I am not even talking about wind turbines failing due to it being too cold.
Instead, cold brings out the Lunatic Fringe when it comes to climate. Because of the everyone-gets-a-trophy mentality that many of them have (no matter what happens, they always attribute it to climate), they try to blame cold on warming.
Let us get something straight. The so-called global temperature is a horrible metric for climate because temperatures are a third derivative indicator of climate. Wet bulb temperatures are far better and best are saturation mixing ratios. They show the relationship of water vapor to temperatures and, since there is no such relationship between CO2 and temperature, intuitively it means CO2 can not be proven to do anything. And so they refuse to quantify the mixing ratios. But the increase in water vapor due to warming oceans can be directly linked not only to increased temperature but also to understanding where and when it’s warmer; we see it has to be water vapor since the warming is in the coldest driest areas much more than toward the equator. This, by the way, sets off a whole chain of events that I have been trying to show people. While I am at it, I would be happy to show this entire hypothesis to groups that want to see it. At the very least, you can laugh it out of existence. ( I am confident when I explain, you won’t) I have explained this dozens of times and can defend the hypothesis. I figure the best way to prove it is to get out in front of events in the weather and expose these people when they open their mouths on something I was predicting way before. They are clueless until it happens since the only way they care about the weather is to use it for non-weather purposes.
In any case the public does not understand that even if we use the global temperature, it’s an average of all observations. If it is 1 degree above average, it means there is enough warmth to outdo the cold by that much, but there is still going to be cold around. There is still going to be much of the planet not knowing it is warm unless they are told and told so in a way that is pure exaggeration (hottest ever). Trying to use a temperature that is a bit over 59 (though at actual weather stations its under 58) and portraying it as hot is deceptive and delusional. 59 is not hot. The fact that it is warmer where its coldest and driest DECREASES temperature contrast and lead to less severe events.
But what about the idea that warm causes cold? This is Climate 101 from back in the 1950s. So they recycle it because no one reading this probably cared about the climate in the ’60s, and if you don’t, certainly their mindless minions did not. The idea is, if the world warms, it is because of more water vapor, so the snowier areas of the world, though warming more, would get more snow, and it would naturally start to counter warming. I learned about this idea when I was 8 years old out of some books my dad gave me on the weather. I learned it again at Penn State in the 1970s pre Michael Mann ( he is at U Penn now). It is a natural built-in cycle that follows Le Chateliers, something that is never mentioned.
Weatherbell laid the trap for the cold you see now, starting back in Spring. We are now going out as far as 9 months in our forecasting (hence the hurricane forecast that came out in December). In any case, the bullet points in the forecast had this from Aug 15 (first official release).
The first part of winter may be mild.
The coldest and snowiest part of the winter should be from mid-January onward.
From our summation:
I expect the opposite of last winter, where we came out of the gate fast and then fell apart. I can’t rule out a 2009 December to remember, but the idea here is the core of the worst part of winter, relative to averages, should be from mid-January onward.
Why? Because we expected blocking. And, of course, the know-nothings pushing CAGW think this is something out of the ordinary.
Well, look at Jan 1977:
Let’s see Feb 1958:
How about Jan 1985?
I can get any spectacular cold month and find blocking. I am using these because they occurred before Al Gore and his ilk started pushing all this jibberish, which, of course, has an army steeped in ignorance and arrogance now following it.
Let us take this month so far:
It was seen; it was predicted. We have shown the stratospheric event in early December ( there is one now, so look out Mid-Feb to mid-March, and the models are seeing it). Like I said the people saying that this is a sign of climate change are ignorant and so emboldened that they get no resistance or pushback; that they are arrogant.
By the way, where were they in late December when it was so warm, and this came out on CFACT:
The village idiot was apparently ready to embarrass himself again, and he did not disappoint; of course, I’m talking about the one and only Al Gore. During a televised segment yesterday on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, anchor Jake Tapper asked Gore what would happen if the world failed to “react” to the impending climate doom-what sufficient “reaction” looks like is still unclear-and what the “worst-case scenario” would be. Below is Gore’s response, via a Breitbart report:
Gore said, ‘The scientist who has warned us of these mega-storms and the floods and mudslides and droughts and the ice melting and the sea level rising and the storms getting stronger and the tropical diseases and climate and migrants crossing international borders in large numbers. They were dead right when they warned us about this, and so we need to pay more attention to them now.’
He continued, ‘Here is one thing they say: if we don’t take action, there could be as many as 1 billion climate refugees crossing international borders in the next several decades. Well, a few million have contributed to this wave of populist authoritarianism and dictatorships and so forth. What would a billion do? We can’t do this. We could lose our capacity for self-governance.’
As we all know from that Gore is reliably unreliable, so of course, those “facts” weren’t even accurate. These climate doomsayers are “dead right” despite a 100% fail-rate? Yeah, sure. (Last year, the American Enterprise Institute published a “18 Spectacularly Wrong Predictions” piece, and it’s worth a read.)
First of all, glaciers are actually growing, and all signs point to a coming era of extreme cold. Furthermore, cold temperatures have caused (and continue to do so) far more death than “global warming” ever has; according to Bjorn Lomborg, a “high-profile Danish figure known primarily for his internationally-renowned book, The Skeptical Environmentalist”:
Cold deaths vastly outweigh heat deaths. This is common knowledge in the academic literature and for instance the Lancet finds that each year, almost 600,000 people die globally from heat but 4.5 million from cold.
But Gore doesn’t seem to grasp the true irony of his statement: although as I noted above that the sufficient “reaction” to temper the climate “emergency” isn’t really uniformly articulated (by the parasite class of leftist globalists pushing the agenda), we know it involves a complete and utter surrendering of personal liberties and national sovereignty to shadowy foreign bureaucracies.
What Gore is really saying is that to save “self-governance” we have to give it up.
“Give us your lives, your fortunes, and your liberty, and let amorphous unaccountable global agencies micromanage your existence from womb to tomb, OR YOU FORFEIT YOUR ‘CAPACITY’ FOR SELF-GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY IS DEAD!”
“They” tell us we can’t fly. “They” took our light bulbs and our freon, while gas stoves, air conditioners, water heaters, and dishwashers, walk up the gallow steps. “They” demand we give up our gas-powered cars, for our own good and safety of course. “They” want social credit scores that include carbon output as a mitigating factor. “They” tell us to murder the most vulnerable and precious among us, for the sake of humanity and compassion. “They” are beyond demented and evil.
But, more absurdly, Gore noted that without mitigation, “climate refugees” will ultimately lead to the death of “self-governance” because by his (il)logic, it will invite more “populist authoritarianism” and “dictators” (read, President Donald Trump and anyone else that fits his mold), into the Western nations fixing to be overwhelmed by third world hordes. Ergo, doesn’t that make the Democrat case to curb the open borders policies they’ve championed for so long? If you don’t want Trump, or anyone like him, then why create a melee in which you anticipate losing? Like I said, village idiot, with (heavy, heavy) emphasis on the “idiot.”
The article begins with a dramatic setting: the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, where the once-loud calls for a fossil fuel phaseout have been reduced to mere whispers of ‘reducing’ them. This grandiose plan, initially supported by environmental groups and certain nations, has fizzled out, much to the chagrin of activists and self-proclaimed environmental saviors. As Politico puts it,
“The prospect of a deal to end fossil fuels faded…when organizers…released a draft proposal that merely suggested reducing them instead.”
A Chorus of Discontent
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, in a statement that reeks of hyperbole, declares, “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure.” Meanwhile, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, during a fractious meeting, laments that the draft
“really doesn’t meet the expectations…in terms of the urgently needed transition to clean sources of energy.”
The irony here is thick – the very champions of these policies seem shocked that their unrealistic expectations are unmet.
The Realists Strike Back
In a twist of practicality, representatives of countries including China and India firmly oppose any language suggesting a phaseout or phase-down of specific energy sources. These nations, perhaps more anchored in reality, recognize the impracticality and economic harakiri such policies would entail. The article notes,
“Negotiations…were expected to continue through the wee hours…the scheduled final day of the summit.”
The Green Disillusionment
Environmental advocates and some EU members view this change as a betrayal, their utopian dreams clashing with the unyielding wall of reality. The Marshall Islands’ John Silk melodramatically states,
“The Republic of the Marshall Islands did not come here to sign our death warrant,”
highlighting the emotional, rather than rational, underpinning of such arguments.
A Middle Ground or A Mirage?
While some, like Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa, see the deal as laying “the ground for transformational change,” others express skepticism. French Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher melodically laments,
“I don’t know what will happen to my kids tomorrow if we stick to this text.”
Conclusion: The Theater of Absurdity
The COP28 summit, as outlined in Politico’s report, emerges not as a forum of rational discourse and pragmatic solutions but as a theater of the absurd. The retreat from a fossil fuel phaseout to a vague suggestion of ‘reducing’ them is not just a policy failure; it is a testament to the unrealistic and often theatrical nature of the climate debate. It lays bare the chasm between the lofty ideals of environmental activism and the pragmatic realities of global energy needs. One can’t help but appreciate the humor in watching these climate crusaders grapple with the inconvenient truth that their lofty alarmist aspirations often crumble under the weight of practicality. Welcome to the real world, where good intentions meet the hard road of reality.
Addendum: Michael Mann has the sads.
As the 28th United Nations climate summit (COP28) draws to a close in Dubai, after another year of devastating heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms and record high global temperatures, the entire process is threatening to break down. Not only has COP28 failed to meet this moment demanding dramatic and immediate climate action — it has made a caricature of it.https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-12-11/climate-summit-dubai-cop28
“Today the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin. We are still reluctant to believe that our worst nightmares of a global ecological collapse could come true; much depends on how quickly we can recognize the danger. [- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (1992)]
“Every night on the TV news is like taking a nature hike through the Book of Revelation,” Al Gore told the New York Times last year. The Times reporter noted: “The past few weeks have him even more worried than usual.” Really?
Gore’s rhetoric today is toned toward hope that new technology will save the day. “We know how to fix this,” Gore told the Times:
We can stop the temperatures going up worldwide with as little as a three-year time lag by reaching net zero. And if we stay at true net zero, we’ll see half of the human-caused CO2 coming out of the atmosphere in as little as 30 years.
Net zero fantasies aside, Gore pulls out his old trump card of “the survival of the human civilization,” such as his recent comment on ExxonMobil’s CEO participating at COP28.
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From the late 1980s until today, Al Gore is singing the same tune. Here is a sampling of his otherworldly statements.
Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand-new relationship with the planet Earth. The world’s forests are being destroyed; an enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer. Living species are dying at an unprecedented rate.
To date, the national-security agenda has been dominated by issues of military security…. Many of us hope that the global environment will be the new dominant concern.
Similarly, the effort to solve the global environmental crisis will be complicated not only by blind assertions that more environmental manipulation and more resource extraction are essential for economic growth…. It will call for … a Strategic Environment Initiative.
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992)
“[The] global environmental crisis is rooted in the dysfunctional pattern of our civilization’s relationship to the natural world.” (p. 237)
“It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five-year-period.” (pp. 325–26)
“We now know that [the automobile’s] cumulative impact on the global environment is posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront.” (p. 325)
“Adopting a central organizing principle—one agreed to voluntarily—means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action—to use, in short, every means to halt the destruction of the environment and to preserve and nurture our ecological system.” (p. 274)
“Minor shifts in policy, marginal adjustments in ongoing programs, moderate improvements in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change—these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle, and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary.” (p. 274)
“I hope and trust we will all find a way to resist the accumulated momentum of all the habits, patterns, and distractions that divert us from what is true and honest, spinning us first this way, then that, whirling us like a carnival ride until our very souls are dizzy and confused.” (p. 367)
“Modern industrial civilization, as presently organized, is colliding violently with our planet’s ecological system. The ferocity of its assault on the earth is breathtaking, and the horrific consequences are occurring so quickly as to defy our capacity to recognize them, comprehend their global implications, and organize an appropriate and timely response.” (p. 269)
“We are now, in effect, corruptly imposing our own dysfunctional design and discordant rhythms on future generations, and these persistent burdens will be terribly difficult to carry.” (p. 236)
“The global environmental crisis is rooted in the dysfunctional pattern of our civilization’s relationship to the natural world.” (p. 237)
“Our civilization is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the earth itself. This addictive relationship distracts us from the pain of what we have lost: a direct experience of our connection to the vividness, vibrancy, and aliveness of the rest of the natural world. The froth and frenzy of industrial civilization mask our deep loneliness for that communion with the world that can lift our spirits and fill our senses with the richness and immediacy of life itself.” (pp. 220–21)
“We have become so successful at controlling nature that we have lost our connection to it.” (p. 225)
“The world’s ecological balance depends on more than just our ability to restore a balance between civilization’s ravenous appetite for resources and the fragile equilibrium of the earth’s environment. . . . We must restore a balance within ourselves between who we are and what we are doing.” (p. 12)
“Our ecological system is crumpling as it suffers a powerful collision with the hard surfaces of a civilization speeding toward it out of control.” (p. 42)
“The potential for true catastrophe lies in the future, but the downslope that pulls us toward it is becoming recognizably steeper with each passing year. . . . Sooner or later the steepness of the slope and our momentum down its curve will take us beyond a point of no return.” (p. 49)
“Now warnings of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. . . . Today the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin. We are still reluctant to believe that our worst nightmares of a global ecological collapse could come true; much depends on how quickly we can recognize the danger. (pp. 177–78)
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006)
“The underlying reality is that we are colliding with the planet’s ecological system, and its most vulnerable components are crumbling as a result.” (p. 8)
“In every corner of the globe … the world is witnessing mounting and undeniable evidence that nature’s cycles are profoundly changing.” (p. 8)
“Not only does human-caused global warming exist, but it is also growing more and more dangerous and at a pace that has now made it a planetary emergency.” (p. 8)
“The climate crisis is, indeed, extremely dangerous. In fact, it is a true planetary emergency.” (p. 10)
“Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction even that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.” (p. 10)
“This time it is not an asteroid [like 65 million years ago] colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc; it is us.” (p. 10)
“Today, we are hearing and seeing dire warnings of the worst potential catastrophic in the history of human civilization: a global climate crisis that is deepening and rapidly becoming more dangerous than anything we have ever faced.” (p. 10)
“At stake is the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth.” (p. 11)
“Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years…. To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in 10 years.”
