Whiny Hayhoe Gets Her Facts Wrong Again
By Paul Homewood
WUWT reports on Katharine Hayhoe’s latest whiny little, holier than thou interview:
Katharine Hayhoe Reveals Surprising Ways to Talk About Climate Change
By Katie O’Reilly
…
When it comes to climate change denialism, Hayhoe tends to defer to social scientists. “They’ve found that more education doesn’t change people’s perceptions—that in fact, the people with the highest degree of science literacy aren’t the ones who are most concerned, but rather, the most polarized. Because those people can muster evidence to explain why they’re right, too.”
Hayhoe vehemently advises against engaging with the “smokescreens” skeptics tend to offer as the reasons they couldn’t possibly agree with or act on the issue of climate change. “There’ll be no progress that way,” she insists. “It’s a lot easier for people to say, ‘I have a problem with the science’ than it is to talk about what the real problem is.”
Whine, whine.
But in true “economical with the truth Hayhoe fashion”, she goes on to answer this question:
Q What about when you get stuck? Say you’ve landed on shared values—you and a climate denier agree the weather has been wild, but they just insist, "Oh, it’s just part of the natural cycle." What then?
A Here’s where you pivot and move on, beyond what they disagree on, to something you both agree on. You might offer one phrase of dissent—perhaps, "According to natural cycles we should be cooling down right now, not warming." But then, before the conversation becomes a game of whack-a-mole, change the subject. Try, "Did you know that China and India have more solar energy than any other countries in the world? I’m a little worried the U.S. is falling behind; aren’t you worried, too?"
Two things stand out here:
1) When the wicked denier suggests that wild weather is just a regular, natural event, Hayhoe rapidly backs off and changes the topic. I wonder why!!
2) China and India have more solar energy than any other countries in the world.
Strange that, because according to the most recent data, solar energy in India only produced 11.9 TWh, well below not only the US and China, but also Germany, Italy, and Spain.
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Needless to say, China is always wheeled out as the “biggest” blah ,blah. What Hayhoe and the rest always forget to tell is total electricity generation in China is also far and away the largest in the world. In 2016, it totalled 6142 TWh, with the US next highest at 4350 TWh.
In fact, solar only accounted for 1.1% of China’s power in that year, below the global figure of 1.3%.
As far as climate science is concerned, facts are all too often an embarrassment that are best ignored. When they spoil your story, then, hey, just make some up!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
When the world was warming, warming was supposed to be a man-made problem.
Now it’s not warming, they turn to ‘extreme weather’ and that’s supposed to be a man-made problem.
Or are they the problem?!
Is it me or does her attitude remind you o fDelores Umbridge? Super saccharine and really creepy at the same time.
How can these people live their lives knowing everything they claim is false, a pack of lies?
Ah but they know its lies. They do it deliberately, its part of the methodology of capturing hearts and minds with easy to remember and repeat beliefs. Think ‘religion’ and your far nearer the target than ‘science’. Its about creating a new Godhead for the masses to follow and for the few to gain power.
Truth or logic has very little to do with it.
I believe in AGW. I don’t believe it is lies. I do believe it has similarities to religion in so far as religion is a set of beliefs and how they affect your behavior. I do believe it is in who you trust. Here’s something I posted a while back on FB:
Most members of the general public who generally agree with the conclusions of the 97% or the 15000 who signed ‘The letter to humanity’ aren’t really basing that agreement on ‘facts’ that they have analyzed to the same level as the 97% or the 15000. We (I include myself in that general public even though I’ve probably analyzed the science more than most) are still basing our ‘belief’ on our ‘faith’ in the scientific method and on the scientists who we ‘believe’ are carrying out that method. I suppose all of my talk about ‘belief’ hinges on the connotation of the word. To me, I ‘believe’ that the sun is going to come up tomorrow. It might be a 99.99999% certainty for me, but I still allow for crazy possibilities. I just read about how Elon Musk thinks we’re in a computer simulation or something, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson thinks it’s 50/50. Up until this, my belief in this was very close to zero. It’s still very close to zero, but I don’t discount it as much as I did before. Why? A lot of it has to do with the messenger. These are two people whose views on things seemed to correspond with my own in large part (at least in scientific matters). We tend to consider their divergences more than the divergences of others.
I would argue that even other climate scientists ‘believe’ in other climate scientists. They believe there isn’t someone (or a group) that’s tampering with the satellites, making up ice core measurements, etc… If they see data or reasoning that doesn’t ‘fit in’ (I put up a post about different lines of ‘proof’ earlier) they will rightly be skeptical and try to understand this discrepancy.
I’m not sure it does much good to claim to have ‘the facts’ when another claims to have ‘the facts’. We have to understand how we each claim authority. How do we come to understand ‘reality’. Why am I ‘biased’ to agree with the 97% or 15000. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t act as quickly as possible on our shared beliefs about climate change. If a truck is barreling towards you and your only option is to jump into a thicket of cactus, I’m generally going to jump into the cactus unless the chance of being hit by the truck is very low.
What do you mean by the “97%”?
I don’t think they see it as lies. They “know” CO2 is a problem and they “know” we should get rid of fossil fuels. They have convinced themselves that those statements are true, and whether you use facts or make stuff up to win the argument is not important.
I agree. They have so convinced themselves they are right that they lie so easily and convincingly to a neutral. This was highlighted when Mann went up against Judith Curry and 2 others (Pielke? Singer?) on a panel. Mann lied with conviction where those being honest were allowing for an element of doubt in what they were saying.
