Tag: Wishart

Quirk, strangeness, not much charm

Airconcover.jpgAnother day, another angry diatribe from Air Con author Ian Wishart — longer and more intemperate that his last, but I’m getting used to the style. It seems he believes that attack is the best form of defence, which is great if you’ve got the ammunition (like the Crusaders backs of recent seasons, if not this one 🙁 ), but rather unwise if you lack basic understanding of the issue in contention. I’ll deal with the points he raises, but can’t resist first giving you a flavour of his writing:

I could go on, and on, but I don’t see why I should bear the burden of disproving your half-baked schoolboy science masquerading as genuine informed comment on climate change. I’ve illustrated here that Gareth Renowden’s credibility on climate change, based on his Air Con review, is non existent. Go for it Truffle, crawl back to your den and think carefully before launching ad-hom attacks on me again.

“Half-baked schoolboy science”? Oh the irony, the chutzpah…

Continue reading “Quirk, strangeness, not much charm”

Like being savaged by a dead sheep…

Airconcover.jpgI suppose it was inevitable that my review of Air Con would attract a response from its author, but I hadn’t expected anything quite as extraordinary as this. Apart from dubbing me “Trufflehunter” and Bryan Walker “Quasimodo” (which is very unfair — Bryan doesn’t have back problems, though he does like the sound of bells — or was it the other way round?), I am apparently now a “sock puppet” for James Hansen. Frankly, if I had Jim’s hand stuck up my posterior orifice, I think I might have noticed… I’ll ignore Wishart’s ad homs though, and merely note that he demonstrates very nicely that an ability to cite scientific papers is no substitute for understanding what they say. It’s a big and complex world out there, but sadly Wishart can only see the bits that suit his ideology.

[PS: I wish I could make a living from truffles alone… 😉 ]

Somethin’ stupid…

Airconcover.jpgI hardly know where to begin with this book. It appears to come from another planet; it has a view of the world so far removed from the reality that most of us operate in that it’s difficult to know whether the author is misguided, malicious, or malignant. Consider the mental space occupied by someone who is willing to write, publish and promote this (p247):

What they [“wild greens”] really mean is that they want ordinary families and kids to become extinct, leaving space for the Green elite to run the planet and enjoy exclusive bird-watching excursions while feasting on the bones of six year olds who’d earlier been sold to Asian brothels.

In Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming, Ian Wishart appears to have held the techniques of Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels a little too close to his heart (he certainly refers to Goebbels often enough… four times in all, the first time on p16). An intense dislike of all things “green” seems to make him lose touch with any concept of good taste or accuracy in a mad rush to denigrate the green movement and environmentalists.

Continue reading “Somethin’ stupid…”

With friends like these…

Airconcover.jpg Next week sees the publication of Ian Wishart‘s latest book, Air Con — The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming. After trying to trash Helen Clark in Absolute Power, proclaiming the end of Western civilisation in Eve’s Bite and arguing a creationist line in The Divinity Code, Wishart has latched on to global warming. And just in case there’s any doubt about his position, here are some quotes from the blurb on the back cover:

The UN, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jacques Chirac, and other world-government wannabes are plotting to establish nothing less than a global, bureaucratic-centralist dictatorship under the pretext that it is necessary to ‘Save The Planet’. Ian Wishart’s book demonstrates that there is not the slightest scientific reason for the new, quasi-religious belief that The Planet needs Saving. The new religion is merely an excuse for world government. World government will not, repeat not, be democratic government. […]

I commend this timely book, which makes the scientific arguments comprehensible to the layman. Those who read it will help to forestall the new Fascists and so to keep us free. – Lord Christopher Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, former adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Wishart clearly believes that a recommendation from the potty peer is going to help him sell copies. It may (in certain limited circles) — but it does nothing for his credibility (nor does his mangling of Monckton’s title). And who’s this?

The book is brilliant. The best I have seen which deals with the news item side of it as well as the science. He has done a very thorough job and I have no hesitation in unreserved commendation. It has come along at the time we most need it and I hope it is published and publicized widely.

Back in March, Wishart was touting Air Con in comments to one of Bomber Bradbury’s posts at Tumeke!, and trotted out the above quote to show how esteemed his book was amongst experts — but was coy about identifying the author. And now we know why: the purple prose was penned by none other than Vincent Gray, diligent proofreader of so many IPCC reports. Someone guessed correctly at the time… I wonder who that was? 😉

I will be reviewing Air Con in coming weeks. Something to look forward to, perhaps…