“It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.”
“When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they’re going to bring gasoline prices down.”
“If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.”
Quotations About Al Gore
Gore calls our consumption habits an “addiction.” Civilization is termed clinically “dysfunctional.” His opponents are in psychological “denial.” The politically ambivalent electorate has grown psychologically numb in order to “anesthetize their conscience.” Businessmen and politicians are called “enablers.” In sum, society is sick, and only a therapist-in-chief can cure it. Stuart Smalley, meet the Unabomber. (Jerry Taylor, 2000)
Al Gore was right about one thing in his rant at the World Economic Forum in Davos: CO2 emissions have continued to climb and show no sign of being affected by “climate policy”. (Holman Jenkins, 2023)
Mr. Gore will continue his angry prophet act. Politics will continue to fuel a sacred pork scramble. The climate press will balance on its noses whatever memes are tossed its way. And humanity will adapt to the climate it gets, which the best current guess says will probably be another 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer over the next century. (Holman Jenkins, 2023)
“Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years…. the future of human civilization is at stake.”
“Scientists have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire [North Pole] ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.”
He said it. And he was wrong. Al ‘Doom-and-Gloom’ Gore, the great climate exaggerator, has been at it since James Hansen’s testimony 35-years ago, his Washington Post op-ed in 1989 (yesterday’s post), and his book Earth in the Balance (1992). And yet this man is the Godfather of COP28 this week in Dubai, the link from the past to the present. John Kerry may do Al’s bidding, but Al himself is depressed over the prospects of the two-week CO2-rich confab. (He should be: fossil fuels are winning despite desperate government attempts to bribe producers and consumers.)
There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes….
The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.
I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously…. The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months….
And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging…. for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.
Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me.
I’m convinced that one reason we’ve seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they almost always make the other crises even worse.
Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises….
But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand. The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.
What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don’t cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home? We have such fuels.
Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.
The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.
But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation’s problems, we need a new start.
That’s why I’m proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It’s not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.
Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.
A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the economics of energy….
And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.
You know, the same thing happened with computer chips – also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months – year after year, and that’s what’s happened for 40 years in a row.
To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I’ve seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.
To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world….
Of course, there are those who will tell us this can’t be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, “The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.”
To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.
To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people’s appetite for change….
To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.
We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.
At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That’s the best investment we can make….
Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.
In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world’s agenda for solving the climate crisis.
Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today…. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.
It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? ….
Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we’ve simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions…. But I’ve begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach….
So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It’s time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.
This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I’m asking you – each of you – to join me and build this future….
Constructivist energy failure. Mid-course correction needed and ahead….
“The global environment crisis may demand responses that are comparatively radical…. It will call for … a Strategic Environment Initiative.” (Al Gore, 1989)
Al Gore might be the the slickest of the 70,000 expected at the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (COP28) climate meeting in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from November 30th until December 12, 2023. Gore is the world’s #1 climate barker–and has made tens of millions of dollars from his “crisis.” He has one of the highest CO2 footprints on the globe … but he is different, you know.
So what’s new with Al Gore’s pitch? Not much. His crisis in the 1980s is still the crisis of 2023. We are in a “planetary emergency.”We are almost out of time. There is hope with a new energy future….
Mid-course correction not. Sort of like Enron, the climate crusader until its demise.
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Just to document the yawns that 99 percent of the world have toward the never-ending crisis, read excerpts from his Washington Post editorial, “Earth’s Fate Is the No. 1 National Security Issue” (May 14, 1989).
The world is in a crisis–and we are ignoramuses for not seeing what is so clearly obvious (“don’t look up,” they say 34 years later). And an all-of-government (Biden’s phrase) to arrest the ‘crisis’ that only the experts and politicians can see, not us boiling frogs (as one person recently said about us uncleansed). Here he is:
“Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with the planet Earth. The world’s forests are being destroyed; an enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer. Living species are dying at an unprecedented rate. Chemical wastes, in growing volumes, are seeping downward to poison groundwater while huge quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons are trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising global temperatures.”
How much information is needed by the human mind to recognize a pattern? How much more is needed by the body politic to justify action in response? It took 10,000 human lifetimes for the population to reach 2 billion. Now in the course of one lifetime, yours and mine, it is rocketing from 2 billion to 10 billion, and is already halfway there.
Yet, the pattern of our politics remains remarkably unchanged. That indifference must end. … the environment is becoming a matter of national security — an issue that directly and imminently menaces the interests of the state or the welfare of the people.”
To date, the national-security agenda has been dominated by issues of military security…. Many of us hope that the global environment will be the new dominant concern.
The global environment crisis may demand responses that are comparatively radical. This central fact suggests that the notion of environmentally sustainable development at present may be an oxymoron, rather than a realistic objective. It declares war, in effect, on routine life in the advanced industrial societies. And — central to the outcome of the entire struggle to restore global environmental balance — it declares war on the Third World.
… the effort to solve the global environmental crisis will be complicated …. It will call for the environmental equivalent of the Strategic Defense Initiative: a Strategic Environment Initiative.
An Energy SEI should focus on producing energy for development without compromising the environment. Priorities for the near term are efficiency and conservation; for the mid-term, solar power, possibly new-generation nuclear power, and biomass sources (with no extraneous pollutants and a closed carbon cycle); and for the long term, nuclear fusion, as well as enhanced versions of developing technologies.
Needed in the United States probably more than anywhere is a Transportation SEI focusing in the near term on improving the mileage standards of our vehicles, and encouraging and enabling Americans to drive less. In the mid-term come questions of alternative fuels, such as biomass-based liquids or electricity. Later will come the inescapable need for re-examining the entire structure of our transportation sector, with its inherent emphasis on the personal vehicle.
The U.S. government should organize itself to finance the export of energy-efficient systems and renewable energy sources. That means preferential lending arrangements through the Export-Import Bank, and Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Encouragement for the Third World should also come in the form of attractive international credit arrangements for energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable processes. Funds could be generated by institutions such as the World Bank, which, in the course of debt swapping, might dedicate new funds to the purchase of more environmentally sound technologies.
Finally, the United States, other developers of new technology, and international lending institutions, should establish centers of training at locations around the world to create a core of environmentally educated planners and technicians — an effort not unlike that which produced agricultural research centers during the Green Revolution.
But we must also transform ourselves — or at least the way we think about ourselves, our children and our future. The solutions we seek will be found in a new faith in the future of life on earth after our own, a faith in the future which justifies sacrifices in the present, a new moral courage to choose higher values in the conduct of human affairs, and a new reverence for absolute principles that can serve as guiding stars for the future course of our species and our place within creation.
“Transform ourselves”. How about yourself? As I noted on social media:
The leader of the climate industrial complex–and one of the biggest CO2 footprints in the world. And lots of Green–as in money.
Al Gore created a billion-dollar profitable market for himself by lying to us about Polar Bears and Arctic Ice. His green investment firm is now worth 36 Billion US$. It pays him $2 million every month!!
