Regular commenter (and literary critic) Bryan Walker was so incensed by the Herald’s decision to print a specious opinion piece by Canadian climate denier Tom Harris (see comments to The midweek omnibus) that he submitted an article in rebuttal, and a letter. The paper printed the letter at the weekend and the rebuttal today, showing that perhaps good sense has returned from its summer break (or that the editor has started reading the opinion pieces again). Nicely done, Bryan.
Also in today’s Herald: Gwynne Dyer’s feeling rather gloomy about the pace of negotiations in the face of accelerating climate change. And the The Press has finally posted a piece on Dutton’s Climate Debate Daily site that ran in Saturday’s paper. It’s rather friendly to the whole thing, but does at least mention my main criticism – that it posits a false equivalence that distorts the balance of evidence.
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- Welcome to the cheap seats
- The Press: head buried deep in Brighton beach
- Amazongate closes on Sunday Times: Simon Lewis fights back
- Carterist science meets its Cartergate
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Hot Topic, the first popular science book to examine global warming from a New Zealand perspective, was 
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In case anyone takes you seriously Gareth I hasten to disclaim the title of literary critic, even in brackets. A retired English teacher who does a bit of book reviewing in a regional newspaper does not a literary critic make. But I stand by my recognition of Hot Topic as a good book!
Good on you for getting the article published Bryan. And, I was hoping you would pick up on the ClimateDebateDaily Press coverage Gareth.
I’d like to draw attention to the disturbingly poor logic displayed by Denis Dutton (a professor of philosophy!?), with his comment that Al Gore would look stupid if a drop in solar activity caused the earth to cool over the next 30 years.
Postulating what may make the world cooler in future decades has nothing to do with what has been making it warmer in the past. Well it could but in this case it doesn’t, because the Russian scientist he is referring to is describing a “200 year” cycle which would suggest the solar input has been waning for the past 60 years.
None of this changes what the carbon impact is, so even if they are correct, or we get some good volcanic activity to cool us down for a while then we should be even more concerned about what happens when the CO2 bites back a few years or decades later.
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