According to this article at Texas Monthly, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe is “trying to connect with the very people who most doubt her research”. So I thought I’d have look at how she was trying to connect on twitter:

hayho1

It seems I’m not alone:

 

Once you get beyond the demonstrably false claim in the sub-head, the article provides plenty of examples of the misrepresentations of the truth commonly employed by the activist wing of climate science and their cheerleaders in the media.  Hayhoe is notorious for her misleading claims, some of them documented here and here.

At Cliscep we are keen to correct climate misinformation, so our rapid-response crusher crew team member Brad leaped into action and picked up on one particular falsehood in the article, the claim that 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is “real, caused by humans, and dangerous”.

He even managed to get support from climate science heavyweight Richard Betts.

As well as the bogus claims, the article has some comical ironies; for example, just after the blatant untruth mentioned above, the author of the article Sonia Smith asks “So why is climate science greeted with so much skepticism?”   It’s a mystery.

The whole article could do with a thorough fisking. Perhaps readers could point out some of the most prominent porkies, and we’ll summarise them in a future post?

Update:

The article has been slightly modified in response to Brad’s complaint. But it still makes the claim that Today, there is robust scientific consensus that global warming is “real, caused by humans, and dangerous”. 

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91 Comments

  1. It’s been suggested that my appeal to divine vigilance may have been in poor taste.

    Let me respond to these attacks as follows.

    No, I can assure readers that no taste was involved whatsoever.

    It was pure science. I don’t mean ordinary science (science science), I mean the even higher science that is the science of science communication (h/t Kahan). Communicating the facts is not enough; if we ever hope to reach Hayhoe and the other lumpen millions who reject the facts about climate, we’re going to have to connect with them on a values level too. Hence the cheap shot at the Professor’s flyover-state Biblical literalism.

    Science.

    Like

  3. Bob Johnston,

    Can you really blame Hayhoe for blocking a denier who uses offensive epithets like “warmist”?

    When we stoop to using hate speech against a scientist, or even against a climate scientist, they can’t help question our faith. Are we engaged ingenuously? Do we even want to be convinced there’s a problem?

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Richard,

    Let’s just hope that Hayhoe doesn’t believe in a Schneiderian God who demands effectiveness before integrity.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. An example of Katherine Hayhoe’s errors.

    The number of billion-dollar weather disasters in the United States had ballooned from one or two per year in the eighties to eight to twelve today, Hayhoe explained as she pulled up a slide with a map of the country.

    You cannot compare assess financial costs over long periods for a number of reasons. Insured costs tend to outpace property price inflation, which tends to outpace general inflation. Also, the population of Texas is growing. To understand the human impacts of storms over time needs a method of allowing for these factors. Roger Pielke Jr, Christopher W. Landsea and others have developed the normalized costs of hurricanes. For instance here in for the 1900-2012. There is no trend in damage costs in the USA.

    Over periods of decades, it is like comparing different countries. For instance the 2012 Superstorm Sandy that hit New York State had damage costs of $25bn, compared with just $1.5bn for 1991 Bangladesh cyclone. The numbers of dead paint a very different picture of the severity. 285 as against 138,000.

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  7. Well done Brad and others for getting Richard Betts involved. The Met Office man has a track record of integrity on this and his follow up

    having said that, the majority of climate sci’s in my own personal experience think AGW is a major problem

    kindly created an open goal for Barry Woods:

    You would think someone would have bothered to survey scientists about that, by now.

    If they weren’t committed to their own version of heavenly deception that is.

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  11. “If the climate were changing because of the sun, we’d be getting cooler, because energy from the sun has been going down over the last forty years,” she said.

    9th Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness.

    Like

  12. hayhoe is a serial Ninth-Commandment-breaker also, as she bears false witness against skeptics all the time.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. @BradPKeyes Sure, @sonia_smith please note: Cook’s 97% refers to consensus on human influence on warming, not whether it’s dangerous (1/2)

    Exactly right, and exactly what I was pointing out earlier.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Jaime, according to your graph, you’d have to go back before about 1950 to find a positive trend in TSI between then and now. Since 1950 the straight-line trend from any cycle is all negative. That may or may not mean much, but similar straight-line trends are the bread and butter of “skepticism and the (ex)”pause”. Are “skeptics” similarly breaking the Ninth-Commandment (whatever that is)?