A canary in a coal mine is an advanced warning of some danger. The metaphor originates from the times when miners used to carry caged canaries while at work; if there was any methane or carbon monoxide in the mine, the canary would die before the levels of the gas reached those hazardous to humans.
With over a decade and a half since the IPCC AR4, it is instructive to see how the “run away melting” of Arctic sea ice is progressing.
Mass media outlets have been paying little attention to Arctic sea ice in recent years apart from cries of alarm at carefully selected low points in the record. After much excitement and breathless claims of imminent “ice-free summers” in the Arctic starting around and inspired by the release of IPCC’s AR4 in 2007, we were told that Arctic sea ice was “the canary in the coal mine”, the harbinger of the catastrophic changes happening to the climate system and caused by human actions.
Fortunately for the purveyors of this point of view, 2007 experienced the lowest summer sea ice extent in the relatively short satellite record. Worse, after a few years of mild recovery, we witnessed the OMG minimum of 2012. Media spin went into over-drive with claims it was “worse than we thought”, and claims from activist-scientists that the Arctic was in a “death spiral”.[1]
Now with over a decade and a half since AR4 it would be instructive to see how the “run away melting” is progressing. To check in on our canary and see whether it has fallen from its perch and is lying in the saw-dust with its stiff little legs sadly pointing towards the heavens.
NSIDC maintains a very instructive and useful interactive graph [5], allowing display of any selected years from the satellite record on a day by day basis . They also publish the ice extent data for each day of the 45 year record in text format, as well as the date and magnitude of minimum ice extent each year.
Since the September minimum is the most volatile this became a favourite metric and was a regular media climate highlight each September. In 2007 Al Gore was famously saying (unnamed) scientists had told him there may be no more Arctic ice at all in summer by as early as 2013.
Climatologists frequently explain the idea of the “albedo feedback” whereby less ice leads to more solar energy entering the sea, causing warmer waters, more ice melting, more solar … and a “tipping point” being reached where irreversible, run-away melting would occur. This explanation, while plausible, is of a naive simplicity and does not even examine what other effects more open water may have and what other feedbacks, positive or negative, may come into play.
More conductive heat loss since the ice was a good insulating barrier.
More evaporative heat loss due to more open water exposed to persistently strong Arctic winds.
More radiative heat loss, since water has a high emissivity in the infra-red and will be radiating more 24/7 throughout the summer and continuing into the winter when the Arctic is in permanent darkness and there is zero incident sunlight.
Even in the summer months, the little sunlight there is arrives at very low incident angles and a high proportion is reflected not absorbed at all. This weakens the supposed albedo feedback. It seems this has not been measured or quantified in place. It remains speculative but is somehow expected/assumed to be a dominant factor in the changing polar climate.
So what does the 45 years of daily satellite data tell us?
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent ( areas with less than 15% ice coverage ).
We can see that in 2007 and even up until 2012, the reduction in sea ice extent was indeed reducing significantly and at an accelerating rate. A quadratic function, corresponding to a constantly increasing rate of melting, did provide a reasonably good fit to the date from around 1995. This does not prove that AGW was the cause of that change but it did at least seem a reasonable hypothesis which merited proper investigation. Instead this was taken as a self-evident truth which did not require any proof.
Had that indeed been the case there would have been no summer ice by around 2023/24. However, as the subsequent record now tells us, this simplistic interpretation no longer fits the observed data and therefore is formally rebutted. Not to recognise this would be “science denial” or to display a “flat-earther” mentality. It may even constitute “climate change denial” !
With 16 years more data under our belts, we see a very different outcome. The 2023 sea ice minimum on 18/19 September was indistinguishable from that of 2007 when all the hysterical screaming began. ZERO net change in 17 years. The linear trend since 2007 is indistinguishable from zero ( around -0.17% per year ). Sadly, virtually no one seems to be aware of this GOOD NEWS because there is a stony silence from the media who steadfastly avoid mentioning it and climatologists who prefer to divert the discussion elsewhere : ice maximum, Antarctic sea ice, calving glaciers …. anything but canaries !!
At best we are told the lowest 17y on record are the last 17y, without also being told that period shows no net change.[2] Or we are told sea ice IS shrinking implying it is still happening. The grammatically a falsehood and at best wilful misdirection. eg. NASA Vital signs: “Key Takeaway: Summer Arctic sea ice extent is shrinking by 12.3% per decade due to warmer temperatures.”[3] Climate science seems to have moved from “Hide the decline” to “Hide the lack of decline” !
Regime change Sumatra et al 2023 [4] Determines that there has been a regime change in the Artic since 2007 witnessed by the thickness and character of ice flow through the Fram Straight.
“Here we show that the Arctic sea ice regime shifted in 2007 from thicker and deformed to thinner and more uniform ice cover. Continuous sea ice monitoring in the Fram Strait over the last three decades revealed the shift.”
Figure 3.
Derivation of this result is shown here: https://climategrog.wordpress.com/arctic-min-dates/ With a more detailed discussion here: https://climategrog.wordpress.com/category/periodic-analysis/
Conclusion
The detailed daily satellite data of sea ice extent provides the basis for extended study to understand the variation and forces driving change. Sadly much of the discussion seems based on drawing a straight line through the entire dataset and reducing it to single scalar value: the “trend”, which is instantly, and spuriously, attributed to the monotonic rise in atmospheric CO2. This is lazy and convenient but not scientific. The rich granularity of 45y of daily data shows the variation is anything but monotonic and that other factors and feedbacks are at play.
More serious analysis is necessary to determine the extent that long term temperature rise is contributing to change, what feedbacks ( both positive and negative ) are at play and what this tells us about long term change. Trivial “trend” fitting is clearly grossly inadequate to understand the cryosphere and inform energy policy consequences and adaptation measures.
More honest reporting is required from media outlets, climate scientists and government bodies about the true nature of change, good news as well as bad, instead of highly selective reporting or misreporting to build an alarmist narrative.
Virginia O’Hanlon, a real girl, wrote a real letter, to Dr. Roy.
Dear Dr. Roy:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Climate Crisis. My Papa says, “If you see it in Dr. Roy’s climate blog, it is so.”
“Please tell me the truth. Is there a Climate Crisis?“
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or women’s or children’s or ze’s or transgender’s, are little. In this great universe of ours humans are mere insects, ants, in their intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him/her/they/them, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Climate Crisis. It exists as certainly as taxation and death and congressional favors and subsidies exist, and you know that they abound and give to some people’s life its highest riches! Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Climate Crisis! It would be as dreary as if there were no poor people. There would be no special favors, no bird-chopping windmills, no Teslas to give wealthy people a reason to exist! We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which affluence fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in the Climate Crisis! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire persons to watch all the private jets on Earth Day to catch Al Gore, but even if they did not see Al Gore, what would that prove? Nobody sees Al Gore, but that is no sign that there is no Al Gore. The most real things in the world are those that neither conservatives nor Trumpers can see. Did you ever see Greta Thunberg dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that she was not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man/woman/person, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men/women/persons that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond mere reality!
Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Climate Crisis! Thank Gaia It lives and It lives forever! A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10 thousand years from now, It will continue to put fear into your heart!
The number of “researchers” that are an embarrassment to humanity continues to swell exponentially.