See my comment above. Also, you probably realize that many who believe in AGW are thinking the same about people who doubt the mainstream. Once again it does come from how we come to trust who we trust.
Hard to believe that Hayhoe is even more stupid than she looks.
She looks like my next door neighbour – enough said….
heyho, listening to her is like being on a green muzak loop being lullabyed by caroline maddog the Bolshie lucas, nothing to say and all reason gone off to some distant galaxy.
“They’ve found that more education doesn’t change people’s perceptions—that in fact, the people with the highest degree of science literacy aren’t the ones who are most concerned, but rather, the most polarized. Because those people can muster evidence to explain why they’re right, too.”
So much for that settled science, eh Kathrine?
And if and science denying cAGW advocate pivots the conversation to —
“Did you know that China and India have more solar energy than any other countries in the world? I’m a little worried the U.S. is falling behind; aren’t you worried, too?”, just pivot back to —
“Yes I know, but did you realize that China and India are currently the world’s largest consumers of fossil fuels, and for electricity generation it’s still increasing in those countries. And it’s increasingly being used in Africa and even Germany is burning more! So yes I’m worried the US is falling behind, they need to use more fossil fuels before the Indians, Chinese and everyone else use them all up!”
🙂
My response would be that using less efficient ways of providing things is dumb. Don’t you agree?
If anyone knows Kathrine’s email address please pass-on this important message from her pharmacist ….
Is it not also highly likely that Chinese solar gets used directly on the consumer end without the potential for net-metering, ie they simply don’t put juice back into the grid at all. Hence, it effectiveness can’t be judged.
The thing I really, actually don’t udnerstand, is how somebody like this, with no real relevant qualifications, with nothing remotely intelligent, insightful or new to say, gets reported so much?
We seem to drowning in the opinions of the mediocre and unintelligent.
In recent years the diminishing of our Parliamentary process through deferral to the EU has so grievously undermined the legislature that virtually all fundamental issues regarding the every day are in the wind. It is not unusual to see, in echo of the activist’s manner, socialist members rise in the chamber to ask questions of the PM which are obviously issues pertaining to specific departments of state. But that in their virtue signalling capability they are priceless; do not deal with those departments responsible but rather take on the problems of the few and maintain their uniqueness. For Labour to engineer such an approach is breathtaking when their current manifesto leanings are to make government departments even more responsible through nationalisation. Denying the abilities of large government on the one hand while encouraging it the next.
This amounts to the appropriation of the general will as, from their point of view, that the system does not seem to work and so they think that they must address the requirements of individuals in the Parliamentary time. To think you can produce a system where everyone with a grievance can have their own minder would encourage the creation of so many minders who would, by necessity, have different approaches different sensibilities, as to give another form of unevenness of outcome.
Transpose this to the single issue campaigner and eco warrior and you see the outcome. To have policies that apply to the generality being devised by obsessives makes for the denial of truth and fully describes a political class that has lost control. They have, over time, had MPs that have used energy policies, courted activists, to prove some dogma or other, to instil some impression of caring, dog whistles; that they have lost sight of the basic need to have a viable energy system (that would be constantly observant of workable new energy sources and not defer to the introduction of antediluvian methodology which needs to be constantly excused for its under-performance), which relies on bogus figures (the difference between capacity and actual production figures) which prefers eco destroying simplicity to confined areas of production, that even swallows the hatred of landed gentry, that most of these campaigners would espouse. In short, they are willing to brazenly fabricate a whole existence to get their way and seem radical.
That the government has not a viable plan and that Mr Homewood has to constantly remind them of their responsibility towards the electorate is symptomatic of how far the denial of responsibility in the House has moved. When ordinary people require certainty about fundamentals there is equivocation. The starkest instance of this tail and what it wags is the recent contrivance of managing fuel bills by capping. If this is not the biggest signal that legislation that encourages free enterprise under a capitalist government is impossible, that the Tories are validating Labour’s stance in creepy areas of state control, shows to what extent the activist’s charter now has a throttle hold on everything that is sane, manifestoed, planned, necessary and fundamental. What do I think of government? I think it would be a good idea.
Sums it up well. Want another example of Blue Labour at work? Dog control collars. Designed to help dogs and indeed cats stay safe away from roads, they respond to a perimeter cable with a beep and they learn to stay inside the area defined. Some do give an electic shock and there are some that have a manual control to issue a shock. The animal activists have got in the ear of Gove and they are considering banning them.
“They’ve found that more education doesn’t change people’s perceptions—that in fact, the people with the highest degree of science literacy aren’t the ones who are most concerned, but rather, the most polarized. Because those people can muster evidence to explain why they’re right, too.”
Hmmmm. She might be correct: BA botany, WVU 1966; MA plant taxonomy/ecology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1969; PhD Plant Ecosystems, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1987. Through those degrees are a fair number of courses in Paleobotany–wanna see climate change? Take those courses and stroll through millions and millions of years of change.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, that picture of her is worth a whole volume.
BTW, just how much education and in what does Katharine profess? I am certain she does prefer social “scientists.” They have quite the reputation for being nitwits. How they justify as “scientists” is a mystery.
Yes Paul Homewood, avoiding the facts is “par for the course”, along with consistent shoals of “Red Herrings”, thrown into the aurgument …
(Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1981) gives the full phrase as “Drawing a red herring across the path”, an idiom meaning “to divert attention from the main question by some side issue”; here, once again, a “dried, smoked and salted” herring when “drawn across a fox’s path destroys the scent and sets the hounds) …
Breitbart linked: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/22/delingpole-alarmist-scientist-advises-how-to-deal-with-skeptics-rebrand-facts-as-smokescreens/