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  15. Raff,
    You are showing your ignorance.
    Of the factors I mentioned the billion dollar events only allow for the consumer prices index. Unlike normalized costs they do not allow for
    1. Population growth
    2. Greater insurance coverage. Insurance coverage rises with real income.
    3. The relative rise in property prices. For homes this is partly due to increase in quality.
    4. A short time period – from 1980.
    5. An arbitrary single level. In the UK you could try to track house prices by the number sold above £1,000,000 at constant 2011 prices. As real house prices have increased massively in real terms since 1980 – especially at the top end – the resulting graph would be far more dramatic than the real average house price.

    In another respect it can understate the variability. For instance in 2005 there were 5 $bn+ events, and in 2006 6. The costs went from $175bn to $10-15bn. 2005 was the year of Katrina that swamped New Orleans. That cost would have been far less (and many lives saved) if the local government has maintained the levees. But disasters are always outside of the control of government.

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  16. Manic, you might be right that the numbers change if instead of using raw data you instead adjust it for various factors. As a “skeptic”, adjusting data probably goes against the grain for you, so that must hurt. But Hayhoe is probably using the NOAA data and it shows clearly what she claimed. It may be wrong, but that is not Hayhoe’s error.

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  17. Hayhoe is making an interesting play, combining climate imperialism with religious fervor. Note that 19th century imperialists avoided tough questions about their claims of the “white man’s burden”. After all, they had vast fortunes to make by bringing enlightenment to the dark continent.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. It is transparent bad faith to not use constant dollar amounts for losses from storms, or anything else, for that matter. It is also ridiculously deceptive to ignore the economic and population growth that has resulted in more targets for weather to impact.
    The graphs Raff relies on, use both forms of deception explicitly.

    Like

  20. Person,

    ‘Exactly right, and exactly what I was pointing out earlier.’

    Yep, this was a team effort—Paul is far too kind in singling me out in the original post. There’s no “I” in crusher crew.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. Richard:
    ‘kindly created an open goal for Barry Woods:
    You would think someone would have bothered to survey scientists about that, by now.’

    I believe von Storch has done exactly that. Nobody talks about it, but that’s only because his study didn’t get the desired answer.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Brad: There have been loads of surveys that have made the ‘dangerous distinction’, or something like it, over the years. They never got anywhere near 97% of experts to say they thought man-made warming was dangerous, of course. So it’s Cook and co that are trotted out, plus the lie about what was really shown, as done here and now ‘clarified’.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Raff,
    You’re nitpicking and engaging in diversionary tactics yet again, which seems to be your mo. There is a clear upward trend from 1970 to about 1995, which is coincident with the most rapid period of late 20th century warming. There is a clear upward trend from 1940-1995. In the late 1990s solar activity tails off rapidly. So if Hayhoe was being honest, she would say warming since 1995 can’t be the sun. But of course, whaddya know, most of that period we have been stuck in a Pause in global warming which climate scientists have done their best to either deny or magic away. Warming 1940-95, warming 1970-95, warming even 1810-1995, according to Lean’s reconstruction, most obviously ‘could’ have been at least partly due to increasing solar activity. So Hayhoe has born false witness to data and to science. As such, she has transgressed the moral code of her Christian religion and the ethics of her chosen career; and this is not an isolated incident by any means. Like Cook the Christian ‘scientist’, Hayhoe the Christian scientist is a comprehensive fraud.

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  26. Raff
    Yes, Smith and Katz also indicate the trends are not statstically significant:

    Given the increasing trends in yields attributable to technological innovation and given fluctuations in price, it is difficult to attribute any part of the trends in losses to climate variations or change, especially in the case of billion-dollar disasters.

    Normalization techniques for exposure have been limited by the lack of data on a relevant spatial scale. Yet a number of studies have concluded that population growth, increased value of property at risk and demographic shifts are major factors behind the increasing losses from specific types of natural hazards (Downton et al. 2005; Brooks and Doswell 2001). The magnitude of such increasing trends is greatly diminished when applied to data normalized for exposure (Pielke et al. 2008).

    For instance, at least borderline statistically significant trends in the aggregate annual loss from tropical cyclones (Barthel and Neumayer 2012), as well as in the frequency of damaging events (Katz 2010) and in the loss from individual storms (Nordhaus 2010) have been obtained.

