Thursday
Oct032013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill GWPF TV
Oct 3, 2013 Climate: WG2 GWPF GWPF has launched couple of videos on extreme weather events. A long version and a short version are embedded below. Benny Peiser was wondering if BH readers would like to comment and/or make suggestions for improvement.
Enjoy.
Reader Comments (81)
Make transcripts for all the videos..
Lots of people won't watch through all of it, but WILL read a transcript.
which if interesting enough to them will get them to watch it.
also a transcript makes it much easier to quote passages
I agree with Barry
I agree with Barry too
Yes, good idea re transcribing these - will add them to my (ever-increasing!) queue, and if anyone else wants to have a go writing these up, will be happy to post them on the mytranscriptbox website.
I like it very much. Hope it gets broad audience.
Why not just ask for the script off David WHitehouse or Ben pile?
I watched all the way through and thought it was very professionally finished. I thought the 20 second sting at the top was too long by twice. Get to the meat and potatoes a bit quicker.
I thought the branded GWPF look carried through from the site very well indeed. Definitely a coherent image across from site to youtube clip.
There are also two full length interviews with Roger Pielke Jr. and Jennifer Francis.
Francis: http://www.thegwpf.org/gwpftv/?tubepress_video=BP2LSIETilQ&tubepress_page=1
Pielke: http://www.thegwpf.org/gwpftv/?tubepress_video=PrZTWHCA5L4&tubepress_page=1
"transcripts" ???
You guys have missed the point of video surely
There are plenty of "transcripts" over at The GWPF
The point of a video is, it's for people who don't or can't read transcripts !
if you can't take it all in chaps, in one go, in real time,
then do remember the videos do have a "pause" button.
additionally I'd say that video is far more attractive to
the "Eastenders" & "Coronation St" viewer, who will
never in their life read any stuffy "transcript".
Prof. Jennifer Francis says that we don't know about older extreme events because of less comprehensive montioring historically. Doesn't this support the complete opposite of what she wants to have us believe? Hurricane index shows less not more activity now than recorded before, but she seems to be saying that there could be additional extreme stuff in the past which were not recorded...which would surely highlight even more starkly that hurricane activity has decreased, not increased. She seems to be talking nonsense on this.
@ Ben Pile
Thanks for these other videos notified by you,
and I'd like to say that viewers can find ten
videos at . . The GWPF's recent YouTube
Channel, including the famous Klaus lecture.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
The use of a child in the opening and closing scenes is distasteful. It might go down a bomb in the US, but my feeling is that through the rest of the anglo-sphere it'll just bomb. It's too close to 10/10 and could well engender the reaction that we're as bad as they are.
I have to agree with Kevin. Never use a child to make a point until it is old enough to know what point it is making.
Kevin -- the use of the child is indeed distasteful. But it's DECC's 'Act on CO2' advert from 2009, which you can see here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dOfBEm5DZU
ThinkingScientist,
I was thinking that. Before there was satellite monitoring, there were aircraft and before that shipping. It seems odd to suggest that hurricanes would have been missed after say 1900 although they wouldn't have been as closely monitored.
And as you say, claiming there are unreported extreme events in the past does not add to the argument that it's getting worse, quite the opposite.
Maybe she was talking about intensity rather than frequency, but that was not the impression I got.
Ben Pile,
Then it might be an idea to make it clear that it's a DECC advert, rather than rely on people having seen it and remembering it as such.
I remember at the time there was considerable comment about how tacky it was to use a child in a scaremongering piece like that.
Cosmic - " it might be an idea to make it clear that it's a DECC advert,"
There is text overlaying the video passage to that effect.
It depends on where this is going to be shown.
For the wider public, say that we might share on Facebook, something about a minute or so long would get a lot more viewers.
And make maximum use of the bottom line that
ALL THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE POINTS TO NO INCREASE IN EXTREME WEATHER AT ALL.
Ben Pile,
I missed it and it looks as if a couple of others, (out of what's presumably a small sample), did too.
