"Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change"

I hope you don’t mind me sharing this, it’s dancing with a line, but I wrote the review myself, so it has that going for it. Besides might be interesting to toss in a book review, see if any one becomes familiar with the book and cares to discuss it.

 

"Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change"

How to Understand and Respond to Climate Science Deniers

Dr. John Cook - Founder of SkepticalScience.com

Citadel Press - Kensington Publishing Corp. - www.kensigntonbooks.com


“Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change” is an easy to read graphic book that at 164 pages frames important climate science and communication issues within cartoons, artwork and concise sentences. Still, don’t be fooled, absorbing of this AGW communication challenge, along with what we are doing to our one and only home planet is difficult in the extreme, but it is, what it is.

Given my half century of attention to Climate Science and the evolving fraud dependent propaganda campaigns of deception and willful ignorance, I found it a light hearted, inoffensive, easy to comprehend look into the challenge of conveying climate science facts to folks who are swimming in disinformation.

John Cook doesn’t shout or agitate, instead preferring to explain the well understood science and communication dynamics, while offering only fleeting glimpses into the past decades of full blown malicious dirty tricks that the contrarian campaigns against climate science understanding are guilty of.

The Cranky Uncle’s opening chapter is “How did Climate Change get so Controversial?” It tells the story of a few corporate funded political operatives and how they were able to completely distort public climate science understanding.

(Turning the public dialogue away from an educational challenge of understanding what was happening within our life supporting biosphere, to a propaganda circus where profits and winning were the only things mattered - the future was jettisoned for the self-interest of a very few. )

It also touches on why grasping the reality of global warming is a “perfect psychological storm,” since it’s a long term threat, while people rarely see beyond their next paychecks. Thus making them easy marks and victims to propaganda fraud.

Cook summarizes the tactics for perpetrating this propaganda fraud with “FLICK” (Fake Experts; Logical Fallacies; Impossible Expectations; Cherry Picking; Conspiracy Fabrications.)

The 2nd chapter, Cranky Uncle is “Denying Reality” looks at current observations and ten favorite denier claims, explaining what makes them false. “Denying Responsibility” begins with a claim that we are causing current global warming. That statement is supported with a Whodunnit that collects and tracks down various scientific lines of evidence, while reviewing eleven contrarian favorites.

The 4th chapter, “Denying Consequences” touches on another ten foolish arguments. “Denying the Science” offers fleeting glances at historic highlights along this path of calculated mass deception, along with exposing another eleven contrarian myths.

In the final chapter “Responding to Science Denial,” Cook points out that Climate deniers are a small but vocal minority and suggests various strategies for recognizing and countering their game.

John Cook’s “Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change,” is a gentle book, it reiterates what we’ve known for a long time and adds a few new insights. It’s value is in being an organized compilation of arguments and evidence along with a simple over-arching narrative.

If you’re involved in any kind of science communication you owe it to yourself to invest in John Cook’s “Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change." I recommend this excellent addition to any high school, public, or general college library, and of course, to your own desk.

Because its simple over view, can serve as a quick reference guide to help you organize and recall the varied aspects that come into play once you really start thinking about communicating how our global heat and moisture distribution engine operates and impacts our lives everyday.

Perhaps it can help you convey that important understanding to others.

This is the g rated version - if you care for a little more spice.

CCv3’s review can be found here;

You have my deep respect CC, for being so actively involved in climate change. I always express my support, but have little time to actually devote to active participation. So I want to express my gratitude to people like you…

 

Thank you.

Can’t seem to shake it off my mind.

Would you prefer that we go deeper into the current ice age?

@ibelieveinlogic Current ice age? Polar ice caps are severely melting. Was that supposed to be sarcasm?

Was that supposed to be sarcasm?
Bob has also expressed belief in aliens, not like a possibility according to the Drake equation, but calling them "greens" and "grays". He does that without smiling faces.

Nah, they aren’t gray or green. They’re Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans, Ferengi, Borg… Oh myyyyyy! lol

There are some who think labels make all the different - play with definitions, (sort of like trump’s ignorant stupidity regarding coronavirus - redefine and call it a victory, while ignoring physical reality. Like true vacuous salesman, er, I mean, madman). They love saying Earth is still in an ice age because we have Ice Caps and glaciers. Of course, they forget to think it through to realizing that humanity could not exist upon this planet, with both poles melted. And no Bob sea level rise isn’t all we have to worry about in a non-ice aged planet, in fact it’s the least of it. But then

As for the Earth that created a nurturing cradle for humanity to evolve within - lets take a look at what’s going on there:

 

 

 

Bringing temp consequences it up to date

 

Hey Bob and pals, you folks really make me wonder if you have any conception of what “trends” are, or about the reality of passage of time and real world impacts? Does “cascading consequences” mean anything besides a cute sounding whatever?