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  28. Manic,

    There is a clear upward trend from 1970 to about 1995, which is coincident with the most rapid period of late 20th century warming.

    Do you really think so? That is championship level cherry picking. Well done.

    Richard, yes, that is true. But as always, lack of statistical significance doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

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  29. Hayhoe claims that “In the past fifty years, temperatures in Texas have risen half a degree per decade”.
    Here’s the GISS graph for her home, Lubbock:

    Here’s a rural site in Texas. The raw data shows cooling, and after the adjustments it’s flat.

    The second half of the sentence claims that Texas temperatures
    “are set to rise at least 3.5 degrees by mid-century if global emissions aren’t slashed”.
    Mid-century is only 35 years away so that’s a claim of at least 1 degree per decade.

    Liked by 2 people

  32. Raff 26 Apr 16 at 1:45 pm
    Where do I make that remark? You are trolling so hard you do not stop to think.

    Raff 26 Apr 16 at 3:07 pm
    Even if it is Fahrenheit, it is still ridiculous. 3.5F=1.94C. That is a warming rate of 5.5C per century, or about 6.5C above pre-industrial levels.

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  33. I looked up the temperature data for Texas from Berkeley Earth. Since 1960, the trend has been 2.15C/century. So, just over 1C in 50 years. That works out at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or just under 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade (about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade). From here projections for Texas are:

    The “lower emissions” scenario assumed a “substantial reduction” in greenhouse gas emissions and a temperature increase by the end of the century of 3 to 5 F; the higher emissions scenario assumed continued increases in emissions, leading to a 5 to 10 F increase by 2100.

    so, 3.5 Fahrenheit by mid century is not impossible if we continue along a high emission pathway.

    Of course, I suspect it’s easier for people here to assume bad faith, accuse Katharine Hayhoe of being misleading, and wonder why you get blocked. Personally, I’d block you too. Oh, hold on, I have. In fact, I think I may have blocked most of those associated with this site. If I’ve missed anyone, feel free to get in touch on Twitter and I’ll happily rectify the situation.

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  35. Raff gets funnier by the day….so now he snarks about “adjusted” data being taboo for sceptics, or is it the concept of “models”? Of course, the real answer is that sceptical folk have no problems with models and adjustments, in fact they see the necessity of them and most of them have built or audited or adjusted them in the course of their careers, which often involved far higher stakes than this climate bullshit. However, when those models and adjustments are done by pclimate pscientists, then all trust flies out of the window. Remind us Raff how was the TOBs adjustment computed and ascertained and verified? What about the rigorous methodology behind the “bucket adjestments”? Surely those adjustments weren’t just pulled out of pclimate psientists’ bums, together with their suppositories.

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  36. Manic, wrong “skeptic”, sorry.

    Jaime said:
    There is a clear upward trend from 1970 to about 1995, which is coincident with the most rapid period of late 20th century warming.

    Do you really think so? That is championship level cherry picking. Well done.

    Man in a Barrel, so you have never seen “skeptics” saying only the raw data will do, eh? Or you perhaps just don’t want to be associated with such idiocy and pretend it doesn’t happen.

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  37. Raff,

    Dismissing your bizarre and unfounded accusation of cherry-picking and ignoring your inverted commas, do you deny that Hayhoe’s comment that energy from the Sun has been going down over the last 40 years is patently false?

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  38. Jaime, everyone knows that TSI has fallen in the latest solar cycle. Equally, your graph shows average TSI to be about 0.4 W/m2 below its value 40 years ago (or 50, etc). Does that equate to “going down” for 40 years? Depends upon context. I know, many skeptics don’t understand context. But if she was responding to something along the lines of “climate change is caused by the sun”, I’d say her response was spot on.

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  40. PAUL MATTHEWS @ 26 Apr 16 at 2:51 pm
    Katherine Hayhoe is an Assistant Professor (Senior Lecturer in UK?) of Political Science, but has a first degree in physics and astronomy, with Masters and PhD in Atmospheric Science. Whilst Asst Prof. Hayhoe no formal academic qualifications in political science, in the world of climatology it is belief in catastrophism and evangelical communication that matter. In these she appears to be extremely able.

