One of the greatest examples of denial, which I have been battling since I was 10 yrs of age .........is the lack of recognition of the stupidity of population growth, both here and globally.

Save the other species, our health and the planet by balanced migration
( out = in) and encourage just 2 children at around 30 yrs of age.

Best,

Ralph

"Despite conclusive evidence, some people still believe in an ongoing climate catastrophe."

There, I fixed it for you, But here's a tip for the future; when you're trying to claim that something has 'conclusive evidence', it helps to actually provide some. Right now the AGW movement resembles a bridal party locked out of their reception venue looking for the key: "Where's the evidence? They gave you the evidence!" "No, I thought YOU had the evidence!"

Hi Robert,

It sounds like you have a very good understanding of denial. I suspect in your case it is reflective angst and appears to be presented in the first person.

Can you offer any solutions

"many people refer to 'climate change' (which sounds almost benign) and some even argue that it is a natural phenomenon"

Yep, that would definitely be me. To state that climate change is NOT a natural phenomenon would, to me, be quite delusional. Even, I would suggest, a distinct medical pathology were it to occur in a mildly literate aware human being.

" These people are so frightened of acknowledging the genuinely catastrophic state of affairs and its human cause"

Robert. Perhaps this point may hold some validity if it were to be accompanied with some demonstrable examples of this current "catastrophic state" for example:

Global mean average temperature rise in the past 20, 50, 100 years.
Rates of sea level rise in my lifetime
Number of pacific islands lost
Australian droughts/floods different from all those in my lifetime/historically.
Number and intensity of cyclones, typhoons, storms In past 100 years (trend)
Oscillating arctic/Antarctic sea ice extent. (Damn Vikings)
Number of GCM models matching actual measurements.
Predicted 'new normal' droughts, oops, predicted 'new normal' floods.

Sorry Paul, I am really struggling to visualise the "catastrophic" state you refer to.

I guess I suffer from a "phenomenal variety of dysfunctionalities that adversely impact on the individual" like myself. (I refrain from inserting a belly laugh moticon for fear of upsetting you).

Robert

u obviously missed the idiotic predictions of the likes of Gore and Flannery who have fleeced the public despite being totally wrong. You obviously deny the corruption of the IPCC who fiddled the data. U obviously also forget that some of us were around when in science we were taught the planet was going to freeze, oil would be run out by 2000 and that the Y2k bug was going to cause diaster. Only the pig headed scientist or the ones on the dwindling gravy train could possibly still hold the dogmas you accuse others of denying.

We should all keep in mind that runner thinks that Charles Darwin was "wrong" too.

Poirot, perhaps you should keep in mind that opinions on religion and creation, like many other topics, do not invalidate opinions on climate change alarmism. Especially since the topic of CAGW is so close to your heart or should we say faith.

Unless of course you just wish to present yourself as empty headed and bitchy.

The Judeo-Christian world view is that humans are in control of nature and have managed it well. Therefore a stuff up is unlikely. Rather than adjust their thinking they like to ridicule others which backfires as the warming news keeps coming e.g. Sydney's hottest day ever on January 18th. The year was 2013 not 1827 or whatever. These people seem irate that we interpret higher temperatures as increased warming. Higher temperatures mean something else not warming.

There is a second tier of denial which is more widespread, namely that token gestures and hand wringing will make a difference. What will make a difference is genuine sacrifice with winners and losers. That's what we're doing now with carbon tax and the renewable energy target, just tinkering around the edges.

spindoc suggests that Poirot is presenting as empty-headed and bitchy because she challenges runner's vacuous sloganeering on a subject he knows next to zilch about.

Fair enough, I've obviously hit a nerve.

runner, as a fellow denier, bases his conclusions on anything but science...as do the rest of you.

Like most of those who want to blame psychology for a failure to sprout propaganda, Robert shows he knows nothing of the debate.

He can point all he likes to evidence of changes in climate to date, but the problem he and others face is showing that the changes over the past few decades are due to human influence, and if so how much (the warmists have long since conceded it is at least partially natural). Once you get past that, can anything of our hard-won knowledge be used to say anything useful about future climate states (very tricky).

Once that hurdle is passed they still face the problem of justifying any action on economic grounds. This is impossible, basically, even if an enforceable, effective international agreement of limiting emissions was anywhere on the horizon, or there was any means of seriously limiting emissions that would not be politically too difficult to implement.

