Treadgold

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. [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

The gullible leading the credulous (with a sting in the tale)

by Gareth November 3, 2011

One for the “It would be big news if it were true” file — according to John O’Sullivan (see So Many Lies — And The Liar Who Tells Them) a Japanese satellite has discovered that CO2 emissions from the world’s least developed countries are greater than from industrial nations. Here’s how he describes the discovery [...]

15 comments Read the full article →

A note on readership, and a challenge

by Gareth June 23, 2011

What is it with so-called sceptics and dodgy statistics? Is comprehension failure a precondition for believing six impossible things before breakfast, or does wishful thinking trump all common sense? It can’t be an unwillingness to do research, because they find cherries in the most unlikely places. Recently Richard Treadgold put his finger into the world [...]

8 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

Educating Richard (or not)

by Gareth May 3, 2011

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 [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Four years on…

by Gareth April 24, 2011

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the first post at Hot Topic — four years since the blog’s birth, and as my mum would say, hasn’t time flown? This birthday post is number 1,080, and it will be read by many, many more people than those first brief paragraphs announcing the book and blog. I’m [...]

34 comments Read the full article →

Return of the Climate Clueless™: there’s none so blind…

by Gareth April 17, 2011

Sir Peter Gluckman, scientific adviser to NZ prime minister John Key, recently published a discussion paper entitled Towards better use of evidence in policy formation (pdf). It’s an interesting read for anyone who has ever noted the sometimes large discrepancy between political dogma and policy outcomes. Sciblogger Peter Griffin went so far as to describe [...]

49 comments Read the full article →

Fools gold: cranks can’t count

by Gareth February 9, 2011

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. 14 months on from the start of the Treadgold/Climate “Science” Coalition/ACT campaign to cast doubt on the long term New Zealand temperature record, after parliamentary questions, much mud slinging at Jim Salinger and NIWA, legal action, and the expensive and time-wasting reconstruction of a temperature series that’s [...]

119 comments Read the full article →

Why dealing with climate change is difficult (spinach tarts and ice cream)

by Gareth January 20, 2011

Let’s be clear about this: the failure to take adequate action to reduce emissions is not because of any weakness in our understanding of the science of climate. It has its roots instead in human psychology and sociology, as George Marshall explains in this series of three videos — The Ingenious Ways We Avoid Believing [...]

24 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries