You remember “Climategate”? That the “sceptics” like Bolt, Devine, Akerman declared exposed “the rotten heart of the propaganda machine that has driven the world to the brink of insanity” and that so undermined the campaign for action that Labor offered less than a token and the Libs dumped their leader?
Yeah, well, the final of the three investigations into it has now reported, and the answer is clear: there was no impropriety – it was a massive beatup.
And yet there’ve been no mea culpas from those who ran it so unjustifiably hard, who’ve now been shown to have been quite wrong. As Tiffen writes in the link above:
It is a common criticism of the media that it prominently publishes allegations, but gives less coverage to the prosaic facts that later refute them. But rarely is the disproportion so stark. Rarely has such an edifice of sweeping accusation and extravagant invective been constructed on such a slender factual basis.
Rarely does it do such damage.
Except to the credibility of those who relied so heavily on it, of course. They sail on, undamaged, unchastened, unrepetentant.
65 Comments
Dorothy Parker @ http://loonpond.blogspot.com/2010/07/miranda-devine-gender-politics-redux.html nails it perfectly with this quip (my bold):
Below: a couple of handy thumbnail Met graphs, sure to produce the next round of armchair denialists, busy doing field work from the comfort of their computer
And cue the usual suspects here in 3, 2 …
Ten bucks says that the first mention ( if at all) by Bolt of today’s NOAA/Met.Office findings that AGW is unequivocal will feature a reply from someone claiming a conspiracy.
And it’s the 35th birthday of global warming. Head over to realclimate for a recap
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/happy-35th-birthday-global-warming/
Bolt runs an AGW story… but it’s not the big story in today’s news.
So I have essayed a reply suggesting ( in polite terms) that he is ignoring today’s news because he is embarrassed. After all, if you would ignore the NOAA/British Met. Office in favour of Ken the retired school principal with a “keen interest in a range of topics, the main one at the moment being Global Warming” , then sheer embarrassment is the only reason left.
I don’t suppose we can expect News to report anything that might damage the credibility of their “journalists”. And then they wonder why fewer and fewer people are purchasing their crappy rags.
Please God make Rupert install a paywall for online content to reduce the damage he and his minions do to the world and its inhabitants.
Climategate, investigated, cleared, Michael Mann’s hockey stick plot of global temperatures investigated, cleared, and yet we still get idiots posting such crap as
… promoting the myth of global warmening on active PP threads!
What can be said? Apologise? Ha, never, that would be an admission of being wrong and they cant do that. Irrefutable evidence exists of global warming. Irrefutable, and yet some still call it a myth.
After 150 years of evidence for evolution some people still wont accept it because it does not sit well with their beliefs. Global warming will be the same, if humanity lasts for another 150 years, idiots will still be arguing over what has caused the world to warm.
We have let the nutters have the keys to the asylum now and we must seize them back. Stop the crap about the so called argument. There is none, the world has warmed and the best evidence we have is that it has been caused by greenhouse gasses. This is not argued by anyone other that absolute fools. These fools have placed partisan politics above knowledge and don’t deserve the breath that would be wasted in called them idiots.
That big and profitable fossil fuel industries have mounted a campaign to seek to maintain their profits is not odd. What is is that individuals would align themselves with these polluters. The polluters desire for desirable policy does not trump scientific knowledge. The physics of a warmer planet will manifest in more and stronger storms, floods, fires, droughts and famine.
In the end our news will come to be dominated by weather events and everyone will get scared. And when they do at last realise that there is a problem, the terrifying question on their lips will be “is it too late”?
As I said yesterday, the penultimate Truther claim on global warming is that the scientists made it all up for whatever nefarious purposes imaginable. The Climategate stuff fed into that, and gave ‘truth’ to this conspiracy. You can see why so many denialists were keen to believe it.
To any rational person Climategate was always a beat up. It was clear from the outset that the emails had been cherry picked, plus the timing of the hacking was suspicious, and the Truthers peddling Climategate always brushed over the illegal manner in which the emails had been obtained. And still, acres of opinion space in the mainstream media were devoted to pushing this obvious conspiracy.
