GUEST BLOG: Geoff Simmons – Response to Peter Williams Climate Denial

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“How to Prepare a Conspiracy (Sceptical) Theory”, Volume 3469, by Peter Williams

  1. Take some scientific conclusions that you don’t like. 
  2. Carefully select a handful of facts and draw some lines between them. 
  3. Present this as an alternative scientific conclusion. 
  4. Compare them as if they are equal, regardless of the weight of evidence and expert views. 
  5. Make it look like you are making a balanced and moderate choice. 

People have long used this sort of tactic to deny ideas that they don’t like and no doubt will continue to do so. 

Peter is right: the science is never settled. He must remember that from high school in the 60s. That is, after all, the point of science. It continuously tests ideas, looking to improve. The truth is never a 100% finished product. There is always some doubt. 

Climate deniers seize on this point to show that past climate change predictions have turned out to be wrong. And that is true. Back in the 1990s, climate change was an emerging theory and some of the predictions were pretty wild. 

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But since then, modelling has become far more accurate and this is reflected in the steadily growing confidence in the international consensus. Sure, there are still some people making extreme predictions of either very little warming or catastrophic warming, but the consensus predictions are proving increasingly accurate as time marches on. The question is: when do we do something about it? 

Peter’s eagerness to deny climate change was no doubt picked up by his Facebook algorithm, which led him to some material claiming that warming is caused entirely by the sun. The material contained enough facts to give it a veneer of truthiness for people who are “researching” with “an open mind” to confirm their own bias. 

The fact is that the warming we have seen since the 50’s cannot possibly be attributed to the sun, as seen from a quick visit to the NASA site. Models estimate that natural causes have contributed about 2% of warming. Sure models can be wrong, but the probability that humans have caused more than half the warming since 1950 is 95%. Again, science is never 100% certain, but which side are you betting on?  

The future will be challenging for Peter’s grandkids, but if we act now we can probably keep our fantastic standard of living. If the world doesn’t act fast enough, things could get pretty bleak – especially for people living on Pacific Islands and even in Australia. They will no doubt want to move here. 

Shouldn’t we try to stop this? Shouldn’t we at least start to prepare for the problems it will create? 

We need to do both, as quickly as possible. Sure, we don’t want to stuff the economy, but we need to rapidly steer it in a far more sustainable direction. Even the current Government’s actions are still “tinkering at the edges” compared to what is needed. 

To enact real change, we need to shed old political party alliances and seize the balance of power. We are in a climate emergency, right? In my estimation, we are in an environmental emergency with water quality, waste, and biodiversity thrown in. We can’t afford for environmentalism to be a “left-wing” thing. That means we need a party in Parliament that has real clout and is willing to do what works – for future’s sake. 

Geoff Simmons is the Leader of TOP

40 COMMENTS

  1. peter williams had many years on tv he has had his turn why is he on radio where is the fresh blood

  2. Re the contested theory of gravity

    Time mr Mr Williams to show that this theory is still contested

    1. Climb to a very high building (make it realllly high)

    2. Go to the edge of the roof

    3. Repeat: ” gravity is just a theory”

    4. Step forward

  3. On a more serious note:

    “The amount of solar energy received by the Earth has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since the 1950s. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century.” https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/14/is-the-sun-causing-global-warming/

    Thats NASA

    what do climare chabge deniers have? Fuck all

    • They have many well paid prostitute scientist who will add their names to denial claims.
      If you can follow the money the link may be obvious.

      Claims of professional status also need to be checked. A reporter is not qualified to make scientific opinion.
      Check the critics of climate deniers and climate scientists as you may pick up leads to follow about the veracity of what is being promoted.

      The denial narrative keeps changing as new information comes to light.

      Accept nothing as factual and test all concepts as thoroughly as you can.

      There is big money behind climate denial

  4. What I always find so amazing is how these climate deniers:
    a) use science to try and say science is wrong
    b) act blase about it all – “oh yeah, it’s just the sun getting hotter, so whatever, happens every million years – no big deal

    • EP, I was lucky enough not to hear PW, but I’ve just read James Renwick’s response to him on News Hub, and I struggle to believe that anyone could be as thick as Williams appears to be – he’s being paid – as are others.

      The sort of people who listen to him are likely to be the sort who don’t bother voting anyway.

      • Sorry, but the Nats support base just adore the PW’s of this world, and vote accordingly IMO.

  5. Want to help the environment. Stop flying and massively tax flights!

    Sadly neoliberalism seems to be doing the opposite of saving the environment actually using that as a means to take more money and not spend it on the best way to help the environment!

    Auckland petrol taxes are being wasted for the most part on upgrades and ‘safety’ maintenance for roads and construction projects and the politicians holiday highway to the airport instead of getting proper commuter rail going!