I believe it may cause problems if its origin is not pointed out more prominently.
Interesting that Jennifer Francis refers to more intense hurricanes since the 1970's.
Does she not know that, according to NOAA:
During warm phases of the AMO, the numbers of tropical storms that mature into severe hurricanes is much greater than during cool phases, at least twice as many. Since the AMO switched to its warm phase around 1995, severe hurricanes have become much more frequent and this has led to a crisis in the insurance industry.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/facts-about-the-amo/
and
As a result, the North Atlantic experiences alternating decades long (20 to 30 year periods or even longer) of above normal or below normal hurricane seasons. NOAA research shows that the tropical multi-decadal signal is causing the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995, and is not related to greenhouse warming.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/mann-made-hurricanes/
Much as I admire the sentiments behind the videos I don't think they will have any impact where it matters. We need another one hour exposure on one of the mainline TV channels in the vein of the Great Global Warming Swindle. Since that was aired there is enough ammo to produce a 20 part series, but it needs something much more heavy hitting than this to make people sit up and take notice.
What's needed is a laughter track to use whenever the warmists speak. Segments of Wagner's music at the same time might come in useful too.
I spotted the DECC advert immediately, but this is because I recognised it and was incensed by the use of child by DECC to promote something about extreme weather which is simply not supported by facts. DECC's was a propaganda video.
Overall I think the GWPF videos are well put together, professional and business-like. They are also terribly reasonable and low key. That may be the intention, to deliberately aim at a studied and quietly authorative tone, as a contrast to the shrill rhetoric of climate change propaganda. However, I do feel they may be just too reasonable and polite. Perhaps a few more "the data does not support this argument" with the graphic eg for hurricane activity more full on and directly spoken to/described, rather than the slideby as Roger Pielke is talking. I know what he's talking about and I recognised every graph/point, but I am not a normal viewer: I spend far too much time for it to be healthy reading this stuff on the internet and blogging here about it, so I am hardly a representative of the target audience of this video. Some slightly harder messages and clear graphics drawn up to illustrate the points, whilst sticking carefully to the data, might give it more impact.
@ Trivial Pursuit, you make a good point about the modern viewer who is tuned into watching video rather than reading. In my experience, both are useful - the video has impact, and the written words come in handy when focussing on what was said and what information was imparted. Video (and audio) has all the non-verbal signals that are not conveyed by words. Written words, on the other hand, are searchable in a document or by a search engine. The one complements the other, IMHO.
Both very good but I’d not zoom about on the graphs showing hurricane and tornado frequency etc at 2 mins 45 secs in the first video. For two reasons. Firstly it’s a bit optically disorientating for some and that applies to any time it’s used as a technique. I suspect it looks better on the TV than on some computers. I wouldn’t change the other times it’s used but that point is the wrong moment because it doesn’t let the person really study the graphs. It would be better to use a still of the graphs and an enlarged title of what the viewer is looking at, even though Dr Pielke is listing them. It might be worth repeating those graphs at the end, to hammer home the message that those weather events are not getting worse.
I spotted the mistake Prof Jennifer Francis made too.
About the use of the advert from the UK. I certainly recognised it and didn't make the connection that some of the others did. However it might be worth waiting for people to be offended by it because you can then point out that it's the way the consensus decided to convey the issue.
Overall very good and exactly what we've needed.
PS Putting in so much warmist stuff is also excellent use of recycling :-)
I'd say it's pretty much faultless. The weighting is spot-on... not too dry but not dumbed down either. Perhaps some of the web/report headlines panned into could linger a little longer for them to be read and registered.
This and the Topher Field films are exactly what's needed in response to media such as the BBC. In fact, the tone and content of this film reminds me of the high-quality science programming the BBC used to make... once upon a time.
Well done!
