Tag: Treadgold

How to be a denier #2: the truth is what we want it to be

What do you do when you don’t the like the facts of the matter? You ignore them, right? Or you attempt to downplay them, or perhaps pretend that the data are somehow tainted or not to be trusted. But if you’re a really devoted denier, you can do all these things at the same time. Something like this seems to be going on at smear merchant Richard Treadgold’s Climate Conversation blog, where he’s been working himself into a fine lather about Bryan’s recent posts on sea level rise in Kiribati.

Treadgold’s first riposte made use of the very accurate data from the Seaframe measuring site on Kiribati, relying on the most recent (September) report from the South Pacific Sea Level & Climate Monitoring Project. He said:

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Clutching at straws

I’d like to return briefly to the fate of Kiribati as sea levels rise, following up my recent post on the conference of the Climate Vulnerable Forum held there last week.  The post made its way through Sciblogs to the  NZ Herald website where a number of people offered comments. The vigour of denial is as evident as always. The sea isn’t rising, or if it is it’s rising slowly enough for coral islands to adjust. The islanders aren’t looking after their environment — they’re blasting their coral reefs and leaving themselves open to the ravages of the sea. They should use their tourist income to do some reclamation to make up for erosion. Salt contamination is due to over-extraction of fresh water by a rising population. The islanders are playing this up in order to get money.

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I’ve been wrong before

It appears that the crank pantheon has a new hero: John O’Sullivan — the “world’s most popular Internet writer on the greenhouse gas theory” and the man unafraid of getting everything wrong. The last time we encountered him, he was getting everything wrong about the New Zealand Climate “Science” Coalition’s attempt to take NIWA to court. In his latest piece — Royal Society Humiliated by Global Warming Basic Math Error — he’s getting everything wrong about CO2 and, surprise, his piece is being touted round the crank echo chamber — Delingpole’s blogged it, Morano’s linked to it, and poor old Treadgold’s repeated it verbatim. According to O’Sullivan, an article by an obscure Canadian scientist proves that:

Top international experts prove British numbers on carbon dioxide are wrong. Royal Society blunder grossly exaggerates climate impact.

Oh really?

No.

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NIWA v Cranks 4: Shoot out at the fantasy factory

Earlier today a Hot Topic reader drew my attention to this article: Legal Defeat For Global Warming In Kiwigate Scandal, which Nigella Lawson’s father’s secretly-funded Global Warming Policy Foundation chose to feature on its web site. What’s “Kiwigate”, he wanted to know?

Turns out it’s the NIWA versus NZ Climate “Science” Education Trust court case, launched back in August. It also turns out that the article in question is wrong in just about every material respect, and possibly libellous to boot. And the source for this farrago? A post by Richard Treadgold at his Climate Conversation blog, where he claims (in characteristically long-winded fashion) that in NIWA’s “statement of defence” (the document supplied to the High Court as a response to the NZ CSET’s “statement of claim“) NIWA “formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR)“. Well, not quite. Let’s look first at the “Kiwigate” piece…

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NIWA v cranks 3: the economics of truthiness

Bryan Leyland’s dissembling about the funding of the NZ Climate Science Coalition under direct questioning from Sean Plunkett on Monday morning’s Morning Report on RNZ National — he repeatedly asserted his ignorance of financial matters, directing Plunkett to Terry Dunleavy — puts him in an awkward position. Leyland is a trustee of the NZ Climate Science Education Trust (along with Dunleavy and Doug Edmeades), the body hastily established to request a judicial review of NIWA’s national temperature record. Before lodging papers with the High Court, the trustees should have held a properly minuted meeting and discussed how they intended to fund the action — both in terms of meeting any legal fees, or dealing with any costs awarded against them. This would be standard good governance practice in a charitable trust, and if such a meeting were held then Leyland must be fully aware of the NZCSET’s current funding, and how it expects to fund an expensive and risky legal action. If no meeting were held, or Leyland has no idea how the trust expects to fund the action, then he is failing in his duty as trustee. Perhaps this is an issue that Plunkett and Morning Report might like to follow up…

Listen to the Morning Report segment here:

Climate sceptics take NIWA to court over data

Some interesting dates: I understand that the Statement of Claim lodged with the High Court is dated July 5th, and refers to the NZ Climate Science Education Trust. However the NZCSET’s Deed of Trust (go here, and enter 2539286 in the organisation number search box) is dated July 30th so did not exist when the Statement of Claim was drawn up. The Statement of Claim also states that the NZCSET is a registered trust, but registration was not granted until August 10th. Minor administrative matters, I am sure, but hardly indicative of the creation of trust intended, as its deed says, to:

…promote a heightened awareness and understanding of, and knowledge about, the climate, environment and climate and environmental issues among scholars and researchers, members of the professions and members of the public… (Sec 4.1.1)

One might suggest that the cart was put a very long way in front of the horse. More reaction to this strange affair below the fold…

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