I first interviewed Dr. Alun Hubbard on the edge of the Watson River in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland last summer. His vivid language and lucid storytelling made that video on of the most popular in the Yale Series. (see below)
Both Dr. Hubbard, and my Dark Snow Project cohort, Sara Penrhyn Jones, live in Aberystwyth, on the coast of Wales, and teach at Aberystwyth University. I skyped with Alun a week or so ago in the midst of the storms hammering the area. Shortly after that he wrote me to explain that his roof had just blown off in hurricane force winds.
Sara was kind enough to shoot some video of the surf pounding the area, and she caught up with Hubbard long enough for a colorful and well informed take on a sentinel weather event.
I’ll cut together some of Aluns’ further remarks that did not make this video in the next day or so – see Hubbard’s Greenland interview below:
Should provide some math. Having three one hundred year weather events coming in the same year would occur by chance? One in a million. Not good betting odds, but that’s what the climate deniers are doing. In the video here we don’t have a “one in a million” scenario. We have a one in a billion scenario. So it’s one in a billion that climate change ISN’T happening. Only the science illiterates (who probably didn’t think smoking was bad for them 40 years ago) could buy into this Koch Brothers crapola.
some well known climate skeptics have been famously skeptical about tobacco science as well.
Indeed, a lot of the skeptics (and indeed a frequenter here) seems to consider every extreme event just a random event – its happened before – kind of thinking. Sure its happened before – but when you get records and 100 year – 500 year events happening every decade it really does tell us that we are experiencing a major shift. The “alarm” does not lie in a single event on its own – but the sum of them all over the globe these past years.
Today we had above +10C temperatures here in Bergen, Norway! That’s quite unusual at the end of February here! But nothing really surprises me anymore as the weather is completely messed up it seems these past years.
A discussion of a probability distribution function, something simple like Gaussian, and the relationship between shifts in the mean and the probability of events at the extremes is beyond the ability of certain bespectacled know everything, non-science major debate team members. 😉
And you can be sure that a certain person is saying WHAT? to that.
Great video giving us much to think about. We must try, though, tempting as it is, to limit the use of gloomy imagery in relation to the issue of climate change. Unfortunately this type of imagery leads people to feel as if they can’t do anything to limit or avoid dangerous changes in the climate, which is the last thing we need! See our report here: http://livefromgolgafrincham.org/2014/02/17/climate-change-visual-themes/
All the best
MT
And all the best to you too, Marcus. We in America have our Onion and Duffel Blog, you in the UK have Monty Python and now your little group, which is far more subtle to my eye, but then again, I’m an American barbarian, so what do I know.
Speaking of barbarism, I totally reject your “use non gloomy imagery” position. As a graduate of the USMC’s “win friends and influence people” schools, I think we should just Kill Them All and Let God Sort Them Out (and I can tell you where to get T-Shirts with that inspirational motto emblazoned thereon, if you’re interested). You should find some Globe and Laurel alumni over there to assist you. Both our countries have found down through the centuries that it is far easier just to kill people than convert them. (I am a student of Lewis Carroll as well, and a devotee of the Queen of Hearts—and they don’t make royalty like they used to).
I have long been a supporter of the Future Foundation, and have been seriously inspired by the story of Adam’s difficult journey. I plan to make a considerable donation to your cause once I have collected enough pop bottles from rubbish bins and turned them in for the deposits, and would like it to go towards Adam’s work (although Laura is HOT, and I’d like to support her work as well, if it would get me an intro).
Thank you for your kind words regarding Adam’s inspiring journey. Laura is over in the US on a small stand up tour of the Texas comedy clubs in July, and advises she takes one sugar in her tea.