Reading Paul Homewood's post above prompted me to think that perhaps a mention of natural cycles (in general) would connect with viewers. I find everyday folk feel very comfortable and accepting of natural cycles and reinforcing this point tends to make them reject CAGW, or place less emphasis on it. And natural cycles are clearly important in hurricanes, ENSO, PDO etc. I also find that in the UK people connect very well with ridule of silly predictions by supposedly clever/competent people or organisations. Eg Met Office failing to predict barbecue summer and series of cold winters.. Its related to the everyday view that the general public holds that clever people with degrees lack commensense about the world about them, or are somehow defficient in the "university of life". Again, this connects well with people, I find.
On Videos versus Transcripts >>>
"The one complements the other, IMHO."
Oct 3, 2013 at 7:02 PM | Alex Cull
+1
but all these people in the interviews, they've made all these points in writing many many many times before. a viewer of the videos may not necessarily know this however, and so I'd recommend that whilst it isn't necessary to provide a full transcript of any of these videos, it may be helpful to have some links to the participants already published voluminous material on the subject discussed in these interviews.
I thought it was fine and see no problem with using the DECC advert which at the time of its transmission I thought was awful.
I was wondering whether a summary of the SREX might make a clear message of the scientific position.
Pielke, Jr.:
"The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC -- they have gotten the issue just about right, where "right" means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest -- sometimes it just takes a little while.
"A few quotable quotes from the report (from Chapter 4):
•"There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change"
•"The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados"
•"The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses" "
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html
Just a word on "Google Searches" people :
They can be misleading in the search page summary.
When I searched to see if there was any "local" news about maybe a group of like minded individuals, what I found was a page of BBC Radio shows, unrelated to my original search. it's worth remembering that Google only searches for words on a page. the summary shows those "words" on the page, but they aren't necessarily in the same sentence, or even in the same article.
eg. I searched for: eastenders against carbon tax (without quotes, and got a page of podcasts where the "eastenders" reference was actually about the olympic games, and Londoner's attitudes to that. The "carbon" reference was about a German factory where carbon fibre running blades are produced for disabled athletes. Then the "tax" reference was about the low tax bills of Google, Starbucks and Amazon triggering political uproar.
So these podcasts were 66% about the Olympic Games, and 33% about Tax Avoidance (1% uncertainty), yet the Google summary gave a different impression as we see below ....
Haha - it turns out that these were all just snippets from the descriptions of the scores of podcasts at that BBC website, and though they assembled themselves, in what appeared to be a sensible summary, of a relevant webpage, it was nothing of the kind. Further repeat searches produced different results, and depending on the punctuation also.
The BBC website had some good podcasts, a mixed bag, and if you want to see the page then copy and paste the url - www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/docarchive/all - in your browser to take you there
There is a lesson here for those who read such documents as the "Summary For Policymakers" of the AR5, isn't there. The quotes may be correct, but they may well be, even likely to be, taken entirely out of context, just like Google is prone to do. Put in your search criteria, and let Google mash it all up for you into ..... Utter Buncombe !
The Prof Jennifer Francis howler will be obvious to most, and suitably embarassing, like the gall of Obama's rhetoric. Even more so, as a climate 'professor'.
I think Pielke's bar charts deserve a full view and 3-4 second freeze to be able to digest them properly because after all they underpin the whole message.
I would think that archive footage clips or even dramatic stills of early extreme events would also have worthwhile dramatic graphical impact to remind the audience that they actually did also happen way back then.
I assume that these videos are intended for a general audience and I think they do an excellent job of informing them. The tone is just right. They are clear and simple to follow. Sadly unless their message is put on one of our main TV channels it will not reach the majority of viewers, but there is not anything we can do about that.
Good job all round. Well done.
Am I mistaken in thinking that GWPF is connected to the Mysterons? Should we be calling Captain Scarlet?
It is remarkable to see that, after decades of warming, people are alarmed that the temperatures now are amongst the highest recorded. I mean… like… wow! These guys are so switched on!
Finally, an extreme weather event is noticed – hurricanes are at an all-time low! Though I have a feeling that that is not the sort of extreme that is sought.
