cranks

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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This Is Not Cool

by Bryan Walker August 16, 2011

“Everywhere we look, impacts are coming faster and harder than we would have predicted just a few years ago.” Peter Sinclair’s recent Crock of the Week video .

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Global Climate Change: A Primer

by Bryan Walker July 25, 2011

Global Climate Change: A Primer may be a book for beginners, but those with an understanding of the issue will find interest in the wide-ranging exposition provided by geologist Orrin Pilkey  and his lawyer son Keith. Pilkey’s research area has been shorelines and coastal geology, with a special focus on barrier island coasts, and his [...]

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BBC about to bite bullet on climate BS

by Bryan Walker July 22, 2011

“I recommend that the BBC takes a less rigid view of ‘due impartiality’ as it applies to science (in practice and not just in its guidelines) and takes into account the non‐contentious nature of some material and the need to avoid giving undue attention to marginal opinion.” This is one of the recommendations of a [...]

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Lazy old Garth

by Gareth June 21, 2011

Some things you can rely on: death, taxes and Garth George. Yes, that wondrous old curmudgeon has published another piece that owes a heavy debt to the work of another. In the Otago Daily Times a couple of weeks ago he devoted an entire column to an espousal of a climate sceptic rant by Professor [...]

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Song of the Australian scientists

by Gareth June 14, 2011

Australian scientists have begun a push back against climate denial. Over at the excellent The Conversation site (a hugely interesting experiment in bringing academic expertise to the news cycle), Stephan Lewandowsky and a long list of prominent Australian academics have kicked off a series of articles “from the nation’s top minds on the science behind [...]

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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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