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that the Truthers have been undamaged by this. Don’t forget, the next shiny new conspiracy bauble they get their hands on will inevitably have people pointing to their enthusiasm at pushing the Climategate conspiracy, and how silly they ended up looking once that blew up in their faces.
As long as somebody, somewhere, with any degree of credibility is willing to criticize the scope of the inquiries, then the usual suspects will have cover.
I made my mind up on at least the Mann part of the scandal a while ago – I reckon that if the US had the sort of defamation laws that we do, he’d be a rich man by now. As for the guys at the CRU – I’m still not sure either way. I think they were probably bozos, but I’ve worked in academia and it’s no secret that there are empire-building, self-interested bozos to be found there (recall the old joke about the stakes being so low). Now knowing some of the background to the irate emails about FOI, I’m not at all surprised that phil jones was irate (as an aside – Just imagine if Andrew Bolt or Piers Ackerman had to respond to FOI requests – HA!) Despite all the smoke, I have yet to see anyone provide proof of actual fire. They didn’t destroy data, they didn’t prevent people from being published, and their work still stands on its own merits. That’s not the conclusion that a lot of people want to hear.
But if it results in greater sunlight being shone on the workings of university research then I’m all for it.
Andrew Bolt “The billion-dollar hoax” Jan 2010 “AND still the world hasn’t warmed since 2001, even though we pump out more emissions than ever.
Yet
A report on the world’s climate has confirmed that 2009 was one of Australia’s hottest years on record and provides more evidence of global warming.
Despite annual fluctuations, the figures also highlight the clear trend for the 2000s to be hotter than the 1990s, which in turn were clearly warmer than the previous decade,
“These numbers are not theory, but fact, indicating that the Earth’s climate is moving into uncharted territory,”
Can someone please somehow confront A Bolt with his own words on this?
If he retracts them then a victory can be claimed over the misinformation campaign that he is involved in and if he refuses to acknowledge them he is shown to be ignorant of the facts. Either way he looses credibility that from his own words he does not deserve to have.
They sail on, undamaged, unchastened, unrepetentant.
As they’ve always done (think of Iraq’s “massive stockpiles of WMD”). An occasional mea culpa might do their credibility some good. But in some twisted mentalities any admission of error is a sign of weakness.
Curiously the Bolt link about Ken the Cardigan-wearing Climatologist, refuses to display any comments, despite displaying “28 comments” under the body of text, andearlier and later threads displaying comments normally. Embarrassissimus!
Dom Ramone @1
DP notices exactly the same thing I noticed – as of about 1/2 an hour ago, there was no comment about this …
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
… anywhere on The Australian web site. Not a peep. Not even if I searched for it. Wow. They’re not even willing to RISK it? What, they think that Oz readers don’t ever, ever look at the ABC website, or have friends who might read the SMH?
It’s an interesting thing to plonk down in the middle of the election campaign. This could be significant, and I’m sure our favorite bloggers are eagerly awaiting their instructions.
LHO
But that’s the thing demagoguery has absolutely nothing to do with integrity just as it has nothing to do with real journalism or being informative. Its ONLY purpose is pushing an agenda. Thus why would you admit you misrepresented anyone when you base your whole niche on misrepresentation?
Confessions @ 7
Don’t worry, you will find that truthers/denialists gradually declare the acceptance of AWG, along with the claim they always knew it was happening. We have already seen Captain Col and Iain say so on this blog.
They will graduate to the next stage of denial: We were only taking people to task for their wild claims they were making, a warmer planet is a better planet and the one I like and sprouted from the lips of expert plant physiologists like Ian Plimer, C02 is a plant food!
I am hopeful that it will gradually dawn on these closet denialists that the warmer planet is not a better planet and the consequences of a warmer world means we will be paying out for doing nothing when we had a chance.
@Matthew of Canberra
>> I think they were probably bozos
The sad fact is that actual Phil Jones and Mann are two very intelligent, enormously talented individuals. You don’t become an ISI highly-cited researcher just like that. The fact that Bolt and his minions think they can hold a candle to these guys is the ultimate delusion.