Rather than contest any of those points Robert is really claiming that its all due to psychology. This is an easier argument to make, but that's all that can be said about it.

Its not 'denial' or fear Robert. Its the fact that
1. The science of AGW is divided along political lines and has degenerated into a slanging match - Science has long since left Climate studies.
2.That a number of AGW advocates have been shown to be corrupt or deceitful.
3. That contrary studies are disallowed by the main peer reviewed journals, regardless of their merit.
4. That a real debate was never allowed.
5. That 'questioners' were, according to David Suzuki and others better off in prison.
6. A large number of climate predictions failed to come true.
7. That it is primarily a way of taking money form the poor in the West and giving it to the rich in the developing world through carbon taxes.

People actually noticed that snow did continue to fall in Kosciusko, it did snow heavily again in England and rain did fill the dams and there weren't millions of climate refugees by 2010. In essence, the AGW promoters don't know what the hell they are talking about.

Atman,

1. Scientific agreement is excluded from "skeptic" argument.

2. Who has been found to be corrupt or deceitful (outside of denier blogs)?

3. The latest tactic of "skeptics" is to question peer-review (because their stuff doesn't make the grade)

4. The real debate should include people who are actually trained in and understand the various disciplines that comprise climate science

5. (Not worth commenting on)

6. A large amount of predictions have come to pass - some even more so than were projected. A "real" climate scientist will admit the complicated nature of climate study, and not claim to be able to project every nuance of the system

7. Conspiracy theory, in this case, only applies to scientists who work on climate. Apparently the way they are taught science includes a unit of "conspiracy"....

It continues to snow in Kosciusko so AGW is negated

Oh, right then!

You don't realise that people lose faith in a theory which fails to predict simple climate outcomes. There mere fact that a prominent climate scientist in the CRU UK said snow would be a thing of the past is apparently not relevant to you - you go on believing. You don't question his scientific credibility.

Mann's "hockey stick" graph was great example of mathematical tom foolery. It was shown to give a rising temp no matter what figure you put in, - But that is still OK with you. A mathematician has written a book on this very topic, but you didn't know about it, apparently.

"The real debate should include people who are actually trained in and understand the various disciplines that comprise climate science"
But they aren't included in the debate if they don't take the oath of allegiance??. eg Richard Lindzen, Climate Physicist.

"It continues to snow in Kosciusko so AGW is negated
Oh, right then!"
No, it has continued to snow in Kosciusko so what is wrong with the models? According to you nothing - when they are wrong they are also right.

You're a believer and believers don't care about facts. They still believe.

Are you claiming that Mann "wasn't" exonerated?

Or that subsequent research papers on the subject haven't validated his findings?

Poirot
Actually Mann himself has conceded his original hockey stick was in error, albeit without actually saying so. If you look in the 2007 IPCC report there is a modified hockey stick by Mann with several discrete bumps where the medieval warming period (MWP) should be. Basically the debate ended there as the original hockey stick was meant to get rid of the MWP and, in that new analysis, it had reappeared.

Subsequent attempts to defend Mann have emphasised that the stick showed warming in the last few decades. That's the vindication you're pointing to. However, every analysis of proxy temperature measurements before and since have also agreed on that point - climatic conditions are warm at the mo - but they also had the MWP.

Mann's new analysis suggests that the MWP may not have been as strong as others suggest, but as he was wrong the first time around it is difficult to take him seriously. Global warmers have let the matter drop, as should you.

This reference provides a unique Understanding of the situation we are all in. And yes the author tells us that both global warming and climate change are created by human beings. Just by our sheer force of numbers and our powerful technologies.
http://www.dabase.org/p2anthro.htm
Plus supporting arguments re the situation we are in, or have created in both our ignorance and hubris.
http://www.beezone.com/news.html

Wow Robert have you found some evidence the so called climate scientists have not been able to find? If so rush off & give it to the poor buggers, you could save them having to continually refer to their failed computer models to invent some.

If you want to study denial Robert, you're looking the wrong way. There is now so much evidence proving CO2 is a very minor bit player in the earth temperature story, that the warmist scientists have got the denial mill cranking like never before seen.

Hell there is now so much evidence of CO2 being a non event that shortly even Poirot will have to admit, if only to herself under her breath, that the whole thing is dead. In fact it's been dead & rotting so long that it might be the smell she notices first, seeing as she won't read any of the evidence placed before her.

Perhaps you two could get together & have a good cry that your dream of Armageddon is no more, except in some warmists computer.

