cranks

Doonesbury on denial

by Gareth February 7, 2012

I‘ve been following Garry B Trudeau’s Doonesbury strip for 30 years or more — the latest cartoon is one of the first emails I read every day. Looks like this week’s strip will be worth following. Meanwhile, out in the real world, the Republican would-be candidates for the Presidency of the United States continue to [...]

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The catechism of climate crank cliché

by Gareth January 29, 2012

“A cliché,” according to the late

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Climate ethics and the reckless endangerment of denial

by Bryan Walker January 18, 2012

An interesting-looking series of posts has begun on the climate ethics blog of Penn State’s Rock Ethics Institute. The series plans to put the the climate change disinformation campaign under the ethical spotlight. The introductory post written by Associate Professor Donald Brown examines some of the broad issues before planned subsequent posts look at the [...]

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Prat Watch #3: through the looking glass

by Gareth January 15, 2012

Sunday morning laughs: over at his Climate Conversation Club, Richard “no warming in NZ” Treadgold fulminates about about the contents1 of a stolen email: Appalling. It’s a free world, so even the “leaders” in climatology are entitled to express the opinion they like. But I draw attention to those who willingly follow these atrocious examples. [...]

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Jim Hopkins: vapid, vacuous, pretty vacant

by Gareth December 18, 2011

There’s a terrible tyranny in being a columnist for a national newspaper, required to produce entertaining and informative copy every week. It’s a hard job, having an opinion and expressing it cogently. Some writers struggle and succeed, others strive and fail dismally. The NZ Herald — the newspaper of record for NZ’s biggest city — [...]

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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 denial tango

by Gareth November 7, 2011

A telling little ditty to start your week with a chuckle: Australia’s Men With Day Jobs perform the Denial Tango (lyrics below the fold). And for your further amusement, Joe Romm at Climate Progress notes an interesting cartoon at the New York Times — Happy Climate Change Denial Season.

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Michael Cox talks complete rubbish

by Gareth October 17, 2011

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a retired conservative politician with a penchant for writing opinion pieces and a limited understanding of certain issues will one day start talking bollocks — and that day has arrived with a vengeance for Michael Cox. The former National MP and Waipa district councillor let rip in the [...]

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What Motivates the Scientist Deniers?

by Bryan Walker September 7, 2011

There wasn’t room in my review of James Powell’s book The Inquisition of Science to comment on one or two aspects of the book in the detail I’d have liked, and I’ll take up one in particular in this supplementary post. In a chapter titled The Anatomy of Denial he has an interesting short discussion [...]

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The Inquisition of Climate Science

by Bryan Walker September 5, 2011

“…in the denial of global warming, we are witnessing the most vicious, and so far most successful, attack on science in history.” Those strong words are from James Lawrence Powell in his recent book The Inquisition of Climate Science. The book chronicles the campaign of denial which has resulted in the widespread failure of public [...]

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