I came across this graph at a lecture the other day 9or a graph very similar) sorry if it has been posted before. I think it is a great graph to show people who think small temperature rises are insignificant.
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/sweet-spot-big.jpg
The whole of human civilsation has occured in a very narrow window of temperature change, the pojections even the most conservative projections form the IPCC for 2100 are well outside this.
I believe that it’s time that some of the deniers were sued out of existence. And I’m serious. There are journalists and “scientists” that have an online record of defaming, abusing and misrepresenting scientists and the science. It’s time scientists grew some balls and started using the law to prosecute these people who are merely taking a contrarian, denialist stance either for political purposes or to further themselves financially through notoriety. Many of those that run blogs hide behind the abuse and defamatory material produced by their commenters and I don’t see why those that run the blogs shouldn’t be held accountable for providing a forum for that defamatory material.
I’m tired of scepticism and free-speech being a cover for lies, misrepresentation, deception and defamation.
I’m sure Bolt et al wouldn’t be perturbed by this in the slightest. They are already prepared to believe that the majority of scientists in a number of fields are, along with countless funding agencies, beaurocrats, politicians and activists are engaged in a grand conspiracy to defraud tax payers out of a few extra bucks in research funding.
If you are sufficiently ill-informed to have already swallowed that, then believing that some little enquiry has been manipulated to uphold the conspiracy is hardly taxing. I think it’s one of those perverse things were the findings of the inquiry will, in their minds, merely add more evidence that the whole thing is a sham. If they were capable of objective reasoning when it comes to this, they wouldn’t have held the view they do in the first place.
Frankly I’m just worried we’re being delivered into an Abbott government…I can’t imagine a worse tragedy than that for this country.
Yeh, Labor has been far from stellar, but absolutely not a scratch worse than the best of the Howard years…i mean really, does ANYONE remember the diabolical pandering to racists, zero ministerial responsibility, the lies? There was a GFC and we barely got a cold..any NOBODY thinks Labor deserve just a LITTLE TINY bit of credit?
I laughed as hard as anyone last night with the hilarious mockery of Moving Forward that chaser did, but the really scary thing is it seems to Coalition are being given the most incredible, absolutely unwarranted free kick in political history, and worse a leader whose very mantra is core and non-core policies as the political circumstances suit him.
I’ve given up bothering to comment on the Bolt blogs. I must admit the comments do sort of support Bolt’s claim that Australian education standards are in a sad decline. One reply to my posting about the UK Met Office/NOAA report was to the effect that “they measured sea level rises from ships! Don’t they realise that ships float? They are all bonkers.”
Read it and weep.
I would urge anybody with a dissenting view to not post anything on Bolt’s blog, it generates loads of responses (traffic) which means more revenue for News Corp and Bolt.
Similar to the inane argument that melting ice caps don’t raise water levels… Err if the ice caps are melting then so are the glaciers increasing the flow into the sea. They must think that ice only exists at sea or the ice on the land has no way of getting to the sea.
By the way Ben Sandilands had a very interesting article the other week about the disappearing glaciers of Puncak Jaya in West Papua. I understand there is an Australian expedition going there later this year to measure the ice loss. Does anyone have more info about this?
Bogdanovist @18
I’m sure Bolt et al wouldn’t be perturbed by this in the slightest. They are already prepared to believe that the majority of scientists in a number of fields are, along with countless funding agencies, beaurocrats, politicians and activists are engaged in a grand conspiracy to defraud tax payers out of a few extra bucks in research funding.
Isn’t it interesting how people instil others with their own morality. For example it is the adulterer who always expects his wife to be cheating … .
I’m sure Bolt would. He likes to regard himself as a bit of a mover and shaker, forever big-noting his media appearances, only to retreat to his blog to whinge whenever he faces criticism from other commentators. He hates being criticised: Annabel Crabbe, Mega George, and Lenore Taylor seem to regard him with derision when they are put on Insiders with Andy, and it shows that he hates it.
