From the wilder shores of crankdom (mainly the “dissenting voices” side of Climate “Debate” Daily ), I offer a few choice selections of current thinking on the sceptic front to brighten (or dampen) your weekend. From the perceptive political analysis of Swindler Martin Durkin to the verbosity of a “potty peer”, all agree on one thing: global warming has stopped…
Tag: David Bellamy
Paperback believers
Providing a counterpoint to their sister paper’s coverage of Britain’s climate cranks, the Independent on Sunday has announced its Green List of Britain’s top 100 most effective environmentalists. In the top slot is John Stewart, the leader of efforts to stop the building of a third runway at Heathrow. Conspicuous by their absence are David Bellamy and James Lovelock (balancing each other out, one might suppose). The full list is interesting – note the number of high profile business people in high positions. Another sign that the “debate” about climate issues in Britain is a lot more developed than in NZ. It’s difficult to imagine Roger Kerr getting anywhere near a similar list here…
Just for the record: in the charts at #100…
The Queen, Monarch
Plebs aren’t supposed to know, but one is actually rather hot on climate change. Tipped up at Anglo-German expert meeting to give silent blessing. Rumoured to have nagged Blair. Energy-efficient lightbulbs at Buck House. Using hydropower from Thames at Windsor Castle.
Daydream (un)believer
It’s crankfest time at the Independent (UK). Over the last few years, the Indescribablyoverhyped (as Stoat describes their climate reporting) has been the most outspoken of the world’s newspapers on the threat of climate change, but this weekend it allowed some of the UK’s leading climate cranks to state their various cases.
Bewhiskered botanical unbeliever David Bellamy:
Global warming is the biggest scam since the church sold indulgences back in the Middle Ages.
Economist Ruth Lea:
When you hear people saying the temperature is going to rise by four degrees this century, do you hear anyone explaining that there’s only a 0.001 probability that will happen? No.
“Climatologist” Piers Corbyn[1. If Corbyn’s a climatologist, then Ken Ring is the saviour of meteorology]:
There’s no evidence that carbon dioxide drives world temperatures or climate change. The ‘hockey stick’ is fraud, Al Gore’s film is fraud, and schemes to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by machines are a scam.
Nigella’s dad, Nigel Lawson:
There has been no global warming this century, and that is apparent from figures produced by the Hadley Centre, the branch of the UK Met Office that monitors world temperatures[2. Despite the Hadley Centre explicitly stating that warming goes on].
Swindler Martin Durkin:
Objectively, it is staggeringly obvious that climate-change science is complete twaddle. There is no correlation, on any meaningful timescale whatsoever, between CO2 and temperature. Take the politics and the grants out of it, and no one would take it seriously.
Hans Schreuder – classic crank:
I haven’t been targeted by activists, which is a shame, as that would have created publicity. I called Al Gore a liar and lots of other things on the site, because I was hoping someone would sue me for defamation. But nobody has bothered.
What a pity, Hans.
Mrs O’Leary’s Cow
Did you know that all cows are carbon neutral? That all the fuss about forcing farmers into an emissions trading scheme is stuff and nonsense? You do now, thanks to the sterling efforts of the Carbon Sense Coalition, an Australian organisation. They issued a press release yesterday, news of which reached me via the Royal Society‘s daily news alert:
News release: Farm lobbies abandon farmers. The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused the big farming lobby groups, government departments, politicians and Ministers representing agriculture of ignoring science and abandoning farmers to unjustified carbon taxation.
Ignoring science, eh? I went in search of what they might be on about…
[Warning: do not read while drinking – extreme beverage/screen interface risk]
Being economical with the truth, or lying through her teeth?
Politicians are skilled at manipulating facts to convey any impression they desire. It’s called spin, and in its worst cases truthiness – nicely defined by the man who invented the term, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report: “We’re not talking about truth, we’re talking about something that seems like truth—the truth we want to exist.” Out in wingnut land, they want to believe that global warming is not real. So Muriel Newman at her NZ Centre for Political Research web site starts spinning the facts and, in the middle of a rambling attempt to justify a recent climate crank call for a joint Australia-NZ Royal Commission on climate change manages to come out with the following:
Anyone who claims that the science on global warming is settled is wrong. There is now growing evidence that that the earth is not warming but cooling: since the 1970s the glaciers of the Arctic, Greenland, and the Antarctic have been growing, and since 1998 average world temperatures have been falling with 2006 cooler than 2005 and 2007 cooler still.
This may be what Muriel fervently believes, but it is also completely untrue. So untrue, in fact, that saying it in an attempt to influence public policy amounts to lying. Sadly, in the echo chamber of truthiness around her web site, she gets taken at face value. Out in the wider world, it simply leaves her credibility in tatters.
Continue reading “Being economical with the truth, or lying through her teeth?”