BPSDB It’s great to see the “Heartland Comedy Revue & Circus” aka “Denial-apalooza” is a back for another season.
All of your favourite clowns are there, from Vaclav “De-bait Me” Klaus to Christopher Lord VoldeMonckton .
Apparently Monckton has a new act “The insufferably pompous peer” where he introduces several new lies and frauds proofs that climate change is not real. Follow the link if you want a good laugh, unless you don’t want to ruin “the magic”.
What Denier gathering would be complete without industry shill Fred Singer, or Arthur Robinson father of the Oregon Petition, one of the Deniers most sterling examples of outright fraud creative list making, at least until Inhofe got into the game.
Robinson is the man who took Tim Ball’s Resume Stretching to new 
heights by applying it on a mass scale. Not satisfied with people with phony credentials, the Oregon Petition included many people who were completely fictitious.
Also appearing are the terminally bewildered William Gray, Bob “Cherry Pick” Carter (and here), John “A Man called Sue” Coleman (and here), and many more.
Yes, it is veritable ‘who cares?’ of the champions of bad science, outright frauds, and the usual collection of industry shills and crackpots who never did any climate science in their lives.
Almost everyone who’s work or ideas has been thoroughly discredited is there.
Where Booker gets his "facts"
Special appearances this year include the “Patron Saint of Charlatans” Christopher Booker, master of sticking his head up his own ass,
and former astronaut Jack Schmitt who has been destroying any scientific credibility he may have had by spouting gibberish that he has scraped off of wingnut websites.
The irony that his own moon walk is the target of a similar band of loony “skeptics” who deny the moon missions entirely, is apparently lost on the former astronaut.
What is not yet known is whether they were able to attract at least 2 dozen people with any form of scientific credential, which would shatter last years record of 19.
Some interesting takes on the conference:
- The estimated 600 attendees is not only well short of projections,* it seems likely that everyone got in free “Heartland’s Denialist Conference: the Australian connection.”
- DeSmogBlog has an interesting response to it in “Climate Skeptic Twilight Zone Meets the Real World.”
- DeSmog’s point would seem to be underscored by this “not an enviro blog at all” ripping the conference; a ray of hope?
- Joseph Romm reports that Richard “Grassy Knoll” Lindzen has sunk to new lows in slandering his profession. It’s nice to know that no matter how old we get, there is still the opportunity to shrink.
- At The Examiner Paul Fidalgo notes”Today a group of global warming deniers is gathering in New York to gin up press for the fabricated notion that there is substantial debate within the scientific community about climate change.”
- and as mentioned, Hot Topic’s “The insufferably pompous peer“
Now for some reason International Journal of Inactivism has taken a rather jaundiced view of the event, and the many articles mocking the Conference are well worth reading to be deplored. Hopefully FrankBi will continue his excellent work take a more mature approach in future.
Frank also ran a “Conference take home message” poll which has now closed (and the winner is ….), and includes a good characterization of some of the mainstream responses to the circus “We are going to be suppressed by the mainstream media II.”
The Guardian scores best for correctly identifying it as a Denier conference. The NY Times [this article now seems to require that you be logged in] acknowledges that the conference is having difficulty as the oil industry is no longer bank rolling climate change Denial as lavishly as it used to.
The Wall Street Journal’s continues it’s on-going war on 
science and reality. This time it takes the form of an interview with Vaclav Klaus as if he were anything other than a raving loony with respect to climate change.
Rather tellingly (at least about mainstream media), the first conference looking at the psychology of climate change denial is getting relatively little media attention. The Guardian‘s is the only piece I have seen so far.
It seems that even though the Deniers may be nothing but a pack of clowns, they still have an audience.
* UPDATE: Frankbi brings to my attention that the Conference was not using attendance to gain sponsors (the norm), but rather asking sponsors (which was really endorsement, no money was involved) to try and please please please get people to attend – now that’s just sad.
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 135 … still no evidence.
IMAGE CREDITS
Circus Closing Festivities by Ted Abbott
_MG_7866 – Clown by Tim Farris Photographer
Greenfyre's 
Greenfyre
Thank you for the link. Boy, you do look particularly intent on cutting the Heartland conference down to pieces.