The latest paper from Communications Earth & Environment, entitled “Artistic representations of data can help bridge the US political divide over climate change,” takes another swipe at a propaganda approach to environmental communication. Nan Li and colleagues examine the role of artistic visualization in climate change communication, arguing that such visualizations elicit stronger emotional responses than conventional data graphs. They maintain that this could
“mitigate the political division in viewers’ perceived relevance of climate change that could otherwise be exacerbated by exposure to data graphs.”
The paper serves to underline the ongoing effort to manipulate public opinion regarding climate change, rather than substantiating it with irrefutable evidence.
The paper’s central thesis rests on the argument that “artistic representations of climate data” will prove more effective in “bridging the political divide on climate change.” However, this contention seems to prioritize emotion and perception over fact and critical reasoning. We continue to drift away from an era of science driven by empirical evidence, focusing instead on emotionally charged interpretation of data to encourage consensus.
Li et al. base their findings on the impact of artistic visualizations that evoke stronger emotional reactions compared to data graphs. They note,
“artistic visualizations elicited stronger positive emotions than informationally equivalent data graphs but did not differ in their perceived credibility or effectiveness as visual aids for learning.”
The immediate question this raises is why we should favor an emotionally charged interpretation over a potentially more accurate, dispassionate assessment? While emotions play a vital role in our decision-making, an issue as complex and far-reaching as climate change or more directly, energy policy, demands more than a visceral reaction to a piece of art. The obvious danger lies in allowing emotion to override objective fact and reasoned judgement.
The authors also state that the
“art piece chosen as the experimental stimulus was created by Diane Burko.”
The choice of a renowned artist, whose work naturally elicits strong emotional responses, lends a certain degree of bias to the study. How can the findings then be generalized to represent the entire population’s response to all artistic representations of climate change? This skews the experiment toward generating a more significant emotional response rather than providing a genuine comparative study of communication methods.
Finally, the authors propose that
“participants were less politically polarized in their perceived relevance of climate change when viewing artistic visualizations than when viewing data graphs.”
This is troubling as it implies that it is necessary, or even desirable, to sway political beliefs to one side of the spectrum, instead of fostering a healthy debate and critical analysis of scientific data. This overreliance on aesthetic appeal over analytical scrutiny mirrors propaganda techniques, which aim to elicit a specific response rather than fostering independent thought.
It is crucial to avoid turning the conversation around the hypothetical dangers of climate change into a battle of emotions versus facts. The issue should not be about manipulating emotions to reduce political polarization, but rather about providing the public with clear, accurate, and accessible information, enabling them to make informed decisions. This paper’s attempt to sell artistic visualizations as the solution to political divides over climate change serves only to highlight the continued push to propagandize the population into action, where a robust, evidence-based argument would suffice.
This paper really is a hoot, I suggest perusing the original included below and then come back and trash discuss it here. Lest I forget, here is my favorite quote from the paper.
Despite the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. public is still divided over how to address the challenges caused by climate change
Visual art has been used to revamp the portrayal of climate change with the aims of engaging emotions and expanding nonexperts’ psychological capacity to perceive its relevance. However, empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of artistic representation of data as a tool for public communication is lacking. Using controlled experiments with two national samples of U.S. adults (total N = 671), here we found that artistic visualizations elicited stronger positive emotions than informationally equivalent data graphs but did not differ in their perceived credibility or effectiveness as visual aids for learning. When used to prompt individual reflection, artistic visualizations appeared to mitigate the political division in viewers’ perceived relevance of climate change that could otherwise be exacerbated by exposure to data graphs.
Introduction
Despite the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. public is still divided over how to address the challenges caused by climate change1. Opinion gaps have been widening between liberals and conservatives regarding the urgency to act and the policy direction(s) the country should take1. Many existing efforts attempt to mitigate the opinion gap by using data and scientific graphs to relay the reality of climate change2,3,4. Although data graphs confront viewers with imputable evidence, they may signal an intent of reasoning and heighten the skeptics’ biased processing of attitudinally incongruent information5,6. Numerous calls have been made to infuse data-based communication with emotions and portrayals of shared experiences to unite individuals who may otherwise disagree7.
In response, scientist and artists in the U.S. have revamped graphical representations of climate change with visual art. For instance, line graphs of soaring temperatures were incorporated into watercolor portrayals of mountains and glaciers, and a chart showing the trend in hurricane strength was transformed into abstract art with contrasting colors8,9. The assumption behind artworks like these is that they can help “meet the imaginative deficit of scientific data”, leading scientist-artists to disseminate the works via social media in hopes of raising public awareness10. The #ShowYourStripes campaign initiated by the UK climate scientist Ed Hawkins on social media, for example, allows residents in 179 U.S. cities and other places around the globe to transform local, century-long temperature data into a series of blue-to-red colored warming stripes. As seen on buildings, streets, scarfs, masks, and the cover of Greta Thunberg’s “The Climate Book”, the artistic visualization has become an iconic symbol that is widely used to encourage local climate action11.
However, as artistic representations of climate data proliferate, questions remain as to whether they are more effective than scientific data graphs in conveying factual evidence and boosting public trust in the accompanying information. Despite their prevalence, artistic visualizations can fail if their abstraction trumps clarity12. Viewers may beautify, trivialize, or even misinterpret the delineated issue when artistic portrayals make data obscure13. Those who lack interest or appreciation for visual art may feel particularly distanced or distracted by such a medium14,15.
Nonetheless, members of the scientific community commonly regard visual art as a beneficial tool for communicating their work16. As Nature found in a recent poll with its readers affiliated with various scientific disciplines (N = 350), almost all participants indicated they would consider collaborating with artists in public outreach efforts, believing that it would help “make emotional connections that enhance learning”17. Although studies have found that artistic visualizations can elicit strong emotions18,19,20, little evidence exists to show how they may help people retain knowledge better than data graphs as a more established visual language of science. It is also unclear if the use of artistic visualizations may diminish viewers’ perceived credibility of the accompanied information as many people may lack trust in artists when it comes to science12.
Using an online controlled experiment with a non-probability sample of U.S. adults (N = 319), this study examined how artistic representations of climate data, as compared to scientific graphs, might influence viewers’ emotions and recall of climate change information. We also investigated whether artistic representations of data were perceived as more or less credible than scientific graphs and studied how the art’s impact on emotions might vary as a function of one’s interest in visual art.
More importantly, we questioned if enhancing the data-based communication of climate change with visual art could help bridge the political divide on climate change. Liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the U.S. tend to interpret climate data through a political lens and use the provided data to justify their preexisting beliefs4. For example, an eye-tracking study found that when looking at a line graph featuring global temperature change, liberals paid more attention to the rising phase than the flat phase of the temperature curve while the opposite was true for conservatives21. However, liberals and conservatives did not differ in their attention when the graph was framed as unrelated to climate change21. As political motivations drive selective attention to graphical evidence, overreliance on data graphs for communicating climate change may exacerbate political division on this issue.
