I think the descriptor ‘organic spambot’ seems apt – but does anyone know if this happens in the other direction? I’m genuinely curious – do deniosphere blogs get similar treatment from warmist trolls? I’d tend to assume the incidence was much lower, but maybe I’m wrong – I’m sure if such a phenomenon exist whoever is playing ‘Doctor Checkzor’ today will be able to locate a few links to it in the cut-and-paste library!

As for the ‘massive economic harm’ argument: one, I doubt it; two, we’re going to have to make the transition one day anyway; three, I don’t buy Bjorn Lomborg’s insanely reckless and ahistoric ‘if we carry on with business as usual we’ll all be so rich in the future each Bangledeshi will be able to afford their own personal seawall’ argument (yes, this is a parody, but it’s essentially accurate); four, lots of energy efficiency strategies have a negative cost or short pay-back period; five, if you want to talk about massive disruption and human misery let’s consider a world with 450ppm+!

Overall the (inherently dubious) argument that the poor – often a fairly new target for concern for much of the Right – are going to freeze in their beds due to higher electricity costs rather assumes we’re going to stand by and let them! Us interventionists don’t believe in leaving the market to do its work for good or ill, remember?

It reminds me of nuclear advocate Sir Ernest Titterton’s assertion that the efficiency of PV and solar hot water in Australia would be severely impaired over time due to dust build up on the panels; what he failed to mention is that one might sweep or rinse it off! (Brian Martin ‘Nuclear Knights 1980 p25)

Checkzor. Too bad indeed – especially because it continues to lock in the meme that if the hockey stick is wrong then AGW is wrong. Can I ask, if there was a book (or blog) that did a take down, with verifiable way to check the truth, would you read it? Would it change your estimation of Mann?

On the subject of sustainable energy, have you had a look at “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air” from MacKay? The UK situation is the one mostly discussed. I hope your reading list also includes some books on science written by scientists in the field.

That’s more to the point. Not a good idea to focus on the individual, there is a Checkzor in Australia, Canada, Italy… you name it. It’s a worldwide phenomenon.

URLs are dropped in all over the place, like quotes from the bible used to be. You can read anything in the blogosphere as you can with a bible.

It’s also a mistake to presume the Checkzor’s of this world are in the payee of the coal or oil lobbies. Most of them are not, just folks who are in that state of mind. We can’t ignore the worldwide phenomenon and it behoves us to try to understand what drives it. Dialectic debates do not generate this much heat, there is a powerful psychology at play.

That said, the thrust of the denialist arguments are very much engineered and paid for by well funded lobbies. I guess most of you have read this one: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf

Chances are, Richard, that Checkzor is just copy pasting from material fed to the denialist zombie hordes by their masters in the fossil fuel industry.

Of course, the theory is that I am a member of a “far-right denialist movement”, which is about as far fetched as it gets.

I have just finished reading “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by A W Montford –

http://bit.ly/aQkPCF

This book gets 23 5 star reviews on Amazon UK and is in the top 100 books on Amazon UK

If you are worried about Michael Mann’s reputation and the “well-funded denialist industry” then you might want to buy this book and write your own version of events.

Too bad that the CRUTape letters and HSI are now bestsellers.

I find Dr Checkzor’s comments (# 2) strike a familiar ring. Similar in form to ‘New to Denialism’, ‘Worthless Troll’s” aka Andy Skrase trolling OpenParachute
here

http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/chris-mooney-interviews-michael-mann-on-climategate/
and here
http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/deniers-distort-phil-jones/#comments

- just say’n.

I’ve done my best to respond to you politely, but if you are saying that Roger Dewhurst’s flailings represent reason in the madness which is Hot Topic, and that is why he was outed from here, it seems to me that you are sailing very close to the wind. Are you sure you accept Gareth’s conditions?

Sorry, can’t seem to reply directly to your message

Believe it or not, I am in complete agreement re. your comments on supply based solutions.

I am staggered that we have these complicated ETS arrangements yet fail to realise that we have, in NZ, some of the worst insulated houses in the world. If we could only provide practical incentives to insulate and double-glaze our houses we may achieve a lot of our sustainability goals.

Just to confuse your stereotypes about me even further, you might be interested to hear that I agree with James Hansen in this video on two points. Namely, that (a) Cap and Trade won’t work, and (b) the CRU should have made all their data available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBbjAQzjQZ8

Regards

(Mr) C