Climate Justice and Stupid White Men

BPSDB

Parse that carefully because it can be too easy to become focused on the “Stupid” part. It’s S-t-u-p-i-d W-h-i-t-e M-e-n.

For completeness we should add “Old”, and “Rich” (and probably some other adjectives as well) because of course in addition to being a race and gender issue climate change is a class and generational one. Having said that, it is a very particular brand of ‘Stupid’ that we are dealing with and it deserves dissection.

Nowhere is this clearer than the recent U.S. Congressional House Energy and Commerce Committee vote that denied the existence of climate change. As has been noted elsewhere, they may as well have voted to deny the existence of gravity. While I have been known to compare climate change Denier‘s intelligence to that of lobotomized rodents it is still breathtaking to see them literally taking it to that level.

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Curiouser and Curiouser

BPSDB Some odd goings on in the climate change Denialosphere …

Curiouser and Curiouser

New Crock

A few smiles

Recent absence

On Jan 20th the Canada Free Press published an apology to Dr Andrew Weaver (text below & google cache) as was reported by various sites (eg here and here).

That apology has now disappeared. (see also updates below text of apology).

So what has happened? CFP changed their minds? Tim Ball filed a counter-suit? CFP lawyers found that the text of the apology left them open to even more serious action? Other?

If any one has heard anything I would be curious to know.

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Climate change Deniers: dark minds lost in their own shadows

BPSDB

Argumentum ex bardus

Omnologos cannot logically exist

The lottery fallacy

Standing on their heads

Dark Minds

Potentia ex verum

Getting to the point of this post requires walking through some rather tedious Denier thinking and I apologise for that. I ask you to bear with me because I believe the walk through is rather revelatory and I think of some value. Even so, I will try to keep it short and to the point.

Argumentum Ex Bardus

Through October and November Omnologos created a list of events and circumstances related to climate change and climate science that he considered improbably coincidental, and as such offered it as clear evidence as to Why AGW Is Logically Impossible.

Discarding all of the points that are obviously false, pure conjecture, value laden subjective opinion, completely irrelevant and/or just silly (ie most of them) one is left with a small collection of arguably objective facts about our current moment in history. (I should note that whether you chuck any out or not changes nothing … as will be shown it’s all a load of idiotic rubbish regardless.)

His argument is that since these coincidences are extremely improbable, their existence is proof that anthropogenic climate change is not real. Here are three of his examples:

1. Relatively widespread availability of computer power is just enough strong to simulate the right climate projections on a multi-decadal scale
2. Climate science is developed just beyond the minimal level needed to understand how to simulate the right climate projections on a decadal scale
3. Novel statistical approaches devised just in time, and correct from the get-go, for Mann’s Hockey Stick to emerge from the jumble of dendro- and other proxy data

Omnologos cannot logically exist

The flawed nonthinking of this argument is easily shown by applying the same lack of logic to a perfectly mundane subject, eg the existence of Omnologos.

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The ten most infuriating climate change Denier scams

The Top Ten BPSDB

Ben of Wott’s Up With That? commented on “Guide for dealing with the “Denier” label” that “the “skeptic” fig-leaf is what annoys me most about climate change deniers” which led me to respond that “And there is so much to choose from too. I wonder if I could pick which are the “Ten most infuriating climate change Denier scams.”

Which comes with the following caveats of course.

1) Is identifying the scams that most infuriate simply an invitation to even more of the same?

2) Is acknowledging (again) the obvious reality that:

• • 1. There are Deniers;
    2. They use scams & deceit etc rather than rational debate;
    3. It is infuriating.

simply polarizing?

3) Is this just an invitation to simply list (again) the:

• Thirty – Eight Ways to Win an Argument
• Denialists’ Deck of Cards“
• Taxonomy of logical fallacies

Regardless, both feet into the fire … simply post your nomination as a comment. Should clear winners not emerge we will use the Poll function to hold a runoff to determine the top ten.

Nominations should include a tinyurl link to an example of scam in question (or a hand drawn facsimile thereof) [Offer void where prohibited by law].