I love Aberystwyth, grew up around the Dorset/Devon/Somerset/Welsh coasts and this event has been a shock to me, but “gloomy imagery” to be limited no I totally disagree. What I do find gloomy is the prognosis in sub Saharan Africa and the sight of starving, desperate people in places like Namibia (where drought has been compounded by an outbreak of Cholera) children are dying. Do not limit this – but shout it out loud to the comfortable doubting world. People need to see what the continued dumping of CO2 gases in the sky is causing. What truly enrages me is Shell has just announced plans to start oil exploration in Namibia, what limit on greed, have they no shame ? Isn’t that just rubbing salt in the wounds ?
Progressive background music to a progressive message. Nice.
I must beg everyone to please not attach a political banner to the recognition that climate change is real and caused by us. The longer this physical reality is seen as a fight between progressives and conservatives, democrats vs republicans, the longer the forces of denial will hold fast.
Conservatives are very dichotomous thinkers. They have been made to believe (by a very sly and secretive “false prophet” agenda in christian churches) that the belief in climate change is a part of an existential fight between good and evil and that even reality itself has become partisan. This must change.
If climate action is to gain ground, at least a portion of conservatives must be convinced that the reality of climate change:
Threatens the unborn
Threatens our borders
Threatens national security
Threatens traditional values
Threatens America
Attaching the word “progressive” to the reality of climate change only serves to divide
Stephen, in a more perfect world, your plea would make a lot of sense. However, the behavior of conservatives and the members of the Repugnant Party
Threatens the unborn
Threatens our borders
Threatens national security
Threatens traditional values
Threatens America
And most importantly,
Threatens the survival of the human race and every living thing on the planet.
We are already divided, and it’s the right that has caused that divide by denying science, adopting extreme ideological positions of every sort, and just saying NO to anything that is not “regressive” (forget about being against “progressive”). They also play very dirty and have no respect for the truth.
You say “Attaching the word “progressive” to the reality of climate change only serves to divide”? As Tommy Lee Jones said to The Fugitive, “They don’t care” what you think or want—-they have their own divisive agenda and seek only complete surrender from you. Where have you been for the last 15 years, and the last five in particular?
You say, “If climate action is to gain ground, at least a portion of conservatives must be convinced that the reality of climate change”. True enough statement as it stands, but it’s not happening, and will likely not until Limbaugh, Inhofe, Issa, Cruz, and countless other conservatives get bitten personally on the ass by climate change—until then, they just don’t care.
I hope you’re wrong. I fear (even as I wrote my comment) you are right
I hope I’m wrong too, but I’ve been studying politics almost as long as I’ve been studying the environment, and the country has taken a very bad turn. You need to start looking at some “progressive” political websites and publications to get a better understanding of the game that’s afoot.
This is also interesting
Debating clean energy: Frames, counter frames, and audiences http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937801300054X
Interesting indeed. The dirty play and outright lying of the deniers can overbalance any “positive framing” we can do. They just up the FUD, as they did with Climategate, and we take a step backward.
Stephen, you are correct when it comes to psychological judgement in the public angle, there are even studies on this http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_4800/weber_2011.pdf
But when it comes to lawmakers see for instance: Koch brothers helped derail climate change with lawmaker pledge http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/koch_brothers_helped_derail_climate_change_with_lawmaker_pledge/
Conservatives mostly like to walk in lock step. But as peter has pointed out with conservative support for solar in some areas, there is room for adjustment. Whenever there is apathy, lawmakers will usually be drawn to listening to lobbyists and people like the brothers Koch. But when the voice of the people is strong, they do actually represent their constituents from time to time.
It’s going to be extraordinarily hard to sell any change that requires money to conservatives, perhaps it won’t be accomplished until it’s too late, when climate change has made itself evident everyday and tipping points have been reached. But it has happened before; when the country mobilized against Germany and Japan; when the nation perceived the threat from Russia after Sputnik. In both cases the system changed fundamentally. And make no mistake, it is fundamental change that is needed right now. It will either come from within or it will be forced upon us from without
Yes. And transitioning to less carbon intensive forms of energy is actually a win-win situation. People just need to figure this out.