I thought it was very telling on Insiders when they were rubbishing Labor’s consensus gabfest, and Cassidy turned to Blot and said (wtte) Gillard is basically doing what you’ve been asking them to do all along. Andy’s response was simply to splutter and try to bullshit his way out of it. No, Ackerman might not have any pride (how long did he flog Heiner for FFS?), but Andy doesn’t like to be shown to be wrong.
This just means the judicial system is in the conspiracy too!
The sad thing for the Bolts of the world is that by continuing this ridiculous charade, they miss out on the opportunity to participate in a very real debate about what the response to Climate change should be. Once the general consensus over science is accepted, Australia’s response can still take numerous forms, and a decision needs to be made about whether:
- we should act unilaterally, or wait for a multilateral solution
- we should target carbon emissions or look at other (more creative) ways of tackling rising temperatures (or do nothing)
- we should target carbon emissions (if that is decided) via an ETS (the economists option) or a carbon tax (the simpler option) or via subsidies or some other means
etc.
By attacking the science, Bolt et al miss out on this highly important debate, and will no doubt be unhappy with the solution. Look at the situation the Libs are in. Turnbull was on the brink of negotiating what for them was a fairly reasonable deal with the government – a market based solution (in keeping with conservative/liberal philosophies) and generous concessions to existing businesses (in exchange for conceeding on a unilateral solution). Not only that, but the ‘weak’ deal would have been blamed entirely on the government, not the opposition, as would any negative effects (of course). Instead, the response will most likely be negotiated with Greens/independents after the election, thus cutting the Liberals out of the deal. Chances are, it’ll be a unilateral tax and spend solution – the complete opposite of what the Libs want (in theory).
It would be so easy for Bolt (and Abbott) to come around on this issue, too, when you consider the time dimension. All it would need would be a couple of ‘the science wasn’t settled and it would have been crazy to act, but with new findings and the Climategate people being convinced, I’m NOW convinced’. That allows him to back out gently, while still maintaining his ‘rational man who needs to see the evidence’ persona. It would also position him beautifully to influence policy on the issue, as the voice of reason. Sure, he’d lose the conspiracy nuts and wackjobs, but does he really benefit from having them? Trading a few page views for the chance to be taken seriously and have an impact on policy (and potentially parlay it into a mainstream Liberal party candidacy) seems reasonable, and he can always get the wackjobs back by dogwhistling about refugee terrorist teenagers anyway.
btdg, Abbott would be relatively easy to turn, as he depends on the majority opinion to shape his political outlook. When it looks to him like a no-win situation, he’ll start to ease into full carbon tax mode.
Bolt is a lost cause: it’s his ego.
Iain Hall, Sancho, Upyasmum- heaven forbid Tamas Calderwood??
Nothing to say, are you politely accepting Bolt (and ergo you) were wrong?
I’m waiting for the village idiot to come along and shriek at Jeremy that his post doesn’t acknowledge Eric Beecher’s ownership “of a chunk” of Climate Spectator, and therefore is horribly conflicted.
btdg
You are giving Bolt far too much credit. He’s a demagogue, pandering to nut jobs through fear and prejudice is how he earns a living. Honestly I doubt he wants any real part in the discussion because he’s not a real commentator (although his ego may get in the way of accepting that), he just riles people up.
He’s an intellectual lightweight anyway.
All it would need would be a couple of ‘the science wasn’t settled and it would have been crazy to act, but with new findings and the Climategate people being convinced, I’m NOW convinced’.
Unfortunately for Bolt he is on the record not as a sceptic who has argued that the science wasn’t settled, but as a denier who has flatly asserted that AGW is a fraud and a fake, that the world isn’t warming and that the East Anglia scientists are corrupt and dishonest.
There’s no way to soften his position without admitting that his previous assertions were false, and I personally doubt that his ego will allow him to do that.
Don’t forget me, oldskool @29. I still have all the evidence I need to discredit AGW and Bolt is still right about it. Everyone here really should get out more and read some of the information readily available. Even leftist scientists have jumped ship and very respectable others have always been sceptics.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/25/seven-eminent-physicists-that-are-skeptical-of-agw/
Funny thing about the three “investigations”. They didn’t ask for evidence from the posecution so it was always highly unlikely that the accused would be found guilty. They even asked the accused which bits of his research they should “investigate”. Very cosy, don’t you think?