(Post 1 of 2)

On the question of “dangerous human induced climate change”, whether one favours this expert or that, it must be recognised that a weight of opinion among experts is not enough to be convincing – it has been unreliable in the past. At one time the weight of scholarly opinion held that the earth was flat!

If the fossil fuelled consumerism of rich countries is actually so out of balance with nature as to be the cause of a phenomenon like global warming, we would expect to see it causing other problems too. So is there other corroborating evidence in other things we see for ourselves?

If the way we live is a serious problem, those with a particular investment in consumerism might reject climate change and be keen to isolate it from less debatable evidence – like salination of the land, soil loss, air and water pollution, habitat and species loss et cetera.

We are social beings by nature – so is there evidence of social imbalance becoming so critical as to threaten life to the extent that global warming is said to?

If social imbalance is becoming critical there would be an emergence of winners and losers. We might see “winners” developing a new “ethic”, like that “greed is good” and developing an economy that encourages it. But we should not be surprised when an economy which rewarded such madness became unstable as a result.

We might also see an endless quest to fill a hole that cannot be filled by consumption, increasing levels of personal, family and community breakdown, disenchantment with materialism, depression, loss of hope and even suicide.

As a global phenomenon we might start to see critical social division in poorer nations where people started risking their lives and even the lives of their children to escape to somewhere better.


(Continued in post 2 of 2)

Chris Baulman
@landrights4all

(post 2 of 2)

We could also expect to see such a radicalisation of poor people that only by sacrificing their own lives could they fight against the perceived injustice – we might expect them to see this as a war for justice and morality - a holy war, and a resort to tactics like guerrilla warfare and terrorism rather than to conventional confrontation where they would be annihilated by superior force.

Disempowered nations might even look to develop weapons of mutual destruction to improve the bargain for a just share and a right to live by different standards – or at least their disempowered and poverty stricken citizens might accept this tactic by their leaders without objection.

In nations where per capita use of fossil fuels is high we might see evidence of closing borders against refugees and a building up of defences.

Health wise, resulting from excessive consumerism we might expect to start seeing obesity or heart conditions et cetera on a phenomenal scale.

Urged on by the representatives of such nations using catch cries like “democratic principles” and “our way of life is not negotiable”, we might anticipate that even where problems like global warming are acknowledged, the response would be to prop up the lifestyle. New technology would be sought to allow for continued and even expanding per capita consumerism, rather than reining in demands and sharing resources equitably.

We would expect to hear a lot about “clean” coal, “eco” tourism, electric cars and de-salination run by “safe” nuclear power – all in order that lifestyles don’t have to really change.

The consumer lifestyle has wider implications than global warming for the world, whether the weight of science on global warming is accepted as right or not.

For a broad range of related reasons that are easily observed by us non scientists, I believe those who say global warming is serious and man made are right.

Common sense tells me that, although nothing can be certain, connecting the dots strongly suggests that we are going the wrong way.

Chris Baulman
@landrights4all

I don't deny that the climate is changing, Robert Burrows, we now know that the earth's climate has always been in a state of change. We never noticed it before because it happened so gradually, that when its existence was suspected 150 years ago, it was a big surprise.

What I am sceptical of, is to what extent human activity can be blamed for global warming that will cause catastrophic problems to low lying areas. But I am willing to be convinced otherwise, provided that enough scientific evidence can be provided that supports this premise.

That evidence does not look conclusive and scientific financial self interest appears to be a factor in the scientific advocacy. The fact that scientific evidence contradicting global warming in the Claimategate scandal was suppressed hardly supports the idea of scientific impartiality.

Then there was the incident of the Indian scientist who claimed that the glaciers of the Himalayas would be gone in twenty years. Another furphy by a self interested scientist who's job depended on claiming that the sky is falling. Runner has also suggested previous scientific scares which came to naught. There were others. The world was running out of food, and in 1981, the world would run out of oil by 2000.

The public can hardly be blamed for global warming scepticism when the first global warming conference was held in Europe during the worst blizzard ever recorded. So too, the declarations of the climate change advocates like Tim Flannery, who not only purchased a waterside home, but who's claim that "the dams would never fill again" is now the subject of hilarity to the inhabitants of Brisbane and Toowoomba, and a subject of anger to governments who spent billions on white elephant desalination plants.

