[Closed] Horizon last night climate sceptic pwned - anyone else see it

Z 11 are the pictures you and others have have posted of apparent weather monitoring stations the same ones as were used to gather the data or just random examples of badly sited weather monitors ?

Nice distinction between sceptics and denialists here if anyone's interested:-

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.000-living-in-denial-when-a-sceptic-isnt-a-sceptic.html

And real world examples (HIV/AIDS; vaccines/autism) expressing some of the thread so far in a very balanced way:-

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.400-living-in-denial-questioning-science-isnt-blasphemy.html

A lot of it, as that second link implies, comes down to scientists being, as a group, pretty poor at communicating.

For the avoidance of doubt, my view (as a scientist) is that the climate is changing - like rob2, I have to help plan to keep water coming to you and shit being taken away from you, in assets that need to be maintained and built with customers' money, and the uncertainties are large.

Uncertainty makes most people uncomfortable (civil engineers and accountants in the water industry are not immune 😉 ) which is why the media have to sell copy by presenting things as 'crisp' facts not a balance of probabilities. A good proportion of the population doesn't seem to understand the concept even of 'average', let alone confidence intervals, given the number of drivers who slow down at average speed cameras only to speed up between them... 🙄

What we expect is climate, what we see out of the window is weather. Humans have evolved (uh-oh, now I've done it) to deal with the here and now, and really struggle with cause/effect beyond very short timescales. It's up to scientists to clearly communicate these inter-generational issues to non-specialist sceptics (cf. denialists) and we'd better learn how to do that, fast.

Sir Paul Nurse could start by taking some academic colleagues to task in arts subjects. Writing a well-balanced essay that considers all the evidence and comes to a reasoned conclusion is a sure fire route to a 2i mark at Oxbridge (or equivalent Uni) in an arts subject. On the otherhand, a radically controvertial essay drawing on little used sources which is strongly argued is likely to get a 1st class mark (and the author a job as a science blogger for a broadsheet).
I still don't know how he managed to get all the way through without saying 'postmodernism'.

Cougar

😳 i rarely pounctuate on here due to lazyiness I am not dyslexic - i am fully qualified to teach english to adults 😯
My lack of punctuation has left me with egg on my face - should have been

Stop doing it and I will stop saying you are, simple.

I apologise it was not my intention to say you were simple at all. I am happy to correct this error. I have learnt a lesson on my pathetic use of punctuation today.
Again Sorry - i also enjoy discussions with you and have no beef [ get it ] with you . I was not saying you are simple but it clearly reads as if I was. My error can I stop apologising now...sorry

Writing a well-balanced essay that considers all the evidence and comes to a reasoned conclusion is a sure fire route to a 2i mark at Oxbridge (or equivalent Uni) in an arts subject. On the otherhand, a radically controvertial essay drawing on little used sources which is strongly argued is likely to get a 1st class mark (and the author a job as a science blogger for a broadsheet).
I still don't know how he managed to get all the way through without saying 'postmodernism'.

But then again I was quite happy with my humble 2i in Marine and Environmental Biology 😉

I_did_dab - Member

Sir Paul Nurse could start by taking some academic colleagues to task in arts subjects. Writing a well-balanced essay that considers all the evidence and comes to a reasoned conclusion is a sure fire route to a 2i mark at Oxbridge (or equivalent Uni) in an arts subject. On the otherhand, a radically controvertial essay drawing on little used sources which is strongly argued is likely to get a 1st class mark (and the author a job as a science blogger for a broadsheet).
I still don't know how he managed to get all the way through without saying 'postmodernism'.

V good. It is probably the root cause of all this. (I mean that with all seriousness, postmodernism = piffle)

(replied to junkmail via email; we're good)

This leads the lay person to expect no snow. However, as well as this year, 2009 had much snow too. One winter maybe but two winters in a row makes comments like this seem like scaremongering.

I love it when people say things like this. "Its snowed two winters in a row - ergo global warming can't be happening"... 😆