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Guide for dealing with the “Denier” label

BPSDB If someone refers to you as a “Denier”:

To convince them that you are a “Skeptic”, NOT a “Denier”:

• Ignore the label and keep the discussion focused on the issue(s) of substance;
• Point to and discuss the relevant facts and evidence;
• Use reliable sources, either peer reviewed science or sources that track back to real science;
• Be sure that your position accepts and accounts for all of the generally known facts that you are not explicitly disputing;
• Ensure that your position is based on a logical argument;
• Be flexible, ready to modify your position if it is shown that you erred or misunderstood;
• Be consistent and rational; stay focused on facts and insist that your opponent do so as well.
• Follow ‘The Skeptical Manifesto” as best you can.

To convince them that you probably ARE a Denier:

Do:

• Quibble about the term, complain that it is offensive and an attempt link you with the Holocaust or some other such irrelevant nonsense;
• Keep insisting that the perfectly correct English word ‘Denier’ not be permitted, do not allow any discussion of whether it was used correctly or not;
• Insist that you are a “Skeptic” even though you don’t really know what that means;
• Call them names and accuse them of ad hominem attacks. Don’t worry if you don’t really know what ‘ad hominem’ actually means.;
• Go off on tangents, talk about anything except the actual issue;

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New Climate Change Denial Crock and other flotsam

Mimsy BPSDB

This one has to come with an audience advisory … DO NOT attempt to watch the first 30 seconds of this video if:

• your stomach is at all unsettled, and/or
• you are holding/drinking hot liquids, and/or
• you are standing, and/or
• there are any heavy objects at hand that you may reflexively fling in a desperate, instinctual attempt to protect yourself from terminal ignorance.

You have been warned!

Climate Change Denial Crock of the Week “A Natural By-Product of Nature“

Added to the Climate Denial Crock of the Week collection.

Flimsy

Speaking of CO2, this from a new, peer reviewed paper “Warming Power of CO2 and H2O: Correlations with Temperature Changes” being trumpeted at WhatsWrongWithWatts:

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Global Warming by any other name

BPSDB

Global Warming? or Climate Change?

 

Peter Sinclair’s latest addition to the Climate Denial Crock of the Week debunks the idiotic “they changed it to “climate change after 1998” meme … “they” being the IPCC … which apparently the paranoid delusionals (aka climate change Deniers) thought stood for ‘Intergovernmental Panel on Coerced Collectivization’

As both the video and Joseph Romm note, the irony is the fact that it was the Republicans & Deniers who made calling it ‘”climate change” a priority because “global warming” was too scary. (foreshadowing – when our collective inaction on climate leads to the inevitable social collapse the Deniers will blame scientists and progressives for the inaction).

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Hallelujah! … Bjorn again

BPSDB

Bjorn Again

Resistance is futile!

The Piper’s Price

Elmer Gantry 2.0

and again and again and …

 

..

Bjorn Again

In August and September much was made of the”conversion” of Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg from climate change Denier to climate rationalist:

• • Climate change voice who changed his tune
  • How will right-wing media react to former climate skeptic Lomborg?
  • Climate ‘sceptic’ Bjørn Lomborg now believes global warming is one of world’s greatest threats
  • Green groups cautiously welcome Lomborg’s climate fund call

  • ‘Skeptical environmentalist’ Bjørn Lomborg reverses his climate skepticism

So now that he has seen the light what does Lomborg’ have to tell us? His latest ‘contribution’ to the climate change discussion is “No, You Can’t” which appeared at Slate as “Go Ahead and Guzzle – Face it: There’s not much any one person can do about climate change.“

The titles pretty much sum up his message, but let’s have a look at his argument.

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*New* *Improved* Climate Skeptic List Fraud

BPSDB

What it isn’t:

What it is

Condensed overview (still painful though)

Too many Kooks spoil the …

—

Shredding the “climate consensus” myth: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore

WattsUpMyButt

Climate Despot has dropped  a “321-page ‘Consensus Buster’ Report” (bet that cow won a blue ribbon at the County Fair), or so Mark Morano claims.

