Tag: Tim Ball

Climateballs: O’Sullivan strikes again

John O’Sullivan — the pseudosceptic who is serially and persistently wrong about almost everything he chooses to write about, and who has made a career out of misrepresenting his own abilities and qualifications — is at it again. In a “review” of a new book by Canadian denier Tim Ball (left), O’Sullivan ((With co-author Hans Schreuder.)) writes:

The courage and forthrightness Tim Ball has shown with this book, and in the British Columbia Supreme Court defending himself against the now failed libel suit of Michael Mann, is about to be vindicated by the judiciary. As the scientific community awaits Ball’s impeding legal triumph, we may edify ourselves not just with the black and white evidence presented in this extraordinary publication, but in the certain knowledge that Mann and his co-conspirators have spectacularly failed in their bid to silence dissent against their fraudulent science.

Mann’s abortive attempt to sue Ball in the British Columbia Supreme Court ultimately back-fired because Mann refused to show his metadata, his calculations for his junk science, in open court. Now Mann faces possible bankruptcy on top of professional suicide, as the price for his misdeeds.

What purple prose! What hyperbole! What utter crap.

Mann’s lawyer, Roger McConchie writes:

Their assertion that Dr. Mann faces possible bankruptcy is nonsense. Dr. Mann’s lawsuit against Dr. Ball and other defendants is proceeding through the normal stages prescribed by the BC Supreme Court Civil Rules and Dr. Mann looks forward to judicial vindication at the conclusion of this process.

In other words: O’Sullivan’s wrong again. The court case is very much on, and Tim Ball is in deep trouble. Ball’s book, teasingly titled The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science is another matter. A cursory glance at the sample available via Amazon suggests that it’s yet another in a long line of conspiracist nonsense about the climate issue — eerily reminiscent of Ian Wishart’s Air Con in its suggestions of cabals at the UN, environmentalism as a religion, and Maurice Strong and Prince Philip as some sort of evil overlords. Mr McConchie is undoubtedly looking over the text with considerable interest…

Recursive lying: Monckton rails against liars by telling lies

“Potty peer” Chris Monckton has reacted to criticism of his threats to sue Australian academics by doubling down on his commitment to pursue legal action. In a typically overblown piece at an Australian sceptic site, Monckton tries to reassure the faithful that their guru has not gone off the rails:

Going to court is the deadliest weapon we have against the extremists who have lied and lied and lied again to save the Party Line. Lies have consequences.

Indeed they do, as Monckton may find out one day. He goes on to demonstrate how “successful” this tactic can be by re-writing the history of one or two cases he’s been involved with, and then states:

“Dr.” Michael Mann, fabricator of the “hockey-stick” graph that falsely abolished the medieval warm period, sued Dr. Tim Ball for calling the graph scientific fraud. Tim Ball’s defence was to propose showing the judge the many dodges by which “Dr.” Mann had done what “Dr.” Overpeck had called for in 1995: “We have to abolish the medieval warm period.”

Rather than face cross-examination, “Dr.” Mann gave up the case at a cost that cannot have been much less than $1 million.

This is not true. It is an invention. Monckton is lying about the state of the Ball/Mann court case, and repeating Ball’s libel of Mann to boot. Mann’s lawyer, Roger McConchie, has described Monckton’s statement as “nonsense”. The legal process continues — in fact, Mann’s legal team were deposing Tim Ball as part of the discovery process on the same day that Monckton concocted and published his story!

The discount viscount concludes his epistle with a rousing call to his own arms:

But if the liars tell lies about me, if the fraudsters deny the scientific truth when I speak it, if the cheats make up baseless personal attacks on me, then I have the opportunity to fight back, not so much on my own behalf as on behalf of the silent, broken millions who cannot speak for themselves and whom your political class no longer bothers to represent.

Monckton’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. He is a puffed-up propagandist who has repeatedly lied about many things, and who has misrepresented the science of climate at every one of the many opportunities he has been given by those campaigning against action to reduce emissions. When the “silent, broken millions” who will be hit by climate changes made worse by Monckton’s efforts wake up to his mendacity, his words will surely return to bite him on his upper class bum. And the sooner they do, the better.

Leyland joins the über cranks: signs up with serial liar O’Sullivan’s vanity “science” group

Bryan “the cooling is coming” Leyland, energy and economics spokesman for the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition, affiliate of various other coalitions, and a man with a penchant for writing to the UN Secretary General ((As I suggested, his fingerprints were all over the text.)), has joined Principia Scientific International, the internet home for the bewildered and deluded set up by John O’Sullivan, and chaired by Canadian crank Tim Ball. Vincent Gray, another NZ C”S”C luminary, has also joined the group.

Regular readers will recall that O’Sullivan has a long track record ((His PSI bio still includes the claim that he has written for the National Review, China Daily, and India Times, despite my pointing out this was a lie 18 months ago.)) of misrepresenting his background and making stupid errors of fact in his blog posts, so it is at least within the bounds of possibility that he is making all this up — but if we take what O’Sullivan writes at face value, then Leyland is now a member of an organisation that exists to deny the greenhouse effect. Just look at the titles of the two most recent articles posted to the PSI web site: Greenhouse Effect Refutation, and Absence of a Measurable Greenhouse Effect. But then as Leyland’s web site includes this chilling little observation…

The last sunspot cycle was 12.5 years and the previous one was 9.5 years. The evidence tells us that a 3 year increase in cycle length will result in cooling of at least 1°C. As the total amount of warming that has occurred since the early 1900s is 0.7°C, this is potentially very serious. We could be returning to the conditions in the little ice age.

…perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that he has chosen to throw in his lot with the physics deniers O’Sullivan has gathered around himself. Not a good look, however, for someone who still pretends to have a grasp on reality. I wonder if the NZ media, ever prone to giving Leyland’s thoughts on climate an airing, will notice his retreat from the real world?

So many lies – and the liar who tells them

A headline caught my attention yesterday:
Shock News: Disgraced Climategate Scientist Made Top UN Weatherman. It popped up all over the crank web. Climate Realists seemed to get it first, then Morano’s Climate Depot, and soon it was at the gloriously titled “CO2 Insanity“, ICECAP.us and many, many more. Here’s the intro and first sentence:

In a shock move a discredited global warming scientist implicated in climate fraud is appointed to a top job at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Jim Salinger, one of the scientists suspected of criminal misconduct in the Climategate scandal has been elected to the prestigious role of President of the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Climate skeptics are aghast at the news.

The author? One John O’Sullivan. HT readers with long memories will remember him being wrong about everything before. In this case, amongst the untruths and libels in those few words is one simple mistake that makes the entire crank echo chamber look stupid for providing O’Sullivan with a platform. Jim Salinger’s election to the presidency of the WMO Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) took place in 2006 — as O’Sullivan’s own reference demonstrates! Salinger remains a member of the CAgM, but the president is now
Dr Byong-Lyol Lee of Korea (full WMO membership list here). O’Sullivan’s “scoop” is a mere five years out of date! But wait, there’s more…

Continue reading “So many lies – and the liar who tells them”