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  42. Hayhoe hasn’t been a resident of Texas long enough to know anything about Texas Climate; i.e., long term Texas weather patterns. Perhaps if she had resided in various parts of the state for >40 years like I have, she might tone down her alarmist cries of AGW induced, long-term drought and extreme heat waves in Texas. Tony Heller periodically pokes fun of her on his blog (realclimatescience.com) and cites real evidence (data) to back up his claims, not model generated garbage like Hayhoe. IMO Hayhoe could benefit from a premium subscription to Weatherbell Analytics — she might learn something about historical weather patterns.

    Oh, and by the way, just a week ago we experienced historic flooding in Southeast Texas where I currently reside, and Weatherbell is predicting another round of Texas flooding next week. Time will tell. I’ll place my money on someone who has to call the shots correctly with a high degree of accuracy in order to be paid rather than a lackey who is paid to endorse a political policy.

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  43. perhaps it is your tone..

    I asked Katie to correct her climate slides a while back, she had used the 300k climate deaths figure. I provided evidence, and had a bit of cli sci back up, and she removed the slide. And she was generous in my run in with Peter Gleick, some of her tweets are frustrating, but no doubt some of mine are too.

    Not blocked

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  44. not blocked.. and Katie also follows me.

    Katie, primarily hears very vocal, sometime very ignorant responses from ill informed rude USA members of the public. and I have seen and condemned some of the vile mail she gets (Morano gets similar, his attitude is that is how it is, ignore it) I’m sure she would welcome corrections, like many scientists she perhaps takes other scientist work/information too much on trust/good faith sometimes (ie 300k climate deaths, but that was widely cited, by other scientists at the time aswell.

    All I think, need more scepticism to take a closer look, relative to how large the press release is for any new paper/report

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  45. Thanks Barry. It’s difficult to know exactly why people are blocked.
    She has tweeted
    “I don’t block people for disagreeing with me. I block them for being jerks.”
    which is a bit ironic given that the title of the article is ‘unfriendly climate’.

    There has been a slight modification to the article following Brad’s complaint.
    It now says
    “Today, there is robust scientific consensus that global warming is “real, caused by humans, and dangerous”; a study found that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and many scientific organizations have issued statements that it is a threat.*”
    I have added an update to the post.

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  46. Yes Raff. There’s no half way. Either what she said is false or it’s not. Technically, she would be correct in asserting that there was a downward trend in TSI from 1976-2016 (40 years). But that’s different from saying that TSI has been going down over the last 40 years and using this statement as ‘proof’ that ‘it can’t be the sun’. Because ‘context’ – to which you appeal to suggest that Hayhoe was not peddling falsehoods – reveals the reality. It reveals that average TSI rose 2.2 W/m2 from 1810-1984, dropping only slightly by 0.1m/m2 in 1995, after which it dropped precipitously. ‘Context’ reveals that the sun remained generally very active (with minor ups and downs) from 1950-1995, actually increasing slightly in overall activity over that period.
    ‘Context’ thus reveals that the sun has significantly increased its output from 1810-1950, whereafter it maintained a very high level of activity for the next 45 years, only dropping significantly after 1995, which – ‘miraculously’ is almost coincident with the 18 year long Pause (allowing for the interruption caused by the massive 1997/98 El Nino).
    An honest scientist (and Christian) would not have uttered the falsehood which Hayhoe did and they would not have neglected to provide the ‘context’ above whilst using their false utterance to declare that ‘it’ (and by this it is clear from the text that she meant the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution) cannot be the sun.
    So I would suggest she is not trying to connect with sceptics, she is trying to convince the more gullible ones that man-made climate change is real and ‘dangerous’ and pre-eminent. This is why she immediately blocks the less gullible ones who ask awkward questions (myself included).

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  47. Barry, I’m surprised she has not blocked you. You have obviously been gracious enough not to quiz her on too many awkward points. I certainly don’t think it’s ‘tone’ or the fact that she only blocks jerks because as I recall, my exchange with her was brief and to the point (and part of a wider conversation as I remember), but she still blocked me. That’s not communication; that’s censoring of divergent opinion.

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  48. Barry (7:57 am), Prof Hayhoe (Katie to you!) has not received any vile treatment hereabouts. Given the potential for social harm that comes with going overboard on human-caused climate threats, I think we are being impressively gentle. She may well be genuine, and not a schemer. I think that seems more than likely. But she is in the public square, adding her bit to the considerable commotion already there about our impact on climate. It is not unreasonable for her related views, and her related actions to be subject to critical review.

    Liked by 1 person

  49. “Today, there is robust scientific consensus that global warming is “real, caused by humans, and dangerous”; a study found that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and many scientific organizations have issued statements that it is a threat.*”

    If that’s not a weasely, devious, connivingly constructed two sentence attempt to convince 97% of readers that there is an overwhelming consensus that global warming (aka climate change) is real and dangerous, then I’m the Queen of Sheba.

    Liked by 1 person

  50. Jaime, I’m coming round to the view that you’re NOT the Queen of Sheba, now that I think about the way that semicolon is used. It seems to be contrived to segue seamlessly from the robust scientific consensus mentioned in the first clause to the Magic Number in the second. As if 97 percent of climate scientists endorse the quoted description. If that’s the writer’s intention it’s sleazy weaselry indeed. I haven’t had the time/interest to read the whole article, but if you have, did you get a mustelid vibe from Sonia Smith?

    Liked by 1 person

  51. John, you’re too chivalrous:

    ” [Hayhoe] may well be genuine ”

    No, not if she’s blocking critics for being critical. Such behavior betrays her guilty knowledge of the weakness of her own position. No intellectually honest person runs from inconvenient questions. At a hypothetical Climate Nuremberg Hague, Hayhoe will have no recourse to a plea of ignorance, because the truly ignorant—people like David Appell and Greg Laden—are clueless enough to think they can debate us and win. For them the ostrich manoeuvre is a third or fourth resort, not a first resort.

    Liked by 1 person

  52. Hmm.

    I’ve just read Barry’s experiences with Hayhoe (upthread). If those are representative, then I ought to be more chivalrous.

    Need more information. Shutting my mouth now.

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  53. Brad, when do you think it is right to block a commenter from a blog?

    Jaime, “Technically, she would be correct…” – I rest my case.

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  55. Raff,

    Jaime, “Technically, she would be correct…” – I rest my case.

    What case? You haven’t really made one.Vague intimations about ‘context’ etc. but you haven’t made any definitive statement either way re. Hayhoe’s comments.

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  56. That saying TSI has been falling for 40 years is not wrong. As you say, it is technically correct.

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  57. No longer content with merely blocking climate sceptics, the top climate communicator who claims to be trying to connect with people who disagree with her is now encouraging other people to block:

    Unfortunately for her, the person she encouraged to block is unconvinced that anyone was a ‘jerk’

    https://twitter.com/MADEmattEB/status/725136228505378816

    Liked by 2 people

  58. Raff,

    So you do deny that Hayhoe was bearing false witness to data and science, plus you falsely assert that I said her statement was technically correct! Thanks. No need to waste any more time on this.

    Like

  59. Hayhoe needs to watch Joe Bastardi’s daily update (4/27) on Weatherbell today. She might learn something about the cyclic patterns of drought in Texas.

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  61. Raff,

    “Brad, when do you think it is right to block a commenter from a blog?”

    Given that I haven’t made any move to block you or (more to the point) ATTP, the answer is obviously “almost never.”

    Liked by 3 people

  62. As I gaze idly at the clock on the wall, it reminds me that there is a more effective policy than blocking – the not giving of the time of the day – which I really must adopt more regularly in Raff’s case.

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  63. Christopher Hitchens’ talk on free speech, the one that was filmed at “Hogwarts'” and starts with his crying “Fire!” in a Basil Fawlty voice, is pretty much the last word on the censorship dilemma as far as I’m concerned. Well, it’s not actually the last word—but all subsequent words have been comparatively stupid.

    Liked by 1 person

  64. Given that I haven’t made any move to block you or (more to the point) ATTP, the answer is obviously “almost never.”

    You got that the wrong way round. ATTP is a physicist, someone who understands the subject in a way that few others here are ever likely to. Blocking him would be stupid, unless you are afraid of people who know more than you. I on the other hand am just a jerk who enjoys a good argument. I have no deep knowledge to contribute (though probably more than many contributors) and blocking me would be no great loss.

    But if you think blocking people is a no-no, why do you think many skeptic blogs block critical comments so enthusiastically? Commenting at Homewood’s blog is pointless as one gets just one shot and no comeback. Mearns blocks people who disagree with him too much. Manic blocks ATTP. Ever Roy Spencer has been known to block.

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  65. In fact Spencer turned off comments all together after getting hacked-off with one “skeptical” commenter. Was that censorship? If Hayhoe not wanting to deal with jerks on her feed is condemned as censorship, surely turning off comment completely demands outrage by the likes of you!

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  66. Hayhoe wants to connect in the way missionaries wanted to connect with rude natives. She wants to give them the WORD and them to fall down in sudden understanding of how unworthy they are and be passionate converts. Or worse, she’s like early scientists who wrote about the world without actually ever moving from their desk, sure that their superior knowledge would correctly categorise the things others sent them.

    Liked by 1 person

  67. I shouldn’t have to explain this but some people, or rather one person, seems so stupid, so I will try to explain it again. The dishonesty of the Heyhoe article is that she’s blocking loads of people while it claims she’s trying to communicate with the people who most disagree with her. That’s what makes it so dishonest.

    [Comment edited as it’s not clear who wrote that part]

    Liked by 2 people

  68. IMO, Hayhoe has a large splinter in her eye:
    Matthew 7:3: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

    Hayhoe brandishes herself as a “Climate Change Evangelist”. I’m not joking:

    When she addresses groups of evangelical Christians as a Climate Scientist, she also flaunts her religion. During her science presentations, she includes Bible quotes, especially from Genesis and parts of the New Testament referencing love. Her intent is basically “to convert” attendees into believing in anthropogenic global warming…essentially as a matter of faith since these are generally non-scientific people. She is not just mixing religion and science as she presumes; rather she is flagrantly mixing religion and politics. Hayhoe is a Climate Scientist who is fully funded by the US Government to study Global Warming, and what she is doing is employing her religion to gain public support for a government science policy. She is acting as a spokeswoman for the government in the name of her religion. That is a big “No, no”.
    Mark 12:17: Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

    I wonder if she opens or closes her presentations with a prayer to God or one to Caesar.

    Liked by 1 person

  69. The dishonesty of Heyhoe is that she’s blocking loads of people while claiming to be trying to communicate with the people who most disagree with her. That’s what makes her a dishonest hypocritical liar.

    A dishonest hypocritical liar, eh? And you were perhaps wondering why someone dubbed you the most unpleasant person on the internet (or some similar)?

    You statement is true only if you consider yourselves to be those who “most disagree with her”, as opposed to those who want most to pester (badger, hound, harry, bother, etc. choose the verb you like) her. I doubt you are those who most disagree with her, unless you reject most or all of climate science – many she talks to doubtless do. But perhaps you really do. Do you want to have a little poll of who disagrees most? Let’s start with the greenhouse effect, that has to be the starting block for those who “most disagree”. You’d have to be particularly stupid or ignorant to do so, but who here rejects the greenhouse effect?

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  70. Raff, most people who reject all climate science have no idea who she is and care even less. They are unlikely to read a word she writes so are unlikely to need banning. She, like most warmists think that they just have to find the right way to convey their message for it to be successful, where in fact it is the message that is lacking in persuasive power. The closest they came to a winning argument was Al Gore’s movie – pity it turned out to be deeply flawed. The obsession with consensus is an admission that there is no new set of facts that might have a better impact than An Inconvenient Truth.

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  71. As far as I can tell, Katharine Hayhoe did not actually say “trying to connect with the very people who most doubt her research”. It was a sub-heading on the article. However, don’t let that stop you all from maligning her publicly. That would be too much to expect.

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  72. Paul just tells it like it is and for this he was labeled by a certain person as the most unpleasant person on the internet – because there’s nothing more unpleasant than the truth when you don’t want to hear it. Brad is vying for Paul’s position because he’s doing what Paul does but with more barbed commentary straying occasionally into graphic insult. My ‘Hayhoe the Christian scientist is a comprehensive fraud’ is at least as good as Paul’s ‘hypocritical liar’, but I understand that Paul has past form and Brad is compiling an impressive catalogue of anti-warmist vitriol, so I’m content not to be in the running for ‘meanest sceptic’, even on this one blog!

    Liked by 1 person

  73. “However, don’t let that stop you all from maligning her publicly. That would be too much to expect.”

    A ‘scientist’ who distorts facts, who “does not care whether people agree with the science, so long as they take action” and who ludicrously compares economically and environmentally damaging climate mitigation measures to the washing of one’s hands ‘just in case’ the germ theory of disease was actually true deserves to be publicly maligned and even ridiculed.