Earth's climate changes primarily because the sun's output varies, the Earth's tilt varies, and the earth's orbit varies. Atmospheric gas proportions do play a part. But the scientific evidence from geologists know for a fact that the Earths atmosphere once contained 20 times the CO2 levels today when the Earth was much colder.

“Breitbart News can exclusively report on Tuesday night that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has translated and published a Chinese edition of two massive climate change volumes originally published by The Heartland Institute in 2009 and 2011. Together, they represent the most comprehensive rebuttal of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings, which have been the basis of the climate change legislation movement across the planet. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is set to present the publication on June 15 at a major ceremony in Beijing. --Breitbart News, 11 June 2013”.

“Mounting optimism that the UN's long-running climate change talks were making good progress in the run-up to the crucial Paris Summit in 2015 were dealt a major blow yesterday as a key negotiating track was suspended at the latest meeting in Bonn. The UN's climate change secretariat, the UNFCCC, confirmed the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), which advises on the implementation of UN climate change agreements including commitments on climate funding and adaptation, had suspended talks after failing to agree an agenda for the talks that will be carried out in the run-up to this year's annual COP summit in Poland. –-Business Green, 12 June 2013”

“Should the Liberal Party (Venstre) form the new government after Denmark’s general election, it will abandon current energy policies. And one of the first to be removed would be the financial support for onshore wind turbines. The party’s plan is backed by the Danish People’s Party and the Conservatives. --Dagbladet Børsen, 12 June 2013”

Going, going, gone!

This post is straight out of the Lewandowsky manual of insulting the psychology of sceptics; it is recycled trash.

I can think of at least 10 reasons why AGW is garbage; the first is temperature.

CO2 emissions by humans are supposed to increase the temperature; that is the basic point of man-made global warming [AGW]. The more CO2 in the atmosphere the hotter it should get. That is a basic AGW prediction.

It is isn’t happening. Walter Brozek analyses the official temperature data from all the main sources including the satellites:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/08/are-climate-models-realistic-now-includes-at-least-february-data/

Brozek uses 2 criteria; the first from NOAA to test for flatness or zero warming; the second from Dr Phil Jones to test for no statistical warming; the 2 criteria overlap with the second allowing for some slight warming and the first for even cooling. The first shows zero temperature for 15 years; the second for up to 23 years. The first is climatically significant by NOAA standards, the second by Dr Santer’s standards. This means the temperature is not being caused by AGW. The only line going up is CO2; look at Brozek's first graph; AGW is dead and buried right there.

There is nothing comparable, evidence wise, from AGW.

Most people cannot face the realities of the real world.
Corruption is rife everywhere but they still cherish the idea of a politician, real estate agent, car salesman or solicitor Etc, with integrity and continue to deal with them. The alternative is not to be considered.
People can accept the truth of what is said without accepting the implications.
Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering, Stanley Cohen argues that this capacity to deny a level of awareness is the normal state of affairs for people in an information-saturated society
Newspapers regularly carry dire climatic warnings in the same issue as articles that breathlessly promote weekend breaks in Rio. Individuals, can express grave concern, and then just as quickly block it out, buy a new car, turn up the air conditioning, or fly across the world for a holiday.
Primo Levi, seeking to explain the refusal of many European Jews to recognise their impending extermination, quotes an old German adage: ‘Things whose existence is not morally possible cannot exist.’
It follows that the normal reaction to facts that cannot be faced is to deny their existence.

Good one Bob; sceptics are deniers because the enormity of the end of the world is so great they deny the cause of that end, AGW.

Hilarious.

Meanwhile, back on the planet number 2 of the reasons why AGW is garbage is:

2 Models. AGW science is based on modelling which in turn is based on certain assumptions about the effect on climate of various factors such as CO2. This effect is expressed as a forcing and can be seen at the IPCC website:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-5.html

Note how the forcing expected from CO2 is nearly 20 times greater than from the sun. Predictions about how these forcings will determine temperature have been around for a long time and can therefore be checked. Roy Spencer has checked the model predictions against the temperature in the Troposphere:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-observations-for-tropical-tropospheric-temperature/

Some will say Roy’s comparison only shows the models can’t predict the Troposphere. But as Bob Tisdale shows the models also can’t predict sea surface temperatures, land and sea surface temperatures, or precipitation. Nor can they, as Koutsoyiannis showed, predict the past.

AGW is based on complete methodology failure.

Wind 'em up and they'll go for hours.

http://pinterest.com/pin/540713498981708776/

: )