Warmist Katharine Hayhoe: Don’t call skeptics ‘deniers’ – More accurate to call them ‘climate dismissives’
Should We Call Climate-Change Deniers “Dismissives” Instead?
A renowned scientist proposes an alternative to a contested word.
NPR’s Rachel Martin had a fascinating interview on Tuesday with Katharine Hayhoe, a renowned climate scientist and evangelical Christian, in which they discussed the toxic nature of the world “climate denier”—a word that environmental reporters, including me, use all the time to describe people who don’t accept the scientific consensus that climate change is real, man-made, and dangerous. Hayhoe argued that calling people deniers is “a good way to end the conversation,” and that it’s actually more accurate to use the word “climate dismissive.”
Hayhoe’s terminology comes from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, which last year published a report on how Americans view the threat of global warming. It concluded that America was divided into six categories: alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, and dismissive, the latter being people “who do not believe global warming is real and are likely to believe in various conspiracy theories about the issue.”
I’ve struggled with whether to use word “denier,” especially because of the common accusation that it’s meant to invoke Holocaust deniers. That’s not accurate, as Peter Dykstra explained at Scientific American: The word refers to a type of psychological defense mechanism first conceived by Sigmund and Anna Freud, where “an unpleasant reality is ignored, and a realistic interpretation of potentially threatening events is replaced by a benign but inaccurate one.” That’s why I think of “denier” is the most accurate term for people who ignore, misrepresent, or generally discredit the field of climate science—whether it’s because they don’t like the proposed solutions, or because they just can’t accept reality.
But another compelling reason to use “denier” is that the alternative terminology is inadequate. I won’t use the word “skeptic” because it distorts the meaning of skepticism within science. Climate scientists are skeptical by profession, and yet, a vast majority of them concluded that global warming is
Obama hosts DiCaprio & Warmist Hayhoe at White House for climate summit
…Warmist ‘Environmental Evangelist’: Keep Politics Out Of Climate Change
…Skeptics point out silly claims made by Warmist Katharine Hayhoe
…‘CNN Lies About Oklahoma Easily Exposed’
CNN Lies About Oklahoma Easily Exposed
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/cnn-lies-about-oklahoma-easily-exposed/
By Paul Homewood http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/03/opinions/sutter-climate-skeptics-woodward-oklahoma/ As I mentioned a few days ago, some CNN hack has been trying to expose wicked climate deniers in Oklahoma. He tries to do so by relating global warming to weather conditions there, such as heatwaves and droughts: Intense drought hit Oklahoma again in the 2010s, this time breaking records. In 2011, the state experienced “the hottest summer of any state since records began in 1895,” according to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, and Woodward saw 61 days at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit). The drought dried up streams, turned the short-grass prairie into straw and then helped it to light ablaze. It’s impossible to say climate change caused these or any other particular weather events, but it is making these sorts of extremes more likely. Climate scientists expect droughts, heat waves and extreme rain events only to get worse out here. The Southern Plains averages seven days per year above 100 degrees Fahrenheit — but that number is expected to quadruple by 2050, according to the latest U.S. National Climate Assessment. So naturally I could not resist introducing a few facts of my own! First off, let’s look at daily record high temperatures at Ada, Oklahoma. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=prog.select_d9k.sas&_SERVICE=default&id=340017 We can see that the 1930’s and 1950’s saw vastly more records than anything in recent decades, both in summer and also other seasons. Remember that these numbers include ties, so statistically there should be as many now as a century ago. What about the hottest days? Woodward County sits in the NW part of the state, close the city of Enid, one of the longest running USHCN sites in the state. One of the charts which USHCN provide shows the whisker plot of daily maximum temperatures there. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=prog.climsite_daily.sas&_SERVICE=default&id=342912&_DEBUG=0 Clearly, nothing in recent years, even in 2011, has matched the intensity of the heat in either the 1930’s or 50’s, or for that matter the early 20thC. USHCN statistics show that in Enid days over 100F are quite common, on average there are 15 each year. When we look at the distribution of really hot days, however, the idea that climate change is burning up Oklahoma is shown to be typical warmist bilge. ( One wonders whether our friend Katharine Hayhoe inspired this?) http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=prog.climsite_daily.sas&_SERVICE=default&id=342912&_DEBUG=0 But what about droughts, I hear you ask! http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/ In true Hayhoe fashion, you could argue that droughts …
Evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe Tells Bill Moyers Not All Christians Are Climate ‘Deniers’
…NPR: Warmist Katharine Hayhoe trying to convert Non-Believers; ‘Caring about [AGW] is one of the most Christian things you can do’
NPR: Hayhoe trying to convert Non-Believers; “caring about [AGW] is one of the most Christian things you can do” http://www.npr.org/2014/06/08/319831143/climate-scientist-climate-change-is-a-christian-issue-too
Watch Now: Marc Morano on TV explains Obama’s climate report: ‘It’s bastardizing science’ – ‘This is a political report meant to give cover for a political agenda’
Excerpts of Morano’s appearance on Sun News TV on May 7, 2014 – ‘Byline’ w/ Brian Lilley:
Climate Depot publisher Marc Morano: “President Obama has been stifled by the GOP Congress. He is facing midterm election where Democrats are fleeing from him. He’s got no domestic agenda. He is trying to play around with some Foreign Policy stuff, but his Sec. of State John Kerry keeps putting his foot in his mouth and causing major distractions.