What it isn’t:

• “new” It’s the same old Inhofe fraud (ie “700 Scientists …”) as before with some recycled silliness tacked on. None of it is anything we haven’t seen before;
• “improved” unless you consider repetition of ridiculous claims and irrelevant appeals to false authority an improvement;
• “Inhofe‘s” as before the real author is Mark ‘Wormtongue’ Morano;
• science; utterly absent is any trace of of actual science or any reference to it except in the most abstract and meaningless ways;
• a list it’s a collection of anecdotes, specious claims, contextless quotes and copy/pastes of various petitions and declarations;

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The other Wegman ironies

BPSDB

The Wegman Controversy (VERY briefly)

The original Wegman irony

Innocent until proven “Alarmist”

Wegmania

—-

The Wegman Controversy (VERY briefly)

In 2006 statistician Edward Wegman headed a small committee at the request members of the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee to review the work of climatologists with reference to the “Hockey stick” temperature reconstruction. At issue was whether the last few decades represent an unprecedented global temperature increase in the last millennium or so.

The Wegman Committee found that, in their opinion (Wegman Report):

1. the methodology that had been used did not justify the conclusions (not that the “Hockey Stick” was wrong necessarily, just that they felt you couldn’t tell one way or another given the statistical analysis that had been used);
2. that the alleged problems with the research were probably due to the work being done with in a relatively small social network (approx 50 people) within a highly specialized field.

The report has long since been irrelevant except as just another Denier myth because:

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Another Top International Climate Change Denier Silliness or Two!

BPSDB

“Another Top International Scientist Jumps off Global Warming ‘Titanic’” screams one headline, “New peer reviewed study: global warming lowers death rates” claims another.

Is it any shock that more accurate titles would be “Another Top International Scientist reaffirms basic, commonly known facts of accepted climate science!” and “Two year old study shows adaptation, not climate change, explains difference in death rates.“?

Yup, the climate change Deniers are outright, flagrantly lying again (shock, horror, disbelief … say it ain’t so!). So what are the facts behind this latest silliness?

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Potholer54 climate videos, new and some less so

BPSDB Regulars will know that I have been a huge fan of Potholer54 who has done some excellent climate science videos:

• • • 1. Climate Change — the scientific debate
    • 2. Climate Change — the objections
    • Climate Change — Those hacked e-mails
    • Climate Change — isn’t it natural?
    • Climate Change anatomy of a myth

I was not at all pleased with his fourth, “Climate Change — Gore vs. Durkin” where he looks at both “The Swindle” and “An Inconvenient Truth.” Potholer seems to have fallen into a trap of attempting to seem even handed, not favouring one side of the issue or the other, see ‘Very disappointing‘ for the discussion.

I found his most recent one also somewhat disappointing even though it is mostly pretty good.  “11. Climate Change — Hurricanes, atolls and coral” was also released as “Climate Change Are we all going to drown?”

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“Alarmist”: a Freudian slip?

BPSDB There is that group of people who use the uncritical nonthinking process of denialism when dealing with climate change science. These people are commonly, and correctly referred to as “Deniers.”

In the ongoing culture wars the Deniers have been casting about for a suitable pejorative with which to dismiss those who use facts and logic, and they seem to be gravitating towards “alarmists.”

Now being an alarmist is not necessarily a bad thing (cf Paul Revere – Alarmist!), but I believe there is something far more interesting going on here.

In seeking to characterize a group we tend to focus on what stands out and is of significant to us. The Deniers share a particular anti-intellectual, irrational process when dealing with the climate change issue, and it is for this process that they are known for to those who accept the facts of climate science.

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Denier vs Skeptic IV: Get a dictionary!

BPSDB

de·ni·er

dɪˈnaɪər/ [dih-nahy-er]

–noun

a person who denies.

