Monthly Archives: August 2010

Climatologists consensus on global warming: poll sample size 79

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“Climatologists consensus on global warming: poll sample size 79“.  A blog called “The Hockey Schtick” has discovered a nearly two year-old report, Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change in the American Geophysical Union’s weekly newspaper EOS. Apparently only 76 out of 79 climatologists (96.2%) surveyed thought that global warming is ‘significantly’ due to human activity! The total number of responding scientists was 3146, of which a mere 90% agreed with the survey question.

Reading the self-descriptions of commenters at Watts Up With That may lead you to the conclusion that there are hundreds of ‘skeptical’ but anonymous climatology PhD’s out there. The reality is that the sample size of “active climatologists” in any poll will be small.

Also, only 58% of the general public though the same thing. The denialists are almost winning! Global Warming is nearly over!

The less people educated people are about climate, the more inclined they are to discount it. That's Anthony Watts' sweet spot. Survey results from EOS, Jan. 2009.

Walking the Plank-ton

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“Walking the Plank-ton“. More awesome marine biology insight from Willis Eschenbach. He waited until he had a chance to read the entire Global phytoplankton decline over the past century paper in Nature because he didn’t want to get it wrong. The paper’s claim is that our marine phytoplankton population has been cut in half since 1900 because of warming of the global oceans.

So what did Willis come up with to reject the paper’s conclusions? This:

The short answer is that I don’t know … but I don’t believe their results.

Climate proposals threaten pursuit of happiness and justice

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“Climate proposals threaten pursuit of happiness and justice“. Paul Driessen of the right-wing “Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow” sarcastically tells us this:

Environmental justice demands that the United States address global warming, the gravest threat facing minority Americans, insist the EPA, Congressional Black Caucus and White House. Are they serious?

After the usual collection of denialist talking points, we get to Paul’s real concern:

Whether they take the form of cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, restrictions on drilling and coal mining, or EPA rules under its claim that carbon dioxide “endangers” human health and welfare, anti-energy policies frustrate the natural desire of poor and minority Americans to improve their lives.

Ah yes, the Republicans just want to help the downtrodden. Downtrodden corporations that is.

Thanks for the science, Anthony.

Graphing Lesson Part 2 – “Crest to Crest”

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Graphing Lesson Part 2 – “Crest to Crest”. Steven Goddard tries yet again to explain why his cherry-picked charting tricks are perfectly A-OK. The time span that shows that there is no statistical Global Warming is always the correct one to use!

A cool 50 million

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“A cool 50 million“. Anthony Watts is very pleased with his web statistics. He wants you to think that “hits” mean something. In fact “hits” are a widely discredited, much like everything else Anthony shouts as proof against Global Warming. Hint: each time a web page loads every image, as well as many other items, counts as a hit. Anthony’s pages typically have at least 30 graphics each.

Wikipedia says that hits are “an inaccurate measure of a website’s popularity or web traffic.”

About.com says “Don’t use the term hits unless you want people to know you don’t know much about Web analytics or Web measurement.”

We touched on this a few days ago when denialist/internet genius Mike Lorrey tried to explain that feverish clicking meant the world was beating a path to Anthony’s door. Physicist Joe Romm, whom Anthony considers a deadly rival with his Climate Progress website, schools Anthony on the subject (again) better than I can, so just drop over for an enlightening chuckle. Anthony claims he’s “beating” Joe, but somehow Joe has 50 million hits in 2010 alone.

As usual when Anthony is trying to boast he likes to interrupt his character assassination and general polemics to make grand statements like “I’m really growing tired of the vociferous and voluminous name calling and people bashing, on both sides. It’s palpable.” Oh. My. God. You know what’s “palpable” Anthony? Your hypocrisy. You both encourage and participate in the ugliness.

New “Our Climate” iPhone app released

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Man-made climate drivers needn't apply.

“New “Our Climate” iPhone app released“. Want a collection of cherry-picked, out of context climate facts in your pocket? How ’bout some falsified charts and incorrect scientific explanations? Want to vote on the climate? There’s an app for that! “Our Climate” is an iPhone app by Aeris Systems Pty Ltd. from Australia and it has “made it through Apple’s review process unscathed”. That must have been a surprise. Conspiracy theorists are buying it as fast as possible so they can get their copy before the secret world gubmint shuts it down.

Anthony Watts must love to see his favorite claims packaged neatly in a context that conceals all criticism. The developer promises that “if any material errors have slipped through, rest assured that such errata will be readily addressable.” I won’t hold my breath on that one.

Funny the “warmist” climate science equivilent, Skeptical Science’s iPhone app, shows denialist claims, the scientific responses, and the to-and-fro comments on their website. I guess they’re not quite as afraid of scrutiny.

Which “key climate blogs” are readers driven too in the “Our Climate” app I wonder.

Heidi Cullen doomcasts in new stemwinding sci-fi thriller

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“Heidi Cullen doomcasts in new stemwinding sci-fi thriller“. How dare a weather girl write a speculative book about Global Warming? How dare ABC News or the New York Times review it? Only Anthony Watts knows the truth about the lies!

Dr. Heidi Cullen, previously at the Weather Channel and now CEO of Climate Central has a book out called The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet.

Oh, wait. Dr. Cullen has a doctorate in climatology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics. Anthony… doesn’t.

Gore cleared in masseuse case

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“Gore cleared in masseuse case“. Is Anthony Watts clearing the air on yet another attempt to besmirch politician and environmentalist Al Gore, or is he taking the opportunity to remind his readers that ‘the alGore’ is evil, evil, EVIL?

This kind of post is just another sign that Anthony Watts’ blog is propelled by partisan right-wing anger and not by objective scientific interest.

I’m honored…I think

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“I’m honored…I think“. Here’s another funny one from Anthony Watts. Virginia Heffernan has naïvely written in the New York Times about a controversy over disguised advertising on ScienceBlogs, which she claims “has become Fox News for the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd”. Sounds like a someone’s got a nice fact-free agenda… She also makes a rather loose suggestion about some ‘sensible’ science websites:

For science that’s accessible but credible, steer clear of polarizing hatefests like atheist or eco-apocalypse blogs. Instead, check out scientificamerican.com, discovermagazine.com and Anthony Watts’s blog, Watts Up With That?

Anthony loves the credibility bump, even though Scientific America is ‘dead to him’ for it’s awful, corrupt, lying support of the Global Warming orthodoxy (so are most natural history museums). Too bad Heffernan makes a very explicit retraction of her endorsement of Watts Up With That?:

One regret: the Watts blog. Virtually everyone who emailed me pointed out that it’s as axe-grinding as anything out there. I linked to it because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide; and, above all, it has some beautiful images I’d never seen before. I’m a stranger to the debates on science blogs, so I frankly didn’t recognize the weatherspeak on the blog as “denialist”; I didn’t even know about denialism. I’m don’t endorse the views on the Watts blog, and I’m extremely sorry the recommendation seemed ideological.

Anthony of course considers this proof that Heffernan succumbed to intellectual bullying from those nasty, hateful, lying scientists. Or is he just disappointed that a gullible newcomer with the correct political perspective has slipped through his fingers?

Tim Lambert over at Deltoid has a good overview: Post-modernism rides again at the New York Times.