Over the past few months, you may have heard murmurs about a planned denial conference at University College London (UCL). It ended up happening, but not at UCL. Why? Because someone in charge at the institution told the conveners to make it clear that the event is not affiliated with UCL, or move the event elsewhere.
Having their plan to trade on the respectable name of UCL foiled, Monckton et al. threw a predictable fit, cried censorship, and decided to hold the event at another location.
Now that the event has taken place, it’s obvious why they wanted the UCL location — attention. Holding such an event at a prestigious academic institution would have perhaps made it newsworthy, if for no other reason than the outrage generated. Without the UCL brand to give them legitimacy, there seems to be absolutely no media coverage of the event. While the announcement and lead-up generated blog posts and the cancellation garnered a stereotypically histrionic Delingpole column, post-event coverage is minimal. Besides a very interesting piece at DesmogUK from someone who attended (ctrl+F Crumpet Catcher) the only other record of the event at this point seems to be a pair of posts at Bishop Hill. To save you two clicks, neither say anything of value.
Instead, they’re both the images of the “notes” taken by Deniotopia’s official cartoonist, “Josh.” He’s illustrated a variety of denial nonsense in the past (never worth discussing) which we only mention now because there’s another cartoonist who’s actually done something worthy of praise.
John Cook, the man who created Skeptical Science (SkS) and the lead author of the 97% consensus studies, has officially received his PhD in psychology, and next January will join the George Mason University (GMU) Center for Climate Change Communications. This will surely irritate the deniers to no end, for their seemingly favorite rebuttal to anything involving SkS or the 97% has been to yell But he’s just a cartoonist! (When Cook started Skeptical Science, he listed in the “About” page that despite a background in physics, he wasn’t a scientist, just a cartoonist. Which is why everything at SkS is cited and points to peer-reviewed papers written by the real scientists.)
All irony of the denier praise for cartoonist Josh and hate for cartoonist John aside, there is no doubt that Dr. Cook will make the most of his GMU PhD to advance climate science communications in an important and necessary direction.
But really, there’s no shame in being a cartoonist (well, except maybe being a denial cartoonist.) Editorial cartoons have long been a respected staple of political discourse, and the cartoonist’s ability to capture complex issues in simple imagery is a skill worth honing.
For example, every nerd’s favorite comic, XKCD, recently posted a great new timeline of Earth’s average temperatures.
Though it’s not perfect and a long read, of sorts, it’s also a quick read. It’s a cartoon so simple and clear that even a little girl can use it to Warn‘er Brothers about climate change.
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