Artistic representations of data, nonetheless, can potentially attenuate the polarizing effect of data graphs by engaging certain emotions that mitigate motivated attention and reasoning. Specifically, avoidance emotions, such as anxiety, can “promote the consideration of opposing views and a willingness to compromise”, regardless of the accuracy of the presented view22,23. For example, when experiencing anxiety, partisans were more likely to accept corrections to politically congruent misinformation from the opposing party24. As with other forms of climate art, artistic representations of data can evoke anxiety or similar emotions by portraying the tangible reality of climate change18,25. Such emotional experiences may motivate spectators to reassess the visualized data that contradicts their beliefs and reduce the perceived distance to climate change26. Although some anecdotal evidence exists to suggest this possibility27,28, empirical evidence is lacking. We hence raised a research question asking if individuals would be less politically polarized in their perceived relevance of climate change when viewing artistic visualizations than when viewing informationally equivalent data graphs.
In addition, priming individuals with non-directional goals, such as to comprehend or achieve accuracy, can help them autonomously engage with the shown information instead of defaulting to biased reasoning29,30. For instance, when being asked to thoughtfully evaluate a piece of graphical evidence (e.g., a line graph indicating the loss of Arctic ice), conservatives were more likely to agree that climate change was serious than when reading an article unrelated to environmental issues4. In a similar vein, individuals judged art pieces to be “more powerful, challenging, and personally meaningful” when asked to write interpretations of them31. We wondered if offering reflective primes, such as prompting viewers to reflect on the meaning of and emotions evoked by the shown visuals, would interfere with the proposed depolarizing effect of artistic visualizations. In other words, do artistic visualizations still mitigate the polarizing effect that could otherwise be exacerbated by data graphs when viewers are prompted to ponder what they have seen and felt from the images? A follow-up experiment with a non-probability adult sample (N = 352) was conducted to answer this question.
The art piece chosen as the experimental stimulus was created by Diane Burko, an American painter and photographer who exhibited her climate-themed paintings at various venues, including the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Bernstein Gallery at Princeton University. The piece, titled Summer Heat, 2020, was selected due to its exemplary integration of fine art and a recognizable scientific graph (Fig. 1). The embedded graph references the renowned Keeling curve, which shows the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory since 195832. By having a simplified version of the Keeling curve juxtaposed with melted glaciers, the artwork conveys that “the causes and effects of climate change are crashing into each other”33. The red-colored map of Europe also reminds viewers of the record-breaking heat that hit the area in 2020.
Fig. 1: Stand-alone images used to prompt reflection and gauge evoked emotions.
Based on Burko’s art piece and the original Keeling curve, we created a 2 (artistic representation vs. data graph) * 2 (detailed graph vs. simplified graph) experimental design that allowed us to examine the effect of the visual format without being confounded by the distinct level of data specificity shown in the stimuli. For each condition, we first showed one stand-alone image (Fig. 1) to prompt reflections and gauge evoked emotions and then displayed one mockup Instagram post embedding the same image and a caption drafted by the authors (Fig. 2). With two billion active users, Instagram has expanded the collaborative space between art and science34, allowing scientist-artists to reach out to audiences that are less frequent visitors of science museums and art galleries35,36. The ecological validity of the stimuli would be enhanced by such a setup. We then measured information recall, perceived credibility, and perceived relevance of climate change after showing the mockup Instagram posts.
Fig. 2: Mockup Instagram posts used to gauge perceived credibility, perceived relevance of climate change and information recall.
The study found that artistic representations of data elicited stronger emotional responses than data graphs. Although participants with a lower level of art interest reported stronger negative emotions from data graphs, those with a higher level of art interest tended to perceive stronger negative emotions from the artistic visualizations. Interestingly, both data graphs and artistic visualizations were perceived as equally credible by participants. When primed to reflect on the meaning and emotions evoked by the visuals, participants were less politically polarized in their perceived relevance of climate change when viewing artistic visualizations than when viewing data graphs alone.
Results
Artistic representations of data evoked stronger positive emotions than data graphs
Participants were recruited in April 2022 through online panels provided by Forthright, a research panel available through Bovitz, Inc. Upon passing the inclusion criteria (i.e., having visited Instagram in the past) and offering consent to participate, participants were randomly assigned to four treatment groups and completed an online survey that lasted ~15 min. The study received approval from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institutional Review Board (ID: 2022-0232).
The first goal was to examine the emotional impact of the artistic representation of data. Using a 5-point scale (1 = “none at all”, 3 = “a moderate amount”, 5 = “a great deal”), we asked a question including 12 items that were previously used to gauge emotional reactions to climate change art18. For positive emotions, the items included “happiness”, “a sense of awe”, “inspiration”, “enthusiasm”, and “hope”; the mean value was used as an index (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89, mean 1.90, s.d. 0.97). For negative emotions, the items included “guilt”, “sadness”, “anger”, “anxiety”, “disappointment”, “uneasiness”, and “fear”. An index based on the mean value was created (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.93, mean 1.97, s.d. 1.02).
Results of the ANOVA (see Supplementary Table 1) and post hoc comparisons showed that artistic representations evoked stronger positive emotions than data graphs as the main effect of art was significant, F (1, 316) = 8.16, p = 0.005, η2 = 0.025. Further, the stimuli with detailed graphs elicited stronger negative emotions than the ones with simplified graphs as the main effect of detailed was significant, F (1, 316) = 13.21, p = 0.000, η2 = 0.04 (see Supplementary Table 2). In addition, the original art piece elicited the highest positive emotions (mean 2.17, s.d. 1.06), whereas the edited data graph (i.e., the one without any label, title, or numeric scale) elicited the lowest levels of positive emotions (mean 1.54, s.d. 0.82) and negative emotions (mean 1.59, s.d. 0.77) (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3: Post hoc comparison of positive and negative emotions across the four treatment groups.
Individuals interested in visual art were more likely to perceive negative emotions from artistic visualizations
In addition, we wondered if the emotional impact of artistic visualizations would vary for those with different levels of interest in visual art. Art interest was measured with the mean of five items on individuals’ self-reported interest in visual art (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89, mean 4.35, s.d. 1.36). Two interaction terms were created and entered in the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) models to examine how the effect of artistic representation on positive and negative emotions may vary as a function of art interest (see Supplementary Tables 3 and 4). Results suggested that the interaction term was only significant when predicting negative emotions, F (1, 314) = 7.14, p = 0.008, η2 = 0.022. Although data graphs evoked stronger negative emotions than artistic visualizations among people with a lower level of art interest, those with a higher level of art interest tended to perceive stronger negative emotions from the artistic visualizations than from data graphs (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Interactive effect of artistic visualization and art interest on negative emotions.
Posts containing artistic visualizations were perceived to be as memorable and credible as those containing data graphs
Post exposure to the mockup Instagram posts, participants answered a series of multiple-choice questions testing their recall of the caption text. We then recoded each answer into correct (coded as 1) and incorrect (coded as 0) and used the sum of correct answers to measure participants’ information recall (KR-20 = 0.63, mean 2.89, s.d. 1.56). The ANOVA results based on a combination of both sub-samples suggested that the main effect of art on information recall was only marginally significant, F (1, 668) = 4.26, p = 0.039 (see Supplementary Table 5). Furthermore, we measured participants’ perceived credibility of the Instagram posts with six items (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85, mean 4.70, s.d. 1.08). Results of the ANOVA indicated that the posts containing artistic visualizations were perceived as credible as the ones containing data graphs as the main effect of art was not significant, F (1, 668) = 0.39, p = 0.535 (see Supplementary Table 6).
