Your Help Needed for a Quick Experiment

As per my last post, the Daily Mail ran a piece on ‘The Monckton Affair’ titled “BBC investigated after peer says climate change programme was biased ‘one-sided polemic’“. I attempted to post the following comment to the story, but my comment has never appeared.

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Arther Smith http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html and other climatologists and scientists http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Christopher_Monckton have repeatedly shown that Monckton’s ‘work’ is laughable, and ‘potty peer’ is a rather kind way of describing him. I hope Ofcom will show good sense and compliment the BBC for having been decorously restrained in their treatment of Monckton

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Night of the Climate Change Denier Undead

You might think that someone who has had a single ‘scientific’ article exposed as having no less than 125 errors in it might spend some time licking his wounds and seeing where he went wrong, wouldn’t you?

Not if it’s Christopher Monckton, not if he’s one of the Climate Change Denier[1] Undead[2] he won’t.

Now this could easily just be about a man who is so hopelessly full of himself and clueless that it staggers the imagination, but that’s not very interesting.  Funny and sad perhaps, but not interesting.

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… and it comes to us highly recommended

“It was called direct action, and it comes to us highly recommended”

Utah Phillips

UPDATE: Fools seldom differ dept – Blockading Global Warming

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Climate Change and Civil Resistance: Time for the people to lead?

The blog I meant to write has already been written, so I will throw you a teaser, link it, and then append a little commentary:

“Does Al Gore think he’s too old for civil disobedience?: Leaving aside whether breaking the law is ever justified, it seems odd that Gore doesn’t seem to include himself in the category of the “young people” he thinks should risk jail to halt global warming. After all, at age 71, Ghandi was arrested and served two years in prison. The US labor organizer Mother Jones was still facing charges of sedition in her 80s. Even TV president Martin Sheen, who is eight years older than Gore, managed to get himself arrested at an antinuclear action in Nevada last year, for what he says is the 65th time.” Read the rest …

Meanwhile, over at Climate Progress: Gore calls for civil disobedience to stop coal. But will he lead like Gandhi and King?

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The Popular Media as Climate Change Deniers?

Given that there has been no serious dispute about the reality of anthropogenic climate change for at least 15 years how are we to understand the ongoing media presentation of climate science as uncertain? Granted it has toned down from even a year ago, but it still goes on; why?

I suggest at least three reasons: lack of resources, naivete and intent.

Lets start with conceding that in too many cases it is simply that understaffed and overworked newsrooms toss whatever they can into the blank space or dead air. Uninformed and overwhelmed they see a wire story on climate change that seems topical and controversial, so in it goes without much thought and certainly no fact checking.

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It’s Twins!: Evolution and Climate Change Deniers

Photo by Mike Baird bairdphotos.com

This past summer we saw yet another hot story reverberate around the Denialosphere [Denier vs Skeptic].

Supposedly the ships logs of Lord Nelson and Captain Cook cast doubt upon the truth of anthropogenic climate change (eg “Captain Cook and Lord Nelson’s logs indicate 1730’s global warming wasn’t man made“, “Lord Nelson and Captain Cook’s shiplogs question climate change theories“).

Total nonsense of course, as has been explained at DeSmogBlog “UK Scientist Dismayed by Media Misrepresentation” and Bad Science “Don’t let the facts spoil a good story“.  Just another example how the Deniers lie and distort to further their agenda. But there are two interesting things about this and earlier examples of Denier spin.

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Climate Change Deniers: More Fraud Artists than Skeptics

There are many things in the world about which intelligent, reasonable people may disagree. There are many things about which intelligent, reasonable people are mistaken.  We all are from time to time and in all good faith, wrong about something.

But today I would like to talk about the Climate Deniers instead.

In early to mid-August the Denialosphere suddenly lit up with stories about how the Arctic ice coverage was exceptionally high, stories like “Troublesome Arctic sea ice defies alarmists, increases from ’07”  and “Arctic ice fails to follow warmist doctrine”

I could not help wondering why the sudden surge of stories about ice coverage with the end of the melt season only weeks away.  Why not wait until the end of the melt season and then make a big deal about it? naturally trying to spin it as “proof” that climate change was a hoax. It just seemed very odd.

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The Nonsense of Paul Johnson: The Dunning-Kruger Effect on Display

This Forbes opinion piece by Paul Johnston attempts the daring feat of trying to demonstrate that climate change is nonsense by using faulty logic, irrelevant anecdotes, bogus arguments, inappropriate analogies, unsubstantiated false claims, and hefty portions of sheer ignorance.

Naturally he fails miserably.

Johnson starts with an anecdote about asking a “Green” acquaintance “Well, what about your weather theory now?” and how this person allegedly claimed England had never had such weather previously.

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Wake Up, Freak Out, Then Get a Grip

This is a surprisingly good animated video explaining multiple stable states, tipping points, and the consequences of catastrophic climate change. It’s starts a little slow and I am not sure the title is the most effective marketing tool, but is well worth it. Hat’s off too Leo Murray and his crew.

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

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Skeptics, Contrarians, or Deniers?

One of the bones of contention in political discussions of climate change is how to refer to those who reject climate science.  Three terms offer themselves: Skeptics, Contrarians, and Deniers, but which to use?

‘Contrarian‘ is easily rejected as it seems to be a term used mostly within the investment community for a specific investment behaviour, and hence to broaden the definition just confuses things.

‘Denier’ is deeply resented as it is claimed that it is meant to suggest ‘Holocaust Denier’, although that is not true.  ‘Denier’ simply means ‘Denier’, hence the necessity of a qualifier such as “Holocaust” or “Climate Change”.

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Why Won’t Al Gore Debate Climate Change?

Simple, the Deniers would win … because they have no evidence or facts on their side.

Huh?  If they have no evidence or facts, how can they win a debate?

Easy, because a debate is not about being right, it is about winning by appearing to be right.  The more the audience does not understand the issue, the easier it is to win. You just need one thing, it’s called “the Gish Gallop.”

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