Only thing is, please read carefully what Gertrude replies to her son, in that rather famous theatrical piece about a Prince of Denmark (Act 3, scene 2, 230)….
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omnologos:
Why are ‘skeptics’ like yourself always projecting like crazy? [1]
Greenfyre:
Um, it’s 800 people, not 600, unless there’s something I missed. [2]
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Greenfyre:
That was Heartland’s projection just shortly before the conference.
…oh wait, the actual attendance is 600. My bad. This is not looking good for Heartland…
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Yep… actually it was I who found out about that. 🙂 They were originally asking for 20 people from each of the 59+ sponsoring organizations, which would’ve made the attendance more than 1,000, but I guess they decided to loosen that requirement.
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[…] (Greenfyre has a more extensive collection of responses to the ‘conference’, mostly from the non-mainstream media.) « We are going to be suppressed by the mainstream media II […]
Greenfyre:
Well, you can read it for yourself. (This information is no longer on their sponsorship web page, though.)
Haha… 🙂
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So what we are saying is that the attendance is 40% lower than expected.
Well at least the skeptics have been able to cut their emissions!
Havel is the new Thabo Mbeki! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/06/southafrica.aids
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Their sponsorship system, as Frank originally noted, showcases two things:
1) They aren’t wanting for money, as they aren’t asking for any (and in fact brag about this point, through a sentence that sounds good but really precludes only earmark funding)
2) They are wanting for an audience. Particularly elected officials, who got a *lot* of stuff for free.
In other words, they’re well-funded and in need of noise. By their own admission, it’s not a science conference, but rather a lobbyist stunt.
I was tempted, during the sponsorship signup phase, to see if DeSmog and similar would be interested in sponsoring, but then I was rightly reminded that doing so would have been spun as increased attendance.
Greenfyre – the actual meaning is not about protesting, but “serving witness”…qnd if those truly were just “outrageous calumnies” why would you need to state that repeatedly?? [1]
You repeat again, and again, and again and again what is at the heart a single point (“Heartlandes” bad, “Greenfyre and friends” good). [2]
I am not sure there exists any joke whose punchline can be repeated over and over without ruining the laugh.
ps myself, I am not too convinced about the intrinsic value of these Heartland conferences. There must be some good in the networking, though. [3]
pps isn’t outrageous to describe a whole conference as “outrageous calumnies”? Even in a broken clock the arms point to the right hour and minutes, twice daily. [4]
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A quick look at Google News seems to indicate that this year’s conference fell short of last year’s in terms of media coverage. The non-wingnut coverage seem mostly to have been inspired by the NYT’s. As I doubt Fred Singer made much progress with his messaging effort, one wonders if the funders will be interested in a third go next year.
Aficionados of the absurd will want to read Bob Carter’s series of posts starting here.
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omnologos:
Well yeah, one thing they got right is that Václav Klaus is indeed the President of Czechia. But that’s not very useful, in the same way as a stopped clock isn’t very useful for telling time.
Brian D:
Ah! 🙂
I did inform Littlemore (if I remembered correctly) about the sponsorship information, but it looks like nothing came out of it. I think even if DeSmogBlog were willing to provide 20 people, Heartland wouldn’t be willing to let them have a hand in deciding the conference’s content (which was another of the benefits for sponsors).
It is a pity…The only thing I see here is that people that ask questions about the new Religorieous climate dogma’s are pointed out as ridiculous.
I don’t find any argument to prove they (the skeptisits) are wrong. [1] Not here on this blog, nor in the IPCC reports. [2] Some clairvoyant has put the CO2 hypothesis foreward [3], and around that never proven hypothesis the whole hierarchy of the new Goracle rythus builds up fortune-telling hypothesis and glassbowl assumptions. [4]
Would the tone of this approach not so dangerously intolerant, it would be humurous. [5]
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Willem de Rode:
Maybe if someone actually did “ask” any “questions” about the science of climate change, then you’ll have a point.
But nobody did, so you don’t.
Willem de Rode said:
“I don’t find any argument to prove they (the skeptisits) are wrong. Not here on this blog, nor in the IPCC reports…”
Paul:
What are we supposed to prove wrong??
Skeptics do not have a consistent theory so they usually prove themselves wrong, negating the need to do any work.