Prompting reflection on artistic visualizations mitigates political division on the perceived relevance of climate change
Lastly, we wondered if participants’ perceived relevance of climate change would be less polarized along political lines when viewing artistic visualizations than when viewing data graphs. Political leaning was measured by an index combining partisanship and political ideology. Perceived relevance of climate change was measured by three items (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87, mean 4.77, s.d. 1.47). To examine how the relationship between political leaning and perceived relevance of climate change would vary for those who received different stimuli, we created an interaction term multiplying political leaning and a dichotomous variable contrasting the artistic and graphical treatments. Results of the ANCOVA showed that the interaction term was significant, F (1, 314) = 8.14, p = 0.005, η2 = 0.025 (see Supplementary Table 7). The relationship between political leaning and perceived relevance of climate change was stronger among participants who viewed data graphs than among those who viewed artistic visualizations (Fig. 5a). In other words, participants were less politically polarized in their perceived relevance of climate change when viewing artistic visualizations than when viewing data graphs.
Fig. 5: Interactive effect of experimental treatment and political leaning on the perceived relevance of climate change.
As shown in Fig. 5, this effect disappeared when participants were not primed to reflect on the meaning of and emotions evoked by the shown visuals (Fig. 5b). We duplicated the experimental design and recruited another non-probability sample using the same procedure (N = 352) in August 2022 to examine the potential role of a reflective prime in moderating the depolarizing effect of artistic visualizations. In the follow-up study, participants only received the mockup Instagram posts without viewing the stand-alone images first or answering any reflective question. Results showed that the relationship between political leaning and perceived relevance of climate change did not vary for those assigned to different groups as the interaction term was insignificant, F (1, 347) = 0.10, p = 0.76 (see Supplementary Table 8).
Discussion
Scientific data visualizations, such as the figures and charts presented in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”, and the disputed “hockey stick” graph, have merged as powerful symbols that fuel popular debates surrounding climate change37. However, they may not be efficacious as communication devices for unifying an increasingly divided public who has been repeatedly shown to ignore or devalue evidence that contradicts what they believe30. An artistic revamping of scientific graphs, nevertheless, could enrich the narrative inherent to data with emotions while expanding the viewers’ psychological capacity to conceive of their position within larger ecologies.
Using controlled experiments and national samples of U.S. adults, this study offers pioneering evidence that artistic visualizations can be more impactful than data graphs in conveying the relevance of climate change to lay audiences with diverse values and interests. Our findings not only inform ongoing conversations about how science and art can work together to reckon with the impending environmental crisis, but they also suggest new opportunities for practitioners and researchers in climate science, communication, environmental humanities, psychology, and sociology to continue collaborative, interdisciplinary work in this area.
Artistic representations of data, as with other forms of climate art, can evoke strong emotions. Interestingly, the chosen art piece elicited more positive emotions than the comparable data graphs despite the negative valence intended by the artist. This could be in part due to the esthetically pleasing experience associated with art appraisal in general and the distanced perspective that the study participants have adopted for art reception (i.e., viewing art as part of a paid study)38. Nonetheless, participants with higher levels of interest in visual art were more likely to feel negative emotions from the artistic pieces. As negative emotions can function as prerequisites for meaning making related to art38, spectators with higher level of art interest may obtain richer interpretations from the shown art than those with lower interest. It is imperative for scientist-artists to be aware of audience differences and not assume homogenous emotional or cognitive responses to their work.
Nonetheless, when appraised in-person, climate change art can evoke distinct emotions as a function of various (artistic) features, including color, depicted content, even the size of the artwork or where it is installed18. Therefore, the findings obtained from one piece of artwork created by one American artist may not be generalizable to all climate change art. Future research should expand on the findings of this study and further explore how different types of visual art—created by other scientists and artists—can increase the perceived relevance of climate change for people living in countries other than the U.S. As artistic representations of data have been increasingly created and used to encourage pro-climate actions around the world18, it is imperative to investigate how this innovative approach of public-facing communication might work, for instance, in some of the Global South countries that are more vulnerable to the risks of climate change.
Despite the potential lack of global generalizability of our results, it should be emphasized that artistic representations have been consistently perceived as more emotionally positive than equivalent non-art pieces. For example, when viewing 80 pieces of fine paintings vs. commercial visuals, a group of Asian non-experts reported higher levels of positive emotions when viewing the art39. Future studies should create or select a diverse set of comparable artistic and graphical representations of climate change data not only to examine its emotional and cognitive effects, but also to identify the specific characteristics that are associated with certain responses. An evidence-based understanding of such relationships will inform future practice that leverages both art and science to facilitate public engagement with climate change.
Relatedly, the observed effect might not be exclusively attributable to the artistic format. Noticeably, the painting stimuli contained complementary visual elements (e.g., the map of Europe, melted glaciers, etc.) that were not present in the data graphs. The results thus do not preclude the possibility that combining multiple non-artistic representations of the shown elements may elicit similar responses as the artwork. Future studies should consider using experimental stimuli that only vary in the visual format to rule out this possibility. Research along this line will also contribute additional insights into how a combined use of different forms of visual discourses may enhance the data-based communication of climate change.
Although previous research has suggested that artistic and abstract representations may lack effectiveness as visual aids for learning12, we did not find empirical support for such concern. Participants reported no significant difference in their perceived credibility or recall of the shown information accompanied by distinct visual stimuli. Nonetheless, a qualitative interview with 11 citizens living in the Netherlands observed that while most interviewees did not perceive artistic information visualizations to be necessarily untrustworthy, they voiced concerns about the lack of objectivity and scientific rigor in artistic visuals depicting climate change in general12. It is worth future efforts to identify the specific characteristics of artistic visualizations that can enhance their perceived credibility, such as the source40.
More importantly, as political partisans often engage in identity-protective attention and reasoning when viewing graphical evidence, it is critical to enhance or revamp conventional graphs with visual representations that elicit emotional and/or cognitive processes attenuating such tendency. Results of this study suggest that artistic representations of data, as compared to scientific data graphs, mitigate the political division in individuals’ perceived relevance of climate change when the appraisal process involves self-reflection (i.e., writing about what they have seen and felt from the images). However, to further understand how and why prompted reflection upon art pieces may help bring politically divided citizens together on the issue of climate change, researchers should consider conducting mixed methods research that concordantly collects and analyzes quantitative and qualitative data.
As visual art has been increasingly used to convey climate change to a wide range of audiences in the U.S. and beyond, it should be executed in a way that not only engages people through esthetics, but also enables contemplation and introspection. Using artistic representations of data to merely attract attention or adorn informational texts may not fulfill art’s full potential as a tool for public engagement. However, it should be noted that no artworks are created with unanimous goals in mind. A review of science-art programs in the U.S. revealed that although many of them aimed to inspire public action or activism, other programs attempted to foster interdisciplinary work between artists and scientists or enhance learning through creativity16. Future researchers should be aware of the diverse motivations behind the creation of artistic representations of scientific information and examine how they are processed in various cultural, educational, and communication contexts.
