Bryan Leyland

Puppets on a string: US think tank funds NZ sceptics

by Gareth January 24, 2012

The Heartland Institute, the US organisation that plays a key role in organised climate denial, has directly funded New Zealand’s most prominent sceptics, a search of US Internal Revenue Service documents has revealed. In 2007, Heartland granted US$25,000 (NZ$32,000) to the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition, sending the money to NZ CSC member Owen McShane. They [...]

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Cranking it out: NZ papers conned by denier media strategy

by cindy January 16, 2012

My inbox in the last month has filled with emails about denier articles in leading New Zealand newspapers. It’s been a veritable crank central across the country. They include the ridiculous opinion piece by Jim Hopkins in the Herald late last year, a similar feature by Bryan Leyland  published in both the DomPost and The [...]

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Prat Watch #1: columnated ruins domino

by Gareth December 12, 2011

Being the first in an occasional series in which we monitor the wilder excesses of climate denial. Warning: reading and/or viewing the original material referenced herein may cause uncontrollable mirth. Hot Topic accepts no responsibility for any adverse effects that may result, but recommends a good micro fibre cleaning cloth for removing coffee/tea/wine from computer [...]

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The (un)principled sceptic

by Gareth June 8, 2011

Over at Treadgold’s emporium, the owner is mining a rich vein of nonsense: he’s posting the letters to the editor the newspapers won’t print. One that caught my eye is from Professor Mike Kelly, a Cambridge nanotechnologist and climate sceptic who happens to hail from New Plymouth. Professor Kelly makes a good start: It is [...]

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Predicting the bleeding obvious (and getting it wrong)

by Gareth May 31, 2011

A couple of days ago one of the leading figures in the New Zealand climate crank pantheon, the Climate “Science” Coalition’s very own Bryan Leyland, popped in to Hot Topic and left a comment drawing attention to his new favourite game — “predicting” global temperatures by projecting the southern oscillation index forward seven months. He [...]

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Carter and Beck: partners in misconduct

by Doug Mackie May 8, 2011

Jim Renwick’s review of Bob Carter’s book, Climate – The Counter Consensus, reminded me that I have long promised provide a detailed explanation of why EG Beck – lauded by Bob Carter and Bryan Leyland – is a fraud. So here, connecting the two, is a syllogism (*): EG Beck is a fraud. Bob Carter [...]

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Fools gold: cranks can’t count

by Gareth February 9, 2011

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. 14 months on from the start of the Treadgold/Climate “Science” Coalition/ACT campaign to cast doubt on the long term New Zealand temperature record, after parliamentary questions, much mud slinging at Jim Salinger and NIWA, legal action, and the expensive and time-wasting reconstruction of a temperature series that’s [...]

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How to believe in impossible things

by Doug Mackie January 8, 2011

Despite the huge number of mutually contradictory claims denialists make, there is something they all have in common: no matter how much green ink a they use in their writing, denialists never formally criticise each other. The term cognitive dissonance was coined by Leon Festinger, a psychologist who (in 1954) infiltrated a UFO cult that [...]

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A Christmas cracker for the cranks

by Gareth December 22, 2010

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) released details of its recalculated New Zealand temperature series last week and in the last couple of days Richard Treagold and the Climate “Science” Coalition have issued statements in reply. And what a contrast they provide: Bryan Leyland for the NZ C”S”C is all bluster, demanding [...]

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NIWA v cranks 3: the economics of truthiness

by Gareth August 18, 2010

Bryan Leyland’s dissembling about the funding of the NZ Climate Science Coalition under direct questioning from Sean Plunkett on Monday morning’s Morning Report on RNZ National — he repeatedly asserted his ignorance of financial matters, directing Plunkett to Terry Dunleavy — puts him in an awkward position. Leyland is a trustee of the NZ Climate [...]

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