Ah well. The “investigations” gave (very polite) slaps over the wrist for the unscientific lack of openness and evading FOI, so at least we can hope something will come of it. Would today’s “scientific consensus” be different if the data had been open to wider research? Well we don’t yet know.
But still we have people commenting here who hold the Hockey Stick Graphs to be gospel. BTW, where’s the upper atmospheric warm spot everyone (once) agreed would be the signature of AGW? Never been found. No warm spot, no AGW. But still lots of believers.
I’ll just have to chip a few more blocks off the iceberg and have another rum. Aaaaarrrrrr.
The denialist’s arguments have all crumbled.
Climategate: a proven beat up. (Whitewash they cry again……..and again. Please.)
Hockey-Stick Controversy: Michael Mann fully exonerated at least twice. (Wegman on the other hand looking to have plagiarized and engaged in exactly the behaviour he criticized Mann for in his senate report for the GOP).
Hasn’t warmed since ’98: 4 outright record consecutive months from March-July 2010 and an outright consecutive 12-month record.
Urban heat-island/local-siting/station-dropout: All assertions against the global temperature record proven wrong
Arctic sea-ice recovery: Arctic sea-ice plummets
There are so many others as well. Climate-change deniers are like evolution deniers and vaccination deniers except they have the most powerful industry on earth funding and disseminating their
(whoops..continued from 30)
talking points and canards. When proven wrong instead of retracting and apologizing they often just keep right on regardless. Otherwise they simply drop the particular topic in dispute and come up with something else completely unrelated. There’s little chance of getting any apologies out of Bolt, Ackerman or Devine I’d wager.
It just seems so unbelieveable that their ranks have taken over the GOP and our own LNP. Both parties should be ashamed of themselves.
By timely coincidence, a nice piece in the New Scientist interviewing Phil Jones: an excellent scientist vilified by scum.
They’re waiting for the mothership to hand down more convenient distortions – cough – ‘information’.
Oldskool
I do love to get a clear invitation to participate and I thank you for offering one
As ever we have the Warministas declaring that the UAE has been exonerated and the science vindicated , this is to put it mildly a rather flawed claim because the latest investigation specifically said that it was not even considering any of questions of the science at all.
What the inquiry found was that there was no “fraud” in a strictly legal sense of the word but they did find that there was some practices in they way that the department was run that relate to the source data that was very bad and dare I say it a denial of the importance of uncertainty in the science. In the light of Climategate the UAE has changed the way that they do things which is in itself a vindication of its staunchest critics.
On this topic I think that the pod cast of a debate about the consequences of “climategate” is most pertinent and I recommend that you all listen to it : http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2010/jul/15/guardian-climategate-hacked-emails-debate Its run by the Guardian and Chaired By George Monbiot so you won’t be able to dis its source.
Listen and get back to me
Cheers Comrades
Hall and Col, silent on the actual science as usual. Come on, where is your published proof that the science is wrong? “Seven sceptical PHYSICISTS?” ( and that from the serially-discredited Anthony Watts). For feck’s sake, you people are pathetic.
Let’s have it then…
Here’s some good news for the day:
http://media.dal.ca/?q=node/48
Here is an exchange from Bolt’s thread on Australian temperatures. The point about ship-based sea-level measurments is being discussed:
Hi bystander, ever considered that the ships might have measuring device, such as sonar, that can bounce a signal off the floor of the ocean and that they might be able to compare the reading with previous readings from the same spot?
Brian (Reply)
Thu 29 Jul 10 (01:35pm)
bystander replied to Brian
Thu 29 Jul 10 (03:18pm)
Yep, Brian, I have the vision of the crew of these ships spending their day taking sonar readings and doing all the tide and current adjustments. Sorry Brian but it seems that you, too, are Barking mad.
deric d replied to Brian
Thu 29 Jul 10 (03:37pm)
Provided that part of the sea-floor is static (unchanging) in a vertical sense.