The advent of advanced data visualization tools, AI-generated art, and increasing collaborations between scientists and artists will quickly expand the ways in which climate science can be creatively represented to the public. Examining how the combined use of science and art may influence unconcerned and uninterested audiences outside of traditional informal learning settings (e.g., on Instagram and TikTok) is worth prioritizing in future research. Nonetheless, the increasing popularity of social networks may assimilate what people have seen and felt by empowering ubiquitous liking and sharing of an infinite number of images on a day-to-day basis. With regards to climate change, online audiences are risk being “caught between image regimes” that are governed more by fear than by concerns “for the welfare of humans, planet or even the technological infrastructure of the system itself”41.
With these considerations in mind, we would caution against a “reductionism” approach to examining the interplay between climate science and (visual) art which exclusively focuses on portraying the imagined states of loss and problems associated with warming temperatures42. Instead, future researchers should use our findings as motivation to further explore how (1) alternative visual discourses infused with hope and (2) community participatory creation of art (e.g., through a collaboration between scientist-artists and target audiences) may be more effective in mitigating political polarization in the U.S. on the issue of climate change.
Methods Sample
Forthright panelists were recruited through both online and offline channels, including digital networks and mail campaigns via address-based probability sampling methods. Participants (total N = 671) were asked if they had ever visited Instagram to view others’ shared photos or videos before proceeding to offer consent to participate in the study. For both samples, nearly half (50.7%) of the participants self-identified as females, 74.4% of them were white, and the average age of the sample was 44 years old (s.d. 17.03). The sample’s educational profile generally reflected that of the general U.S. population—27.6% of participants reported the highest degree they received as a high school diploma/GED and another 22.6% of the sample had a bachelor’s degree from a 4-year college.
Homogeneity of treatment group participants
Results from a series of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed homogeneous distributions of demographics, including age, gender, educational attainment, race, and household income across the four treatment groups. Members of each group also reported no significant difference in their preexisting concern with climate change, science education, art education, political ideology, frequency of social media use, and interest in experiencing visual art via Instagram.
Measures
Emotions were measured by asking “Thinking about the image you just saw, to what extent did the post bring up each of these feelings within you?” on a five-point scale (1 = none at all, 3 = a moderate amount, 5 = a great deal). The response items included “happiness”, “hope”, “a sense of awe”, “inspiration”, “enthusiasm”, “guilt”, “sadness”, “anger”, “anxiety”, “disappointment”, “uneasiness”, “fear”, “curiosity”, and “empathy”.
Art interest was measured by asking participants to indicate their agreement and disagreement with five statements on a seven-point scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 4 = “neither agree nor disagree”, 7 = “strongly agree”), including “I like to talk about visual art with others”; “Many people that I know are interested in visual art”; “I’m interested in visual art”; “I am always looking for new works of visual art”; “During my everyday life, I spontaneously notice visual art”19.
To measure information recall, we asked five multiple-choice questions regarding the shown images and caption text. The answers were then recoded into correct as 1 and incorrect or not remembered as 0, and the sum of correct answers was used as the dependent variable.
(1)According to the post, which atmospheric gas was mentioned as influencing the climate?
A.Carbon dioxide (CO2)
B.Methane (NH4)
C.Nitrogen (N2)
D.Oxygen (O2)
E.It was mentioned, but I’m not sure.
F.It was not mentioned.
(2)According to the post, which year had the highest average level of atmospheric CO2?
A.1970
B.1990
C.2000
D.2020
E.It was mentioned, but I’m not sure.
F.It was not mentioned.
(3)According to the post, what was the atmospheric CO2 level (parts per million) in 2020?
A.Less than 50
B.100
C.200
D.Over 400
E.It was mentioned, but I’m not sure.
F.It was not mentioned.
(4)Which of the following consequences of rising global temperatures was not mentioned in the post?
A.Heatwaves
B.Wildfires
C.Melting ice
D.Coral bleaching
E.The post mentions some of the consequences, but I’m not sure.
F.The post doesn’t mention the consequences.
(5)According to the post, which of the following statements is true?
A.CO2 increases global temperature by trapping heat in the atmosphere.
B.CO2 raises global temperatures by increasing water vapor levels in the atmosphere.
C.CO2 decreases global temperatures by creating greater cloud coverage and blocking the sun.
D.CO2 is not responsible for global temperature increases.
E.I’m not sure.
Perceived credibility of the mockup Instagram posts was measured by asking respondents to indicate agreement or disagreement on six statements using a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree), including the post “is trustworthy/is from a reputable source/is accurate/contains incorrect information (reversely coded)/is unbiased/is objective”. The mean value was used as an index for viewers’ perceived credibility of the post.
Perceived relevance of climate change was measured by asking respondents to indicate agreement or disagreement with three statements on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree), including “This post seems relevant to my daily life”; “The post highlights the consequences of climate change that would affect me personally”; and “This post makes me think about my role in the current climate situation”18.
To measure political leaning, we standardized and combined party identification and political ideology. Party identification was measured on a seven-point scale (1 = strong Democrat, 4 = Independent, 7 = strong Republican). Political ideology was measured by the mean of two items asking respondents to report their ideology on economic and social issues respectively using a seven-point scale (1 = very liberal, 4 = moderate, 7 = very conservative).
In addition, to ensure the homogeneity of treatment group participants, we measured age, gender, education, race, preexisting concern with climate change, science education, art education, frequency of social media use, and interest in experiencing visual art via Instagram as these factors may possibly interfere with how respondents react to the stimuli. Specifically, age was measured by asking respondents to report the year when they were born. Respondents reported their gender, education, and race by selecting an option from the provided lists.
Preexisting concern with climate change was measured by asking respondents’ agreement with three statements, including “Climate change is a current problem”; “Climate change is affecting the weather”; and “I am concerned about climate change” on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly agree, 4 = neither agree nor disagree, 7 = strongly disagree) (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94, mean 5.35, s.d. 1.67). Science/art education was measured by asking if participants’ college degree is in a scientific/art or science/art-related field as well as the number of college-level science/art courses ever taken. We also asked participants to report their frequency of visiting six popular social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat on an eight-point scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 7 (multiple times a day). Last, participants reported their frequency of doing art-related activities on Instagram, including “view visual art”, “comment or like visual art”, and “post something related to visual art” on the same eight-point scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90, mean 3.7, s.d. 2.4).
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Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1545 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USANan Li, Isabel I. Villanueva, Thomas Jilk & Dominique Brossard
EcoAgriculture Partners, 2961-A Hunter Mill Road, Suite 647, Oakton, VA, 22124, USA Brianna Rae Van Matre
Morgridge Institute for Research, 330 N Orchard Street, Madison, WI, 53715, USA Dominique Brossard
Contributions
N.L.: conceptualization, methodology, resource, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, supervision, funding acquisition. I.I.V.: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, writing—review and editing, formal analysis, project administration. T.J.: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, writing—review and editing, visualization. B.R.V.M.: conceptualization, methodology, data curation. D.B.: conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing, supervision, funding acquisition.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institutional Review Board with informed consent from all participants. A protocol was approved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institutional Review Board (ID: 2022-0232).
Peer review
Peer review information
Communications Earth & Environment thanks Christian Klöckner for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Heike Langenberg. A peer review file is available.
Additional information
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Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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