Tag: cranks

The (un)principled sceptic

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 perfectly possible to adopt a position, as I have, of ‘a principled climate science scepticism’.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But a bit later on, in attempting to adduce evidence in support of his position he writes:

She [the author of the piece he’s complaining about] might like to look at the recent analysis by Pat Franks (sic) which tightens the conclusion that the anthropogenic contribution is at most 0.3°C per century. This concludes that it is rising temperatures that are increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide, not the other way round.

Oh dear.

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Mad, bad and dangerous

Australian climate scientists have been receiving abusive emails — even death threats — from people who mistake violence for political expression. Graham Readfearn provides some examples (not for the squeamish). The Canberra Times broke the story at the weekend and it’s been covered in depth at The Conversation (one, two). Tim Lambert comments on the vapid response from right wing commentator Tim Blair, but I was horrified by the unrepentant tone adopted by Joanne Nova:

This is sheer beef-it-up spin, making a mountain out of a molehill, clutching at straws in desperation to eek out a PR victory from the dregs of a fading scam.

I might have expected a ritual “we do not condone violence” from Nova and Blair, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Nor is this tactic new. It’s been a fact of life for climate scientists in the USA for years. That it’s crossing the Pacific and polluting the discourse in Australia should be a matter of shame for those opposing action on climate change.

It’s also evidence of how desperate the campaign of denial has become. Denied recourse to the evidence because it is overwhelmingly against them, they resort to bullying and hate speech. There’s a lesson here for those who would argue against action on climate change. When you make common cause with the crazies by invoking conspiracies as your case for inaction, then you open the doors on a very dangerous form of debate.

Climate rap – scientists fight back

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This is a preview of a section of tonight’s Hungry Beast show (Wikipedia explains) on ABC in Australia — I’m A Climate Scientist — a rap attack on climate denial. Opening lines:

Droppin facts all over this wax/
While bitches be crying about a carbon tax/
Climate change is caused by people/
Earth Unlike Alien Has no sequel/
We gotta move fast or we’ll be forsaken/
(Politician): Cause we were too busy suckin’ d*** in Copenhagen

Slightly not safe for work, or if you are sensitive to rude language. Full lyric at Youtube. But hilarious, and well worth watching. I’d pay good money to see a version with Gavin Schmidt, Mike Mann, Kevin Trenberth and Phil Jones. Or do I mean “Bad”? Hat tip: John Cook via @skepticscience.

Carter and Beck: partners in misconduct

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 (*):

  1. EG Beck is a fraud.
  2. Bob Carter pretends to believe EG Beck, therefore…
  3. Bob Carter misconducts himself before Parliament.

(*) Yes. I know it is not really a syllogism – much less a Barbara – I have studied philosophy you know.

Here I will show 1 and 2 to be true, leading to 3 (that Bob Carter has been ‘misconducting’ himself and is therefore in contempt of Parliament). You will have seen some of this before but, as it never bothers the deniers to recycle text, I feel no guilt in using a partial retread.

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Educating Richard (or not)

If ever you wanted a demonstration of the strange version of reality occupied by those that would deny the need for action on climate change, then Richard Treadgold — he of the oddly one-sided climate conversation — provides a perfect example in his recent attempt to respond to a post of mine. You may remember that Treadgold challenged the PM’s science adviser to come up with evidence for human-caused climate change (amongst other things), and that I took the bait — delivering carefully referenced replies to each of Treadgold’s demands. And I noted in my conclusion:

When offered evidence, Treadgold adopts the Nelson defence. He can’t see it, so it doesn’t exist. But he’s been playing this game for so long that his demands and protestations cut no ice. Being blind to the evidence is not scepticism, it’s denial, and that’s an estate Treadgold has occupied for a very long time.

Treadgold’s riposte demonstrates my point nicely — and at great length. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to enumerate the many ways in which his application of the wrong end of a telescope to a blind eye serves him ill, but I will note that in the land of the Climate Clueless™ it’s apparently acceptable to get numbers wrong, fail to read references, ignore inconvenient data and misrepresent facts.

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