Origin:

1350–1400;  ME; see deny, -er¹

Dictionary.com

 

When a Denier’s behaviour is correctly identified and named the standard response is to plead that they are the victims of an attempt to associate them with Holocaust denial because that is what the word means. Well as it happens, no … that’s not what it means. Actually it means “denier” (see above).

Yes, yes, I know … the climate change Deniers never check anything with accepted, credible sources and reject the legitimacy of any source that contradicts what they believe.

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Climate change Denial – The stupid, it burns!

BPSDB

• 100 reasons to be appalled
• Plimer exposed as a fraud
• Gored out of our minds
• Two peas in a fraud
• Stupidity, is it natural?
• Polluter Watch
  

100 reasons to be appalled

Appalled that anything so transparently stupid as the Daily Express article “Climate change is natural: 100 reasons why” would appear anywhere other than as a failed junior high school paper.  Michael Le Page at New Scientist has kindly dealt with the first 50 in “50 reasons why global warming isn’t natural“, undoubtedly having gotten ill reading so many.

Liberal Conspiracy picks up some of the slack by debunking #s 88-100 in Con Home’s Climate Crock Rundown (88-100). They also provide some background on the European Foundation “think tank” (think ‘Heartland Institute’ with tea) that put this drivel together in Revealed: Top Tories linked to climate change denialism report.

Seriously, this such an unbelievable collection of basic logical errors and pure idiocy it defies belief, for eg:

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CRUde Hack smörgåsbord

BPSDB If you haven’t been following the CRU hack story, the Union of Concerned Scientists has a nice overview:

Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails in the “Climategate” Manfuactured Controversy

The manufactured controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has generated a lot more heat than light over the past two weeks. The email content being quoted does not indicate that climate data and research have been compromised. Most importantly, nothing in the content of these stolen emails has any impact on our overall understanding that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming. Media reports and contrarian claims that they do are inaccurate. Read the rest

Are the CRU data “suspect”? An objective assessment.

Conclusion: There is no indication whatsoever of any problem with the CRU data. An independent study (by a molecular biologist it Italy, as it happens) came to the same conclusion using a somewhat different analysis. None of this should come as any surprise of course, since any serious errors would have been found and published already. Read the rest …

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The Copenhagen Climate Science “Challenged”

BPSDB The Copenhagen Climate Challenge was signposted by a hand-written piece of paper and a small picture of a happy-looking person in a sun hat declaring: “Global warming: Hurrah!” Copenhagen climate summit: Behind the scenes at the sceptics’ conference

This is of course the CFACT sponsored, ICSC hosted Climate Science Challenge Conference meeting in Copenhagen, aka the “skeptics” conference. The Telegraph article goes on to say “But do not be fooled by the amateurish approach, these are serious people with a very important message: “Global warming is not man made and in fact may not be happening at all.” Really? So let’s have a look at these “serious people” with their amateurish approach and see who they are and what they are doing.

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Climate Crock Sacks Hack Attack

Climate Crock Sacks Hack Attack BPSDB

The collected videos of Peter Sinclair’s excellent series are archived at “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” .  You can also subscribe to Peter’s Youtube Channel at YouTube – greenman3610 and get them hot off the editor.

Kudos to Sinclair … his videos are obviously doing such a good job that the climate change Deniers apparently felt obliged to respond with “Hiding the “Hide the Decline,” featuring Greenman3610”

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Smacking the Hack Attack

Climate Denial Crock of the Week

BPSDB “Sharp eyed investigators began to apply to use a seldom used analytical technique, they actually read the email.“

Smacking the Hack Attack

See also Potholes54’s excellent video “Those hacked emails.” The collected videos of Peter Sinclair’s excellent “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” series.  You can subscribe to Peter’s Youtube Channel at YouTube – greenman3610 and get them hot off the editor.

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CRUde hack, why can’t Johnny Denier read?

BPSDB Potholer54 does a wonderful job of pointing out some of the most glaring contradictions and outright Denier stupidities in the claims being made about the CRU emails.

Share it … often!

This comment by MoellerPlesset2 at Slashdot is worth reading (and sharing) in it’s entirety:

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