<p>Five Myr Climate Change.png<br>By Dragons flight (Robert A. Rohde) - original image by User:Dragons flight, based on data (figure 4?) from Lisiecki and Raymo (2005), CC BY-SA 3.0, Link</p>

“On longer time scales, sediment cores show that the cycles of glacials and interglacials are part of a deepening phase within a prolonged ice age that began with the glaciation of Antarctica approximately 40 million years ago.”

<p>Holocene Temperature Variations.png<br>CC BY-SA 3.0, Link</p>

“Further, while 2004 appears warmer than any other time in the long-term average, and hence might be a sign of global warming, it should also be noted that the 2004 measurement is from a single year (actually the fourth highest on record, see Image:Short Instrumental Temperature Record.png for comparison). It is impossible to know whether similarly large short-term temperature fluctuations may have occurred at other times, but are unresolved by the available resolution. The next 150 years will determine whether the long-term average centered on the present appears anomalous with respect to this plot.”

Was that supposed to be sarcasm?
No, just an attempt to look past the current tendency towards hysteria.
you folks really make me wonder if you have any conception of what “trends” are
One man's trend is another man's short term deviation. Maybe.
Bob has also expressed belief in aliens, ... . He does that without smiling faces.
One man's attempt at humor is often ... "was that supposed to be funny?".

(I don’t know how to insert the faces.)

No, just an attempt to look past the current tendency towards hysteria.
What and you turning that into some bullshit diversion that's totally intended to confuse people who have no conception of what they are looking at.


But the biggest monstrosity of your (it’s not your’s you’ve been brainwashed) monstrously malicious bullshit line of reasoning. Detailing past temperatures is extremely difficult, easily to cherry pick and misrepresent to the uninformed, by born liars and politico’s for who learning is not part of the agenda. Oh and the paleo data does offer plenty of supporting evidence for AGW, just need to be honest about representing what scientists have learned. Unfortunately Bob represent those who want only to confuse the issue as much as possible, staying stupid , the Republican goal.

If Bob had the slightest integrity he’d appreciate that the first line of evidence one needs to understand is the physics and what’s happening in our atmosphere. And what adding and subtracting CO2 does in that situation. But Bob will do everything to avoid that, even pretending that we are not radically increasing the insulation medium of our atmosphere. Or that we can certain expect cascading consequences from the cascading chain of geophysics it sets in motion.


But, what do I know, here:

 

But the biggest monstrosity of your (it’s not your’s you’ve been brainwashed) monstrously malicious bullshit line of reasoning. ... by born liars and politico’s for who learning is not part of the agenda. ... Unfortunately Bob represent those who want only to confuse the issue as much as possible, staying stupid , the Republican goal.

If Bob had the slightest integrity he’d appreciate that the first line of evidence one needs to understand is the physics and what’s happening in our atmosphere. … But Bob will do everything to avoid that, even pretending that we are not radically increasing the insulation medium of our atmosphere.


So, @lausten and @mriana, what do you think?

“On longer time scales, sediment cores show that the cycles of glacials and interglacials are part of a deepening phase within a prolonged ice age that began with the glaciation of Antarctica approximately 40 million years ago.”

“Further, while 2004 appears warmer than any other time in the long-term average, and hence might be a sign of global warming, it should also be noted that the 2004 measurement is from a single year (actually the fourth highest on record, see Image:Short Instrumental Temperature Record.png for comparison). It is impossible to know whether similarly large short-term temperature fluctuations may have occurred at other times, but are unresolved by the available resolution. The next 150 years will determine whether the long-term average centered on the present appears anomalous with respect to this plot.”


@citizenschallengev3, what part of the above don’t you understand?

So, @lausten and @mriana, what do you think?
I'm not real happy about it. I don't make all my moderator thoughts and actions public though.

@ibelieveinlogic said:

So, @lausten and @mriana, what do you think?