Related: A carbon tax proposal outlined on Thursday by California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg would raise an estimated $3.6 billion in its first year, revenue he said would go into the pocketbooks of the state’s poorest residents as well as public transportation. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/21/us-california-carbon-tax-idUSBREA1K06220140221
Btw. check out https://www.facebook.com/climatestatement
The facebook page is great. If I wasn’t an oldguy who refuses to twitter like a bird and other “social” things, I’d surely get in everyone’s face with this stuff.
The Colorado.edu report is a good one, and “says it all” in several places, as in this excerpt:
“…. the U.S. public…..divided into distinct
“interpretive communities,” each with its characteristic
risk perceptions, affective imagery, values, and sociode-
mographic characteristics. From climate change naysay-
ers (who perceive climate change as a very low or
nonexistent danger) to climate change alarmists (who
hold high-risk perceptions and extreme images of cata-
strophic climate change) and other groups in between,
each subpopulation holds significantly different values
and beliefs on social and political issues and different
views on the need for individual behavioral change and
governmental intervention. This pattern is consistent
with the above analysis of a public confronted with
complex physical phenomena that cannot be understood
without mediated knowledge, subject to normal cogni-
tive and affective limitations, and surrounded by a po-
liticized struggle to shape understanding that is ampli-
fied by polarized media that offer knowledge claims
congenial to selected audiences’ goals, values, and
worldviews”.
(And we all know that the Kochs are disciples of the antichrist)
Originally i tried to looked up a study from around 2012, released at nature which concluded that in messaging, national security could be explored.
Peter,
Thanks for the videos. In particular, I’d encourage you to use Dr. Alun Hubbard with some frequency if possible. He’s got a very charismatic telepresence. And he’s got the sense not to quibble about whether or not a sub-tropical storm with 100 MPH winds is or is not a hurricane. 🙂
Cheerio!
I agree about the telepresence, and also about the hurricane quibble. I’m sure a 100 mph wind is just as hurricaney in Greenland as it is in Haiti.
Yes, for some reason, there seems to be a ban on calling a Nor’easter or a European storm a hurricane. I suppose there are some technical reasons, but still EU gets hit hard every so often and a 100mph wind by any other name… We went through this about wind energy and hurricanes a while back. The highest winds are not quite as frequent or severe as Gulf hurricanes, but they have the equivalent of category 3 and just into category 4 winds once in a while. I was trying to find out how frequent and widespread they are. Anyone from EU shout it out. Its complicated by the fact that all the countries have different names and conventions. High winds are seen in most countries in Western Europe. I am glad to see the UK folks keep us posted and still have their feet on the ground.
Re: “I’m sure a 100 mph wind is just as hurricaney in Greenland as it is in Haiti.”
I can’t completely agree with you on this. A 100 MPH wind in Nuuk mostly comes onto roofs and chimneys designed quite ruggedly for abysmal weather. Such is not the case in Haiti.
I remember being fascinated by the fact that there was so much devastation from the 2010 earthquake outside of Port Au Prince. This was a 7.0 on the Richter scale and the best estimate is that about 160,000 deaths occurred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_earthquake_2010
The comparable is the Loma Prieta quake in 1989 in the San Francisco region. I was an eye-witness. This was a 6.9 quake, and the death toll was 63 persons.
So, there’s something a bit fragile about Haiti, eh?
The GWPF’s Benny Peiser, the denial teaser tries to spin it differently. Health warning, do not have food or drink near equipment or anything hard in your hand which you may be tempted to throw at the display:
Why did the Met Office forecast a dry winter?
So many misleading, at the very least, cherry picked statements and innuendo in that.
I am surprised that Peiser didn’t bring up the great storm of 1703 chronicled in a book by Daniel Defoe, yes I have a copy.
The GWPF is not abiding by the letter of charity regulations by continuing to spread propaganda as educational information. All of their funders need exposing.