between 1997 and 2012.
Yesterday I sent one of the key authors my latest ResearchGate post, proving that solar fluctuations are the cause and that CO2 is irrelevant…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325805849_Global_warming_ended_in_2016_proof_that_the_sun_not_CO2_drives_Earth's_climate
Nevertheless, this morning he replied “Hi roger (sic). Have you ever wondered why gardeners grow their tomatoes in greenhouses ?”.
Good grief; even Wiki knows “The term ‘greenhouse effect’ arose from a faulty analogy … a greenhouse is not primarily warmed by the ‘greenhouse effect’ “.
As you say, “Let them be clueless”. But this highly influential university lecturer and world-renowned Antarctic and Greenland researcher clearly hasn’t a clue, yet he commands a research budget of millions(?) of pounds, has the ear of government, and is educating our young people.
The media are the only problem left. Only a week ago we heard the Arctic is melting faster than ever, (Or was it the Antartic, I didn’t give it much time!) Do they think anyone still believes the skewed data?
Politicians will eat crow if the media say they are wrong!
For: “has the ear of government” read “had the ear of government”. There’s clearly been a massive shift in public opinion in the last year away from global warming. Politicians now know the time is right to cut funding without suffering significant backlash. If I were someone funded from the scam – I’d be looking for another job.
You probably heard it through WUWT who know where to look to find the few fanatics left writing about it.
The BBC still give it a mention in nature, farming, whatever Countryvile is, food programmes, etc..
But now the emphasis is on the evils of Brexit and Trump.
But if they can combine all three, – bonus points.
If you are one of the minority who still watches the BBC, then I suggest switching off whenever you hear anything on global boring. You will soon join the majority.
Sadly I do not control the remote in this house.
I just hear things while reading a book, or blogs.
My wife has headphones.
@Doonhamer
This point deserves emphasis(!).
It isn’t just the MSM wailing and gnashing their teeth about these subjects, people are genuinely more concerned than about global warming/climate change/climate chaos.
However often with a different majority viewpoint from that which is presented – Trump elected, Brexit approved, migration disapproved.
Some other points:
Apparently ever more bad things being attributable to “climate”, just becomes white noise which is filtered out.
Ever more of these bad things failing to happen.
Real effects of trumpeted preventative measures causing harm now – energy prices.
After I stopped listening to the BBC I noticed a strange phenomenon: it’s not that I stopped caring about some issues, it’s that without the BBC constantly droning on about them into my ear, I literally didn’t think about them at all. I realised, that I had absolutely no interest in many subjects and to be quite frank, as I had no interest I clearly hadn’t developed my own personal view. Instead, and much to my disgust, I found I had been just blithely accepting the BBC propaganda on the subject.
Likewise, I suggest almost everyone who says they are “in favour” of doing something on global warming is suffering the same delusion. They have no personal view of their own, they have no knowledge of the subject (except a few extremely biased “facts” repeated ad nausea by those like the BBC), and for all practical purposes, the subject has absolutely no relevance to them or their actions – except when they listen to/read propagandists like the BBC.
It doesn’t register in their thought processes until someone says: “what is your view on …” and then like all brained washed people, they state “their” view (as they have been taught) and then desperately regurgitate the key facts given them by the BBC to justify their BBC created viewpoint.
However, whilst older people, who had little choice but to get their news from these propagandist stations and like-minded newspapers have been effectively brain washed on many subjects to the extent that they will happily regurgitate the party line of the BBC on a host of subjects where they personally have no view at all, … the same is not true of the younger generation, who I find just naturally accept that all news sources are biased.
And they all now see those like the BBC as just one of many possible sources for their entertainment including TV, film, games & internet. The BBC are now a rapidly diminishing portion of a media which is rapidly diminishing in importance (TV/radio).
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