Since the sea floor is affected by isostatic adjustments as it moves due to sea-floor spreading (plate movement) and thickens and thins due to cooling/sedimentation build up or due to the presence of asthenosphere hot spots the sea floor is not a good reference for measuring sea level changes.
Clearly the two respondents to “Brian” have never heard of the Geoid. On top of that, Bystander does not seem to understand what the function of an Oceanographic survey ship is.
This is the kind of dogged ignorance that Bolt actively encourages. He demands that these fools have an equal right to make pronouncements on scientific subjects they are clearly ignorant about, and that their opinions are equally valid.
Captain Col
Frederick Seitz the noted tobacco industry shill Oh please how pathetic.
Let’s ask him what exactly his opinion is based on? Oh wait he’s dead.
Quoting Anthony Watts who is a proven liar and promoted the most absurd junk-science on his website is an instant fail. My favourite was when Steve Goddard tried to use the ideal-gas law to prove that Venus’ atmosphere was hot due to presssure and not CO2 and exposed himself as an utter fool.
Ha, I read that monkeywrench. That deric d regularly cracks me up, what an imbecile!
Col
The world is warming. The actual temperature records of the past 50 years prove it unequivocally.
By denying this simple and easily proved fact you expose yourself as a fool.
Won’t deter Captain Col though. He has cited Michael Crichton as an authority on global warming, a true sign of desperation for any shred of information that supports what he wants to believe.
Like I said, these people are Truthers. They aren’t interested in fact, only in getting caught up in whatever conspiracy drama grips hold of them.
Corpral Col
The scientific evidence supporting climate change is robust, voluminous, and compelling. Climate change is happening now, and humans are contributing to it. Multiple lines of evidence show a global warming trend over the past 100 years. Beyond this, melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, altered precipitation patterns, and shifting patterns of ecosystems and wildlife habitats all confirm that our climate is changing.
That you still have all the evidence you need to discredit AGW is amazing. Given all the compelling evidence for AGW I suspect that you are being a little less than honest with us all. Is your evidence credible? Can you post up a link?
And while we are at it can you tell me why the coalition are proposing a 5 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions? Given of course your preposition that AWG does not exist. Can you justify this waste of money?
Don’t worry I know these questions are just too hard to answer and that you will just simply ignore them.
Poor col has no one to represent his view in parliament. Who are you going to vote for col?
“Even leftist scientists…”
This issue isn’t about politics {name-calling removed – Tobby}.
(Ironic that Dr Strangelove is on your list of 7 scientists tho.)
Anyway enjoy:
http://www.evolutionquebec.com/site/archives/teller.htm
confessions @25
“He hates being criticised”
He certainly does, doesn’t he?
Captain Col is (as always) wrong about the “hot spot” in the troposphere. It is a signature of warming generally, not of AGW specifically, caused by the evaporation and condensation of water vapour. So whether warming was caused by CO2, solar increases, a lack of cosmic rays, or invisible denialist pixies sprinkling warming pixie dust, we would expect to see a tropospheric hot spot. And in fact many measures DO show a hot spot, and the others have such large error bars that the hot spot may well be in there somewhere. Perhaps non-coincidentally, the only record to definitely not show a hot spot is the oft-erroneous UAH.
Uncertainty about the tropospheric hot spot is a reminder that there are always uncertainties in science and areas where data gathering can be improved. It doesn’t disprove global warming and certainly doesn’t disprove all the other lines of evidence suggesting global warming is anthropogenic.
More on the science here.
‘itself a vindication of its staunchest critics.’
says you…in reality, not so much.
cbp @15
“The sad fact is that actual Phil Jones and Mann are two very intelligent, enormously talented individuals”
I don’t doubt that. But you can still be the nicest, most intelligent fella in the building and still be a bozo. I’m referring to a lack of perspective and common sense, however temporary, and that did seem to be reflected in some of the worst emails I saw. It’s ok – I’ve been guilty of it too
“The fact that Bolt and his minions think they can hold a candle to these guys is the ultimate delusion.”