    Poor people are not flying! The petrol taxes are used to subsides richer folks who fly, the tourism industry, swanky bus shelters and in general encouraging more carbon into the environment against what the petrol tax was raised for – aka to create workable alternatives to car use with better public transport that can help Auckland cities massive population increase!

    This article shows how polluting flying is!

    Carbon calculator: how taking one flight emits as much as many people do in a year

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year

    Note cruise ships and freight by sea is also highly polluting but they are exempt apparently from being counted!

    Air quality on cruise ship deck ‘worse than world’s most polluted cities’, investigation finds
    ‘Each day a cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars’

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/pollution-cruise-ships-po-oceana-higher-piccadilly-circus-channel-4-dispatches-a7821911.html

  7. “modelling has become more accurate” is not an argument that can persuade an honest skeptic, models being intrinsically imaginary objects they do not fail even if they include fatal logical errors.

    There is now however an abundance of concrete physical evidence, and it is global; it cannot have been cobbled together from unrepresentative local events. Glacial retreats for instance are good summary data, and widely distributed.

  8. Climate change is wall to wall on the net and in the news. Almost all attributing it to out use of fossil fuels. The forecast disaster doesn’t seem to me to stack up. But why would IPCC scientists and politicians be so on about it if it were unsubstantiated? One answer could be that the scientists employed by IPCC don’t know as much as they know they need to know to be sure what effect adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere will have, and if it turns out to be really bad they will be in the frame for having failed to warn the world. And so there is a strong incentive for them to warn of the most extreme possibilities.
    But it occurs to me that there is another that might appeal to the politicians more than the scientists.
    The people of the western world are getting restless about how they have been deceived and cheated by the noeliberal/globalised process of rip ping people and countries of their natural heritage as the 1% mops up the world’s resources irrespective of where they are. But as the masses of populations are disinherited there is less and less a market to sell everything to, so the world has adopted a system of ever expanding personal debt to keep it all flowing. But this is unsustainable in the long run so governments like ours have to impose greater and greater austerity on a population already largely reduced to poverty.
    I think the climate change trip might be essentially a device to get the populace to accept greater and greater austerity while those who can carry on using 100x their share of fossil fuel, and no constraints that effect the lives of the rich , nor any reduction in the rate of increase in the actual use of fossil fuels is seriously being attempted.
    D J S

  9. You rely on NASA data to “prove” your point, despite them having been shown to have doctored data in the past. So, mkay.
    https://principia-scientific.org/how-noaa-nasa-doctored-temperature-data-to-get-record-warm-years/
    The science isn’t “settled” whatsoever imo. The man-made “Climate Change” argument has been pretty much entirely co-opted by political interests at this stage. While we never had much/any science coming from pundits and the media, it seems far too many of the scientists themselves are now little more than cogs in a politically motivated machine. All imo of course.
    There are a few voices of reason out there – I urge everyone here, despite your feelings, to read and fully take in what this article says. Try and read it without pre-conceived feelings or opinions, you know, like a scientist is supposed to do.
    https://www.thegwpf.com/putting-climate-change-claims-to-the-test/

    • Can sumbody tell why CC is a hoax by sumone else? Why for? WTF is there to gain. Illogical rubbish from the right IMO.

      • Business NZ have several Hoax machines, running in organisations, media, parliament and many local bodies.

        Their main aim is to cause confusion and slow or illuminate change.

        They whistle the same tune which becomes familiar to the public. Some rely on it as they have bought into various aspects of denial

  10. The TV channel One is aimed at about 10 year-olds for the most part.

    I have quit TV. I felt Jessica’s embarrassment the night she had evidently been asked (told) to wear a skirt split up to the crotch. Nobody with self-respect needs that.
    The news is appalling, sexing up the dossiers, stripping the presenters, all behind the Walt Disney Big Screen with its assumptions of viewer stupidity.

    Three is better but there are no captions .

  11. ‘Sure models can be wrong, but the probability that humans have caused more than half the warming since 1950 is 95%.’

    The global population in the fifties was 2.5 billion. Now it is 7.7 billion, living longer and consuming as none have ever consumed before. The great die off will occur and Mother earth will roll on. The giant reptiles were a better bet than humans excepting aboriginals and a few others.

  12. Finally someone respected in the media has been able to present the realist truths that have been unsaid for so long. We have been lied to by the far left who want to take us down the road fo economic disaster. The science was hijacked years ago and it was flimsy at best. The worst result of this giant hoax is that our children are marching in the streets calling for zero carbon. Don’t their science teachers teach them about the important role that carbon dioxide plays in the very existence
    Of life on this planet. Co2 makes up a small fraction of the atmosphere and we could do with a lot more of it as it is plant food and has nothing to do with our changing climate.
    It is frightening how successful the alarmists have been in brainwashing the entire world.
    climate and the part played by mankind is negligible

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