So what President Obama has left are executive orders on global warming. He is going to use this report as a basis to start action and shutting down coal plants, preventing new ones form coming on line. They have already announced an intention to go after natural gas fracking. They are still delaying the long delayed Keystone pipeline.
Obama can now act to do something about global warming. He doesn’t need ‘no stinking Congress’ as it were.
The report tries to claim that global warming was here and now. And in doing so they really had to twist science on its head. Sarah Palin, the former VP candidate, was (unfairly) ridiculed for implying she could see Russia from her house or from Alaska. Well now they say you can see global warming from your back yard or out your window. It’s bastardizing science.(See: Obama Admin’s John Podesta offers proof of AGW: ‘I’d say that probably look out your window’ )
Because on every major extreme weather measure, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, there is either no trend on 50-100 time scales or there is declining trends. They have basically said every storm now is proof of global warming. And we must ‘act now’ to stop bad weather. As though acts of Congress or our EPA can stop storms.
On sea level, the report is predicting more than 6 and half feet over the next century. That is 11 times the natural rate over the past two centuries and there are actually recent peer reviewed studies showing a deceleration in sea level rise.
This is a political report — predetermined science. They selected lead authors from Nature Conservancy, from Union of Concerned scientists from other environmental groups. They picked other scientists like Katharine Hayhoe and Don Weubbles, people they knew what they were going to write before the report was written.…
Warmist Hayhoe rips skeptics: ‘I feel like we have been lied to’ – How To Convince Conservative Christians That Global Warming Is Real
…Warmist Katharine Hayhoe ‘Denies The Science’ – Accused of ‘blatant dishonesty’ about Texas droughts
Hayhoe Denies The Science
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/hayhoe-denies-the-science/
By Paul Homewood
It seems as if Katharine Hayhoe has been at it again. In the documentary “Years of Living Dangerously”, she tries to persuade viewers that the Texas drought of 2011 was brought about by rising levels of CO2.
Only one slight problem, Katharine, droughts have occurred regularly in the past in Texas, and sometimes more severely. In particular, the drought years of the 1950’s were both longer lasting , and more severe than the recent drought, as NOAA’s drought index shows.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us
And there is a very well understood reason for these regular occurrences – ocean cycles.
With regards to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, NOAA themselves tell us that:
Recent research suggests that the AMO is related to the past occurrence of major droughts in the Midwest and the Southwest. When the AMO is in its warm phase, these droughts tend to be more frequent and/or severe (prolonged?). Vice-versa for negative AMO. Two of the most severe droughts of the 20th century occurred during the positive AMO between 1925 and 1965: The Dustbowl of the 1930s and the 1950s drought.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/faq/amo_faq.php
And currently, surprise, surprise, we are in the warm phase of the AMO.
And then there’s the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. You will not be surprised to learn that:
Positive PDO values are usually associated with wetter conditions in the Southwestern United States, while negative PDO values are suggestive of persistent drought in the Southwest.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceananddrought.html
Or that we are currently in the negative phase of the PDO, just as we were in the 1950’s. (Note that the 1930’s were in the positive PDO phase, which helped to ameliorate the 1930’s droughts in Texas – this was not the case further north, over the Great Plains and Mid West; there is a useful map of this here.)
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/gcos_wgsp/tsanalysis.pl?tstype1=20&tstype2=0&year1=1900&year2=&itypea=0&axistype=0&anom=0&plotstyle=0&climo1=&climo2=&y1=&y2=&y21=&y22=&length=&lag=&iall=0&iseas=0&mon1=0&mon2=11&Submit=Calculate+Results
The blatant dishonesty of all of this is breathtaking. Katharine Hayhoe must surely know all of this, that is what she is paid to do.
So why is she trying to convince the public otherwise?
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