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  75. True Ken. That might often be the case. But I guess that ‘like it is’ must be independent of the observer; thus some people get it right, other people get it wrong, unless reality truly is that flexible.

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  76. ATTP, you’re right, she’s trying to connect with people who have never heard her arguments. Now few people will have heard her but there can’t be many who haven’t heard her arguments. At what point do warmists admit that they aren’t working? Putting it down to denial, is in itself denial. People have far more complex reasons for rejecting it, not least that there is very little discussed about what people are supposed to do about it other than tick a box saying they believe. People aren’t going to sign a blank cheque for a poorly proved, unlimited liability issue.

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  77. Jaime,
    Or, alternatively, what you do if you’re a moderately decent person is to say what you believe without actually calling people “dishonest, hypocritical, liars”, especially if you’re doing so based on something they apparently haven’t even said.

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  78. Ken, how else would you describe someone who habitually blocks people who simply politely disagree with her and challenge her opinions and who then maintains that she only blocks “jerks”? Hypocritical, dishonest and liar would seem to be appropriate adjectives in this case, unless she genuinely believes that all those who disagree with her point of view are jerks. She might not have said that she’s trying to connect with the people who disagree with her most – though her actions belie that claim. She definitely did say that she only blocks jerks.

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  79. how else would you describe someone who habitually blocks people who simply politely disagree with her and challenge her opinions and who then maintains that she only blocks “jerks”?

    I would describe her as simply saying it like it is. I’ve blocked a good number of the same people and I find it hard to disagree with her description.

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  80. Having seen Katherine Hayhoe in action, she really doesn’t mean well informed professionals when she talks about wanting to connect. Like many evangelicals she wants to convert the poor and stupid. Unfortunately for her, that type of mug is rapidly vanishing and isn’t about to form a crusading army against fossil fuels, no matter how dumb they are.

    Liked by 1 person

  81. Well, thank you for making that clear Ken. Basically, you are of the opinion that anybody who questions dangerous man-made global warming is a “jerk”. I’m sure that will endear you further to Brad and Paul – and the rest of the climate change sceptic blogosphere. Go forth and conquer with that attitude Ken, if you think you can.

    Liked by 1 person

  82. Jaime,

    Basically, you are of the opinion that anybody who questions dangerous man-made global warming is a “jerk”.

    This isn’t what I said and isn’t my opinion. I’m also not trying to endear myself to anyone.

    Like

  83. It’s difficult to interpret your comments in any other light, but I’ll go for the safe option then and interpret your comments to mean that you consider many people who question man-made global warming as jerks, even when they do not specifically behave according to that appellation.

    Liked by 1 person

  84. Jaime,
    My comment was simple. Katharine Hayhoe said “I don’t block people because they disagree, but I do when they are jerks”. All I was saying was that given who I know to have been blocked by Katharine Hayhoe, I find it hard to disagree. I’ve blocked many of the same people for the same reason. I don’t know if you’ve been blocked by her, but if you have and you think I was referring to you then I apologise, as I was not.

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  85. Yes, she did block me as I said above Ken and I realise you were not referring to me. It’s just I believe she has blocked quite a few people who have not been unreasonable in questioning her point of view. They can’t be all jerks surely.

    Like

  86. Pingback: The calibre of climate “skepticism” | …and Then There's Physics

  88. Jaime,

    I do hope my vitriol doesn’t come off as anti-warmist per se. I have always tried to save my spleen, choler and bile for the subset of warmists who deserve it: the ‘believalists,’ my term for the religiose, mendacious and irrational catastrophists.

    Liked by 2 people

  89. That is quite a large subset if truth be told – perhaps not as high as 99.9% though. Which brings me to the ever-so-nice Katie who re-asserts:

    “I don’t block people on twitter for disagreeing with me; but I do block them for being jerks”.

    Thus, by logical deduction, she thinks me (along with a good few other people, I’ll wager) a jerk for politely questioning her point of view, or she is a liar. I tend to the former; that her missionary zeal has blinded her to the fact that not all savages – those being the native doubters of the Holy Science of Global Warming – are jerks if they obviously cannot be easily converted from their primitive belief in scientific evidence.

    Like

  90. “if they obviously cannot be easily converted from their primitive belief in scientific evidence.”

    Ha! So you admit your blind faith in evidence is just that: a belief!
    /sarc

    Like

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