Norfolk Eastern Daily Press, 4 July 2007
Scientists admit they need to find more effective ways of explaining climate change after a poll revealed the public believe the situation is not as serious as they and politicians often claim. A spokesman for the UEA-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said the Ipsos Mori survey backed up its own findings and called on scientists to avoid catastrophic warnings and steer clear of hype to avoid alienating the public.
The poll shows Britons remains unconvinced about warnings that the climate is being affected by global warming. There is also scepticism about “greenspin” and a feeling that the situation is being overstated in order to raise revenue rather than save the planet. In fact, climate change is not a priority for most people in the UK - terrorism, crime, graffiti and even dog mess are of more concern.
Asher Minns, spokesman for the Tyndall Centre, said: “The public feels scientists are quite possibly over-selling the science and you could say there’s even the beginning of a backlash. If climate change science doesn’t get more careful with its communication, you could turn off and disengage the public.” Mr. Minns said the poll supported the centre’s own findings that the public did not respond well to catastrophic warnings about the potential effects of climate change. “There are potentially catastrophic effects and we don’t need to cover them up and pretend they are not happening, but you need to engage with people, not tell them they are all going to die,” he said.
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By Brendan O’Neill, Spiked-online
Al Gore’s doom-mongering documentary An Inconvenient Truth - in which he turned his rather drab PowerPoint presentation on climate change into a cinematic warning to the world about man’s toxic impact on the planet - has generated miles of newspaper column inches. He’s won widespread praise from greens for converting ‘ordinary people’ (ie, the previously uncaring popcorn-chomping masses) to the green cause. He’s been given a telling-off by some climate scientists for twisting the data in order to send a moral message about mankind’s destructiveness (1). Others have accused him of being a hypocrite: apparently Gore, who has two very big homes, used 221,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in 2006, 20 times the American national average (2). And now, in the latest post-Truth twist, Gore has been challenged to a $20,000 wager that he is wrong on global warming.
The aim of the bet is really to promote the proper use of science, rather than the opinion-led science we have seen lately.’ Scott Armstrong is professor of marketing at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an international expert on forecasting methods. Last week he faxed and posted (to be on the safe side) his ‘Global Warming Challenge’ to Gore. He challenged the former US vice-president to a 10-year bet in which both parties will put forward $10,000. Gore would put his money on his forecasts that temperature will rise dangerously in the coming decade, while Armstrong will put his money on what is referred to as the ‘naïve model’: that is, that temperatures will probably stay the same in the coming years. ‘Gore says there are scientific forecasts that the Earth will become warmer very rapidly. But I have not found a scientific forecast that supports that view. There are forecasts made by scientists, of course, but they are very different from a scientific forecast’, says Armstrong.
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Meanwhile, Al also ignores challenges to debate from Lord Monckton (and see details here) and Dennis Avery.