Which gives me a chance to make an offer (since I’m enaged with another blog post) – does a BNC reader wish to have a go at this one, following the format of the previous few ‘Spot the Recycled Denial’ pieces? If so, please do, and send it on to me (bwbrook at gmail.com). Provided it fits the format and is properly done, I’ll happily publish it as a guest post.

We need people speaking from knowledge and expertise to begin to shift that big portion of the public who take denialist arguments at face value.

Thanks. I wasn’t seeing much for Oz, but I didn’t know if that was caused by not looking hard enough, or if there just weren’t many studies. I found that U of Toronto researchers are now concerned about kudzu on the march North. In the US, kudzu is sometime called “the plant that ate the South”, i.e., a good example of a really bad idea of an introduced species brought on purpose.

That reminded me of Oz’s own cane toads.

When the Rosenzweig meta-analysis came out last year, I made the following comment to AusSMC which pretty much summarises the current state of play:

The new Nature by Rosenzwieg, Karoly and co-authors is a statistical integration and summary of the scientific literature on observed changes to physical and biological systems on Earth. In its broad approach and the data sets examined, it uses similar methods to that taken in the Working Group II report of the IPCC 4th Assessment report. But for those people who want the main facts without needing to wade through the many hundred pages of the official IPCC WGII report, this paper is a good summary of the main impacts and adaptation for climate change. As such, it is a must read.

The other interesting point is that Australia is only sparsely represented. There are very few long-term datasets from Australia or New Zealand. In biological systems, for instance, there are 22 studies from Australia and a staggering 28 thousand from Europe (there are also relatively few from Asia, Africa and South America). Clearly Australia, as a science-savvy nation, needs to foster a broad-based system of biophysical monitoring, including the establishment of a large number of long-term monitoring sites and a stronger emphasis on providing resources to database and analyse our existing records (which are currently warehoused but hardly used or referenced for any evidence-based decision making). This is a great challenge for Australia, if we are to predict future climate change impacts with any degree of confidence and be in a reasonable position to build resilience into natural and human systems. Let’s hope future government Budgets and funding initiatives pursue this urgent imperative with the required gusto. We’ve no time to waste.

Other scientists made similar comments on AusSMC on the dearth of Southern Hemisphere biol response data. See: http://www.aussmc.org/warming_changing_world.php

Is there a good current post/source (post IPCC AR4, I’ve read the relevant WG II sections) on Australia flora/fauna movement/range/growing season indicators?

In N. America, people who can easily manage to ignore physics and statistics, and think that AGW is wrong if they can find a badly-sited surface station …

sometimes have little answer when one points out that animals and plants don’t read thermometers or NASA or Hadley or satellite results, and yet are moving poleward or uphill, and unfortunately, weeds and insects are amongst the most mobile.

Among the more striking to people in North America are:
- the pine bark beetles now ravaging British Columbia, and expected to kill all the lodgpoles in Colorado. One might argue that the latter is due in part to bad forest management, but it’s hard to argue that for BC, which has <5M people, mostly in the Southwest, in an area substantially bigger than Texas.
- recent growth of West Nile virus in Canada
- Sugar maple range (in New England) shrinking Northward.

Is there a good corresponding set for Australia? I.e., I’ve read WG II’s Chapter 11, but the question is: are there specific examples that resonate with people there?

I think for 2009 we need to push hard on the positives of energy efficiencies, cleaner air, a more secure future using renewables and every other obvious counterpoint you can think of. IOW-cheaper,cleaner,healthier,a real future. Your average bod knows their being lied to give them an honest postive message to live with.

“You can’t slam a journalist for quoting somebody”

No, but you can slam them for who they choose to quote and the context in which they provide it. As you note, Kenny knows perfectly well that he is being dodgy, and the failure to provide appropriate context betrays advocacy journalism trying to pretend it is objective.

Advocacy is fine when it is acknowledged and up front, but even then it should be rational if you are making any pretense of informing and educating.

Kenny doesn’t ever say “Global warming stopped in 1998″ and
when he voices profound stupidities like “the temperature is [now] falling
precipitously” he is careful to quote somebody. You can’t slam a journalist
for quoting somebody and there is always an idiot they can find to
quote when they want to say something which they know will get them into
trouble if they just say it straight out. Quoting people is similar
to a trick lawyers
use when they want to do something illegal in court, they say “on instruction”
which is code for “my client told me to do this, otherwise I wouldn’t do
it because … “. Usually because it breaches some law or procedural guideline.

You can tell the really dodgy parts of Kenny’s story because they
are in quotes.

a) We need our scientists to do science, and if they sometimes choose to take up the cudgels, I’m glad … but

b) The rest of us need to help out as we can, because there’s just too much of this stuff. I’d guess that if Barry tried to chase down every one, he’d get ~zero research done.

c) In any case, when you write in response to an article, you are being *reactive*. I’d claim that it is better to take a longer-term view and be *proactive*, as in What to do about poor science reporting.

Most of the dumb junk doesn’t need a climate researcher.

There’s expert testimony and there are people shouting from the back after the verdict is handed down. The public at large needs to be made more aware of the difference and the mainstream media are the conduit most people get their information from.

Your posting above is clear. My comments are not intended to arouse anyone’s ire. Sorry that has happened. I will reform my posts in accord with your recommendations.

Thanks for all you are doing to protect biodiversity from massive extirpation, the environment from irreversible degradation, the Earth from wanton dissipation of its resources and the family of humanity from reckless endangerment by the unbridled overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities of the human species in these early years of Century XXI.

Sincerely,

Steve