Personally, I think you are sadly misinformed about Climate Change and desperately want people to see the world as you do, much like the dotard does, except you’re more harmless than the dotard is. While I happen to agree with @citizenschallengev3, I not keen on how he said it. That’s my personal opinion, which you asked for.

A couple quick points that you are ignoring Bobj (ibelieveinlogic). I usually rely on CC for this, but he’s gone the Cranky Uncle route.

1 – Why look at a 5 million year scale? Humans have only thrived in that zone below the dotted line. Before that, our ancestors were getting eaten by giant lizards.

2 – Why look at a graph of the last 12,000 years?

Oh, I know, because that’s the time range that fits your narrative. The graphics that CC showed went a little too fast past the 50K to 100K scale. This article actually shows the graph you showed, but then puts it in the perspective that it should be. The only way your narrative is valid is if you are not concerned with the survival of humans. Sure, the world has been warmer, but we were not thriving then.

I had to really fish around to find the quote you mined. It’s a comment about the graphic, in Wikipedia. I think I’ll go with the 99% scientific consensus instead of that half of a paragraph.

Climate Change: How Do We Know?

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.1

The evidence for rapid climate change is compelling:


Global Temperature Rise

The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.4 Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year — from January through September, with the exception of June — were the warmest on record for those respective months. 5

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

January 2020: Earth’s Warmest January on Record
The month was our planet’s warmest ever recorded without an El Niño being present

January 2020 was the planet's warmest January since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Thursday. Global ocean temperatures during January 2020 were the second warmest on record, and global land temperatures were the warmest on record. Global satellite-measured temperatures in January 2020 for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the warmest or second warmest in the 42-year record, according to the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) and RSS, respectively.

January 2020 had the fourth highest departure of temperature from average of any month since 1880. Only March 2016, February 2016 and December 2015 had a greater temperature departure. Impressively, the warmth of January 2020 came without an El Niño event being present. Furthermore, we are also near the nadir of one of the least active solar cycles in the past century–a time when it is more difficult to set global heat records, due to the reduced amount of solar energy Earth receives. Thus, the remarkable warmth of January 2020 is a strong reminder that human-caused global warming is the primary driver of our warming climate.


Why limit the data we look at? If we can find data over millions of years I suggest we do ourselves no good service by ignoring it. Yes, we have data showing that CO2 levels have risen recently and the science shows that rise is due primarily to human action. But the longer term data is that the earth has experienced similar CO2 and temperature swings. We just don’t know whether the current very short term deviation is an indication of a reversal of the long term trends.

The sky is not falling.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/

“The resilience of Earth’s atmosphere has been proven throughout our planet’s climate history,” said Crisp, science team lead for NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite and its successor instrument, OCO-3, which launched to the International Space Station on May 4. “Humans have increased the abundance of carbon dioxide by 45 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Age. That’s making big changes in our environment, but at the same time, it’s not going to lead to a runaway greenhouse effect or something like that. So, our atmosphere will survive, but, as suggested by UCLA professor and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Jared Diamond, even the most advanced societies can be more fragile than the atmosphere is.”


 

https://www.rmets.org/event/pliocene-last-time-earth-had-400-ppm-atmospheric-co2

The last time carbon dioxide was so plentiful in our planet’s atmosphere was in the Pliocene era, around 3 million years ago. Life on Earth was dominated by giant mammals; humans and chimps had shared their last common ancestor. Although the sun’s force was about the same, the sea levels were 15 metres higher and Arctic summer temperatures were 14 degrees higher than the present day.


 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/warming-temperatures-could-transform-antarctica-plant-filled-land-green-180971880/

Although the rate at which carbon levels have and still are rising suggests Earth will experience an unavoidable temperature uptick of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, this warming is expected to happen gradually over the next several centuries. Large-scale melting capable of elevating sea levels and turning Antarctica’s icy landscape green will, in turn, take closer to a few millennia.

Expanding on this line of thought at the meeting, Francis added, “The really important significance of this is that we’ve got 400 ppm now, and if we had 400 ppm in the past, this is maybe where we are going back to, which is the ice sheets are going to shrink at times … which may allow plants to colonize in Antarctic land again.”

If carbon emissions continue at their current rate, Siegert warns Metro’s Parsons, Earth could reach a staggering 1,000 ppm by 2100. When carbon levels rose to this level during the Cretaceous Period some 100 million years ago, the planet was a very different place: Dinosaurs ruled, for one, but more germanely, Antarctica was far warmer and covered in vast swaths of forest.