Category: Climate cranks

Jim Hopkins: vapid, vacuous, pretty vacant

There’s a terrible tyranny in being a columnist for a national newspaper, required to produce entertaining and informative copy every week. It’s a hard job, having an opinion and expressing it cogently. Some writers struggle and succeed, others strive and fail dismally. The NZ Herald — the newspaper of record for NZ’s biggest city — has a couple of fine examples of the latter: old curmudgeon Garth George, who meets the difficulties inherent in his job by ripping off other people’s copy, and red-spectacled “funny man” Jim Hopkins, who has never allowed the facts to get in the way of a good rant.

And what a diatribe he gave us last Friday! Global warming’s gone away, Jim reckons:

There has been a trickle of terror but, by and large, the whole calamitous narrative is a goneburger.

…and…

The conclusion’s inescapable. Either we (literally) cooked our goose a long time ago or global warming’s always been more chimera than catastrophe. Quids in, it’s the latter. This is a crisis of faith, not a crisis of fact.

…and…

We just don’t need to worry about it any more. That’s all. The prediction holds. Global warming has disappeared.

Yes that’s right, because the media isn’t giving global warming the same prominence as a few years ago, the problem must be over. Thank the Lord for that sir. And what a shame that Hopkins’ is talking — not to put too fine a point on it — complete bollocks. Here’s why:

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Prat Watch #1: columnated ruins domino

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 screens…

However gloomy I may be about the prospects for serious international action to reduce carbon emissions, I did find a few things to enjoy amongst the events in Durban, not the least of them being the fact that the only way Mark Morano and potty peer Christopher Monckton could draw attention to their CFACT-sponsored trip was by jumping out of an aeroplane in an attempt to attract the attention of the world’s press.

From the CFACT web site:

Multiple media outlets showed up to record the event, including the AP, BBC, and South Africa’s national news network. It was a huge success! Climategate 2.0 can not be ignored!

Shows, I suppose, just how desperate the denial campaign is to make mileage out of yesterday’s emails. But Monckton and Morano weren’t finished…

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The scientization of politics

A chance to watch Michael “hockey league” Mann is not to be missed, so here’s a recent TEDx talk he gave titled The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. The climate science is pretty straightforward, but his comments on the US campaign to vilify climate science and scientists are worth a few minutes of anyone’s day.

Put it there pal: the real story of Chris de Freitas and Climate Research

The release of another batch of emails from the stash stolen a couple of years ago from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia may not have gained much attention in global media, but there has been a great deal of huffing and puffing at sceptic blogs such as µWatts and Climate Audit. Watts trumpets this news, for example:

BOMBSHELL An absolutely disgusting string of communications that shows the tribal attempt at getting an editor of a journal fired on made up issues – all because he allowed a publication that didn’t agree with “the Team”. This is ugly, disturbing, and wrong on every level.

Introducing a post copied from a New Zealand sceptic blog, given the headline The tribalistic corruption of peer review – the Chris de Freitas incident — Watts adds:

This is outright malicious interference with the scientific process, and it’s damned ugly. I can’t imagine anyone involved in professional science who could stand idly by and not condemn this.

Unfortunately for Watts and the anonymous (and low profile) NZ blogger who wrote the article, a new analysis by John Mashey of 700+ papers published at Climate Research reveals that the tribalism on display came from a cabal of sceptical scientists, with Auckland University academic Chris de Freitas safely shepherding their papers — however poor the science they contained — through peer pal review.

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Two year old turkey for Thanksgiving: CRU emails part deux

In an apparent attempt to repeat the pre-Copenhagen impact of the release of emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in 2009, another batch of private correspondence between climate scientists has been made public via links left at sceptic blogs. UEA has confirmed that the emails appear to be genuine, and to be from the previous theft:

While we have had only a limited opportunity to look at this latest post of 5,000 emails, we have no evidence of a recent breach of our systems.

If genuine, (the sheer volume of material makes it impossible to confirm at present that they are all genuine) these emails have the appearance of having been held back after the theft of data and emails in 2009 to be released at a time designed to cause maximum disruption to the imminent international climate talks.

As you might expect, the usual suspects are out in force, desperately trying to spin these mails into a new scandal, but initial responses from the scientists featuring in the correspondence are that the contents are just the warmed-up leftovers of 2009’s PR beat-up. Michael Mann commented:

“The last time this happened, it turned out to be a hoax, a manufactured scandal. This has all the makings of a yet another fraud, perpetrated once again on the eve of a major climate change summit with the intention of distracting the public and policymakers about the very real threat of human-caused climate change”

Leo Hickman in the Guardian reports that the Norfolk Police — who have been investigating the original server hack for two years with no apparent success — have said that the new release of emails is “of interest” to them. Other reactions here:

For Hot Topic‘s coverage of the original email theft, start here, then go here, where I discuss the framing of the non-scandal. See also Skeptical Science’s excellent overview of 2009’s events and the fallout.