Something that just keeps jumping into my head is the question: Why don’t the “skeptics” just get in their car and go talk to the scientists who work on this stuff? I’m not sure if it’s still there, but CSIRO’s atmospheric research group has a center not far from frankston (I’ve been there a couple of times). It’d take AB an hour to get there from the city, tops. Why not just go visit the BOM and talk to the noggins? I’ve met some of the people who work in these places (albeit a while ago) and they have no problem explaining themselves and they’re not inclined to B.S. Access would be EXTREMELY easy – they really aren’t walled towers. Leave the recording devices at the door and just spend a morning talking. I’ll wager that no “skeptic” journalist has even thought of it.
Come on everyone. I’m disappointed in the lack of vitriol in responses to my comment. Some attempts to “correct” me on the science, but I don’t think science is what changes your minds here. I forgot to post this link which shows even this rabid far left scientist jumped ship. Hear his words. It cuts lefties to the quick when their own turn on them.
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html
http://allpainnogain.cfact.org/default.asp
Guys – Col’s taking the piss.
The links he provids above are nonsense. One is to a lunatic conspiracy site (that, among other things, denies that modern medicine has any effect on life expectancy) and the other links to a scientist who quite openly admits a belief in AGW (but rejects the solutions being proposed as ineffective).
He doesn’t really believe what he’s writing here – he’s just trolling. Nobody would be so stupid as to present those links as anything other than a joke.
Col, there’s no point expending vitriol on intransigent stupidity. Ooh,a “rabid far-left scientist” ! In that one description, you’ve encompassed the issue: someone can be a scientist, but if they allow their political persuasion to sway them, then they cease being true scientists. You are a politicised denialist; you have no science. That’s the issue with you. You are trying to prove a scientific point without any good science to back you up.
” I don’t think science is what changes minds here”. Do you realise how indescribably stupid that statement is?
Matthew @ 52
Why don’t the “skeptics” just get in their car and go talk to the scientists who work on this stuff?
Funny you should ask:
During the Copenhagen summit last year there was a very clever service available for journos, where 650 scientists from the American Geophysical Union offered up their brains for the picking on tricky science questions. They were available day and night for journalists covering the conference and only offered up facts, no opinions. A great resource.
Except, no one used it.
.
.
.
And now this service is back again.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2010/07/28/what-would-you-ask-a-climate-scientist/
Vitriol, aka sulphuric acid, is a major chemical byproduct of the burning of brown coal, which causes acid rain and various other environmental problems. Since Col denies that burning coal can have any undesirable side effects, it follows logically that he should not believe in the existence of vitriol either.
Again, the difference between Col or Ian’s ‘serious’ posts and their ‘wind up’ posts? = 0
They’re simply not credible or intelligent sources for debate, just noise.
The problem as I see it is that a long disinformation campaign has produced a cohort of elderly anglo-saxon males of a rightist persuasion who are able to bark for hours on end along to the denialist theme.
This background noise makes people saying “it’s too late to do anything”, “the world will be better off a few degrees warmer”, seem moderate by comparison.
I think the latter group are more dangerous.
Anthony Watts is a creationist. What does that tell you about the intelligence of his followers?
Silkworm@ 61
Roy Spencer is a supporter of Intelligent Design theory. It seems to go with the territory.
Add John Christy and Ross McKitrick to that list as well.
Add Marc Morano and James Inhofe.
No, its staunchest critics were accusing the CRU of being part of a multi-million dollar worldwide fraud and scientific coverup, which simply wasn’t true. They wanted Phil Jones imprisoned (one suggesting the Tower Of London, no less) and weren’t vindictaed at all.
Even with this vague illusion of “openness” somehow being more conducive to denialists, the science will march on regardless and Climategate and the ensuing debacle of failed journalism will become a long-forgotten footnote in the dustbins of history.
Climategate was hailed by its believers as the end of climate science. The whole discipline was supposed to collapse upon itself and global warming would be proven a hoax once and for all.
Yet here we are. The CRU and Mann are exhonerated and the planet is in the midst of what is set to be the hottest year ever (assuming the coming ice age the denialists keep promising doesn’t eventuate in the last few months).
Iain Hall once asked: “Climate Research Unit emails, a smoking gun for scientific fraud?”
The answer is clearly no.