Category: Climate cranks

Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted (*)

homer.jpgLast week an essay — Why I Am A Climate Realist — by NZ CSC “science advisor” Dr Willem de Lange started popping up all over the crank web. I first spotted it at Muriel Newman’s NZ CPR site, and it has since appeared at Monckton’s US lair (complete with a pretty cover). De Lange, a senior lecturer in the Dept of Earth & Ocean Sciences at Waikato Unversity, has not had many starring roles as a climate crank — his biggest claim to fame was a place on the panel discussion after Prime’s showing of The Great Global Warming Swindle last year. But this time he has really stuck his neck out, channelling Wishart’s delusions in this sentence:

It is more likely that the warming of the oceans since the Little Ice Age is a major contributor to the observed increase in CO2.

To show just how wrong he is, I asked Doug Mackie, who is a researcher in chemical oceanography at the University of Otago and regular commenter here, to point out the flaws in de Lange’s essay. Over to Doug:

When Gareth invited me to write a guest post about Willem de Lange’s Why I am a climate realist I knew it was going to be hard. Most of the article is wibble and he really only makes 2 serious points:
– About sea level
-The oceans as the main source of CO2.

(*) Katherine Mansfield, The Advanced Lady.
Continue reading “Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted (*)”

Climate alarmist spouts nonsense

DennisAvery.jpg New Zealand agriculture is doomed and the country will go bust if it adopts measures to restrain carbon emissions, claims Dennis T Avery of the “centre for global food issues” at right wing US think tank the Hudson Institute. Avery is notorious as a vocal climate crank, and was invited to speak at last month’s Agribusiness conference in Blenheim. His message was standard crank nonsense, as the Marlborough Express reported:

Charging farmers for carbon emissions is unfounded and will cripple the New Zealand economy, according to a United States expert on global warming. […] “Do not let them send you out of business. Don’t go quietly. Not only will [a carbon tax] kill you, it will kill the entire economy of New Zealand.”

The alarmist message is underlined in an article he penned on returning home to the US:

No country in the world would risk as much for “global warming” as New Zealand if it goes ahead with the cap-and-trade energy taxation installed by Helen Clarke’s now-departed Labour Government.

Avery’s do-nothing line might have gone done well with some at the Agribusiness conference, but it apparently didn’t find much favour elsewhere:

I said this recently to several New Zealand government ministers and business leaders at a private dinner in Wellington. My message was not welcomed. John Key’s new government seems to understand that New Zealand’s economy would be at terrible risk from carbon taxes — but its voters apparently don’t realize it.

Intriguing. I wonder which ministers he met, and who organised the dinner? And who still thinks Avery is remotely credible on climate issues? Just look at his handy summing up of why action on climate change isn’t necessary:

Never mind that the earth’s global warming stopped after 1998 because the sun has gone into a startling quiet period. That’s why New Zealand’s many glaciers have been growing recently instead of receding. Never mind that even full member compliance with Kyoto would “avoid” only about 0.05 degree C of warming over the next 50 years—by the alarmists’ own math.

Avery is making stuff up — telling lies in an attempt to influence policy. NZ’s glaciers growing? Not what the figures show, Dennis. But then if you think global warming stopped in 1998, you’re clearly not the sharpest pencil in the drawer. It’s a pity the organisers of the Agribusiness conference hadn’t spotted that before inviting him over here to mislead, misinform and misdirect.

Lomborg criticises crank conference*

Lomborg.jpgThe weekend before last, business leaders from around the world met in Copenhagen and issued a call for an international commitment to steep emissions cuts. Bjorn Lomborg’s contribution to proceedings was a column the Wall Street Journal headlined “The Climate-Industrial Complex”. It seems Bjorn was concerned that some capitalists might seek to profit from action to deal with the climate. Shock! Horror! He went on to wring his hands about those backing the Copenhagen conference:

There would be an outcry — and rightfully so — if big oil organized a climate change conference and invited only climate-change deniers.

And in late-breaking news, we hear that Lomborg has noticed today’s crank conference in Washington, funded by oil money, and has loudly condemned proceedings in the Wall Street Journal…

The partnership among self-interested businesses, grandstanding politicians and alarmistsceptic campaigners truly is an unholy alliance. The climate-industrial complex does not promote discussion on how to overcome this challenge in a way that will be best for everybody. We should not be surprised or impressed that those who stand to make a profit are among the loudest calling for politicians to actdo nothing. Spending a fortune on global carbon regulations will benefit a feweveryone, but dearly cost everybody elsea few. [Fixed that for you, Bjorn…]

* – In your dreams…

Do you feel lucky?

Airconcover.jpgOnce again, Ian Wishart is working himself up into a fine frenzy over at his blog, responding to a perceptive post by Bomber Bradbury at Tumeke! In the comments there he claimed to have “pointed out numerous mistakes in Gareth’s snide and out of context ‘review'”, and — funnily enough — I didn’t feel inclined to let that pass. So I suggested a little wager, and drew this furious response. So, knowing it will make precious little difference in the strange version of reality that Wishart occupies, here’s my (final) response…

Continue reading “Do you feel lucky?”

How many times can you shoot yourself in the foot and still walk to work?

Airconcover.jpgI do enjoy Wishart’s attempts at ripostes to my debunking of his nonsense. Last time, you may recall, he got confused between volcanoes beneath the ocean and the ones you can see — like Ruapehu. This afternoon he shoots from the hip in response to my post, and confuses himself yet again…

And in case Truffle doesn’t explain it properly, Wouters et al’s paper is helpfully entitled “GRACE observes small-scale mass loss in Greenland” [my emphasis on small scale]. The paper was not called “Panic Stations: All Hands To The Pumps!”.

He claims to have read the paper, but hasn’t noticed that in this context, small-scale means regional — that is, differentiating between mass loss in the various bits of Greenland. It’s all there in the abstract…

…we examine changes in Greenland’s mass distribution on a regional scale.

Remember, this is a man who claims to have investigated the whole field, and determined that “anthropogenic global warming theory is nothing more than a propaganda stunt” (p227). And “behind all the scare stories on a number of fronts — from the need to give up the war on drug trafficking to the need to tax you thousands of dollars more per year because of your “carbon footprint” — lies a left-wing billionaire (one of several in his group) with an agenda and the means to pull it off.” (p242).

Schoolboy howlers and conspiracy theories. A heady mix for some, a laughing stock to others.

Chortle!

[PS: The former NZ champion trufflehound has fully working teeth.]