Best to keep videos as short as possible,say, five minutes maximum, Why not have a short and long version? More work but worth it to generate a large audience. Best wishes Mark
@ Oct 3, 2013 at 9:25 PM | Mark Piney
I have to disagree, this would give an impression that "inconvenient" remarks had been edited out.
If any viewer really wants a shorter video, then this is what the progress bar is for.
Move the play point button along the bar to shorten it yourself, or stop at any time.
You can't cram 25 minutes info into 5 minutes of video without serious ommissions.
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Winston Churchill
In the submissions to the HoC Select Committee on Science and Technology, on 'Climate: public understanding and its policy implications' (viz previous thread) for example Kent County Council in its submission find it a very convenient tool for getting their 'message across'
'We have found a key part of making climate change a more immediate concern is to increase our understanding of how we are currently impacted by severe weather events and use this as a conduit to wider discussion on how an increase in occurrence and severity of these events may influence Kent....in addition to saving money we use messages a lot more around severe weather and its implications. That is, we are not currently as well prepared as we could be and the need to plan better for flooding, drought, heat waves etc...We have found a key part of making climate change a more immediate concern, not just for the public but for our own services, is to increase our understanding of how we are currently impacted by severe weather events across our organisation and those of our partners. To this end we have
developed SWIMS to capture the impacts and responses as and when severe weather events occur.'
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidencePdf/1887
Channel 4 also have a submission full of it.
With the
31:35
Ross McKitrick interview, he is promoting a "neutral" Carbon Tax,
and proposes some convoluted mechanism whereby this would
be linked to rises (or falls) in actual temperatures.
He further then goes on to explain that trading of "carbon futures" would be sensible.
This trading in obscured derivatives is what brought the World's economies to the
brink of collapse, and has nothing to do with "science", and it's search for truth !
Therefore I cannot support Ross McKitrick in this latest quest.
It has nothing to do with science. It has nothing to do with climate change.
McKitrick interview - www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdsZSq5jb6U
As usual I am to be the party pooper but I do it for the cause. I think the 14 min video shoots itself in the foot in a number of ways. How many well qualified people appeared in the video supporting the alarmist view and how many arguing against it? It virtually mirrors the claim that there is a consensus among scientists, only Roger Pielke speaks against. The video is not hard hitting at any point, it is relaxed. Prof Whitehouse is great in my book but not on a video, Pielke however is perfect. I support the effort totally but not this video.,
There needed to be a big "hook" at the start of the video to make people want to view more, it did not happen. Show this to a sales and marketing guy and he will not stop laughing. We are supposed to be selling the idea of alarmist scientists distorting the science, not offering it as a possible option.
I thought a well produced and informative video. While there are a few minor quibbles, it stands well enough as is.
I recommend to juxtapose claims by speakers that links of extremes with co2 are "obvious" with exact quotes form AR5 to show how their comments disagree with the 'consensus'.
Congratulations to Ben, David & Benny - I think they're spot on.
Serious, truthful, easy to follow and fairly comprehensive.
I think it's up to all of us to disseminate them through social media etc - especially to local and national politicians.
Their strongest point is that they're just about simple enough for the average pol to understand without having to run off and seek "expert" advice.
More please!
ThinkingScientist wrote:
'Prof. Jennifer Francis says that we don't know about older extreme events because of less comprehensive montioring historically. Doesn't this support the complete opposite of what she wants to have us believe? Hurricane index shows less not more activity now than recorded before, but she seems to be saying that there could be additional extreme stuff in the past which were not recorded...which would surely highlight even more starkly that hurricane activity has decreased, not increased. She seems to be talking nonsense on this.'
She is.
"Evidence supporting ‘colder = more severe weather’ comes from an earlier century: careful analysis of the ships’ logs of the British Navy based in the Caribbean between 1701 and 1750 (during the latter part of the Little Ice Age) have shown there were three times as many major hurricanes per year than between 1950 and 1998." ('While the Earth Endures', p134)
On the second piece I am not convinced by the speaker too drone-like. He also sounds as if he is recording the voiceover in a toilet.
Also when Obama and Professor Francis mention the particular extremes in their speeches it would be good to provide the relevant graph as an inset on the screen. Even if it is mentioned more than once. Waiting until the end of their speech and calmly mentioning they are wrong is nowhere near powerful enough.
The video is a very clear and reasonable counter to the scare stories and images of CAGW.
However the images and words of the 'dirty weather' propaganda shown in the video are cleverly designed to be semi-subliminally accepted by an unquestioning public. There are more negative images both pictures and headlines than positive, even though they are simply being used to illustrate grotesquely exaggerated future climate scenarios.
The positive images are graphs and spoken words which, though they successfully refute baseless propaganda, may not be sufficiently memorable to the average person seeking reassurance from the doomsayers.
The following video about presentation explains that where information is spoken we remember only about 10% three days later. But if a picture is added we remember some 65%.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIK6xBGSOXw
Perhaps the GWPF could consider giving the graphs more prominence. Together with additional reassuring pictures or diagrams these should be the the predominant images in the videos. But that is just my opinion.
Those who are genuinely fearful of the CAGW scare stories are similar to hypochondriacs who need more than just reassurance.
"Hypochondriacs become unduly alarmed about any physical symptoms they detect, no matter how minor the symptom may be. They are convinced that they have....a serious illness.
"Often, hypochondria persists even after a physician has evaluated a person and reassured them that their concerns about symptoms do not have an underlying medical basis or, if there is a medical illness, their concerns are far in excess of what is appropriate for the level of disease."
Substitute hypochondriacs for those fearful of CAGW, and reassuring doctors for scientists trying to explain that the actual data, as opposed to models, shows no signs of anthropogenic influence on the climate. In both cases the problem is how to get people to accept reality based on the evidence and to give up their irrational fears.
Dear Dung, I don't agree. Whitehouse is great. Tremendous. His BBC training comes across well, and I mean that in a good way. This type of report is what Panorama and Newsnight should have done. Well done Whitehouse and Pile and a message for the BBC; watch a learn and see what you've been missing.
By and large a good professional job, I would say.
Whitehouse's voice is excellent, quite melodious. But his PC/webcam&lighting make him look a bit like Rab C.Nesbitt (I probably look the same when I've just woken up).
It's probably worth emphasising that Pielke Jr., like Lomborg, largely accept much of the consensus dogma, but is arguing against swallowing the poisonous à la carte prescriptions being pushed.
On the science, I really would to see someone laying the smack down on this all-too-frequent "x of the last y years have been the warmest since date z". Yes!! Wakey, wakey!! We are living in a 'warm' period very similar to the Medieval warm period, the Roman warm period, and the Minoan warm period, etc. When you live in a warm period, guess what?... you get more warmth. Every frickin' July (in the Northern hemisphere) you can expect to get more warm days clustered together since, well, since last frickin' July. There are warm and cold cycles that last for decades, centuries and millennia in the historical record. When you get a typical summer day in January, then that would be remarkable.
That's my rant done for a while.
I would like to see the Roger Pielke Jr. BS button on the screen. I would also like to see a fact check ticker at the bottom that states that although 'they believe and have faith' all observed data show that this is not occurring. It should be emphasized that while all observations indicate a decrease or plateau, each and every year workers in the 'Green Industries' increase their stated belief and faith that catastrophic anthropogenic events are actually happening and increasing inspite of observed data(although they do put the caveat that it is a tragedy that we cannot find it).
BTW: How is it possible that the deep oceans, despite all instrumental observations can magically hide both catastrophic temperature accumulation and sea level rise rates?
I agree with needing a hook. I found the 2nd vid a bit abstract and academic. Fine for an audience familiar with the issues but not for a general audience.
The hook I'd use is reference to historical weather events, eg the most powerful hurricane was back in 1780. The most powerful tropical cyclone was in the 1970s, the 1930 dustbowl drought, in 1975 Australia had bushfires 10 times larger than any year since.