9 thoughts on “Dr. Martin Hertzberg responds to Dr. Michael Mann”

1. Watt a bang up reply, uses every fallacious ad hominem argument in the book and then some.

   Sorry Anthony and Martin, I prefer the real science from real climate scientists and not pretenders like yourselves. A word from the late Isaac Asimov from 1989.

   The “Citizens Challenge latest response to Dr Martin Hertzberg’s bang up nonsense on climate change denial, is an eye opener and can be found here.

   Keep up the good work Ben, I like the new voting system!

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2. Well, he rejects global warming, so he must be a distinguished climate scientist. And he’s a distinguished scientist, so his rejection of climate science is credible!

   I think this is how the Oregon petition works.

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3. Tony thinks I am boorish, and a troll. If you’re reading this Tony – I’ll survive.

   I see he’s managed to get the Union of Concerned Scientists to accept a donation in the name of A DOG! How we laughed! …. but imagine how much funnier it would be if the UCS did not self-describe as an organisation of citizens and scientists, if the first line of the wikipedia entry on UCS did not read

   “The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit science advocacy group based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists.”

   But as it does, the achievement seems to be that Tony has successfully passed his dog off as a citizen. Whoop-de-do. I am not sure how UCS should be guarding itself against fake applications made in bad faith… is this not mail fraud?

   But I am sure the money will come in handy :-)

   While we’re in a jokey mood, did you know that if you rearrange the letters of ‘Anthony Watts’ you can get either ‘Satan – thy Wont’, or ‘Nasty Whatnot’?

   Just a bit of ‘Friday Fun’. There are more vulgar permutations but that would be boorish. I think ‘Nasty Whatnot’ might just catch on…

   [I suspect Anthony’s pooch is a member of the T(-bone) Party. He might have scored a snark-point if the UCS had claimed that the dog had scientific credentials, like so many of those Oregon Petition signees. – Ben]

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   • I am banned from WUWT because I have the temerity to ask what happened to all that money Anthony pandered for the days before he released that surface station fiasco. I’ll bet he made a packet of money and he asked for these donations after he knew what the results would be and when he knew his readership would have been very unimpressed with these results. Essentially, he scammed his own fan group.

     Please, if any of you get the time, jump on his site and ask how much money he raked in and what he has done with it.

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4. I look forward to a discussion on the Erl Happ disaster at WUWT…
   Does look like there is some antagonism growing at WUWT, with some realising that being skeptical extends to their tribe.

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5. Even funnier, is that Watts made a donation in order to join UCS. An organization that he opposes. Own goal Anthony…own goal. As usual, none of the watts fan base including Anthony himself, bothered to check the facts like Phil Clarke did above.

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6. “The Incredible Shrinking Frog” WUWT (Oct19,2011)

   This WUWT-way to counter a potentially alarming paper is with a general omission of the contents, and the specific omission that some situations are both warmer and dryer, and then to add Willis Eschenbach’s personal reduction of the plant and animal shrinkage to “slight.”

   From the NYT:

   “Judging from the fossil record, creatures like beetles, spiders and pocket gophers shrank during periods of warming in the past like the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 55.8 million years ago, the researchers write. Scientists are increasingly relying on fossils to predict what the planet might anticipate over the next century.”
   “Although climate change is now unfolding at a much faster rate than in past periods of warming, the researchers write, the basic message is the same: warmer temperatures equal smaller animals.”
   “Since he and Dr. Sheridan began documenting the trend over two years ago, Dr. Bickford said, another 20 to 30 studies have suggested that the shrinking phenomenon is occurring across speies…”
   “Droughts in many regions are expected to result in more forest fires, which reduces the nitrogen in the soil that is a critical factor in plant’s growth…”
   “Evolution will probably favor the small animals who are better able to keep up with energy demands as resources fluctuate on an even warmer planet, the researchers suggest.”

   From The Telegraph:

   “The change could have a major impact on the expanding human population, with major food sources like fish likely to reduce in size and crops expected to grow smaller and less reliably than today.”
   “Researchers argue that warmer and drier weather causes plants and animals to reach smaller sizes, while more variable rainfall levels.raise the risk of failed crop years.”
   “Reduced food supplies are likely to mean that animals at the top of their food chains – including humans – will grow to smaller sizes, have fewer offspring, and be more vulnerable to disease…”
   “Cold blooded animals, particularly amphibians, are at the highest risk because having a smaller size will put them at greater risk of drying up in warmer temperatures.”
   “Experimental research suggests that for every additional degree Celsius, a variety of plants lose between three and 17 per cent in size and fish shrink by six to 22 per cent.”

   The polar bear example seems a poor choice, since their life span is too long for any natural selection to have taken place. There may be some stunted growth for younger bears, but simple malnourishment would seem to be the more probable explanation, for the most studied subpopulation:

   “Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season. The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period, the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510lb) in 2004. Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%.” Wikipedia

   WUWT, me worry?

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   • Not only does the Hudson ice break up earlier. Last year the pond froze over after New Year, this was like six weeks late…

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7. BEST Boy.

   Richard Muller has broken cover and already the crack Nasty Whatnot team is out digging up and moving those goalposts, apparently:

   “The issue of “the world is warming” is not one that climate skeptics question, it is the magnitude and causes.”

   Mr Watt’s fitness levels must be at an all time high, in addition to shifting those goalposts he is backpedalling furiously:-

   “I know that I’ll be critcized for my position on this, since I said back in March that I would accept their findings whatever they were, but that was when I expected them to do science per the scientific process.

   When BEST approached me, I was told they were doing science by the regular process, and that would include peer review. Now it appears they have circumvented the scientific process in favor of PR.”

   Not that Watts would ever do anything to jepordise the correct scientific process for tawdry PR purposes, like dedicate an entire section of his website to illicitly-obtained private scientific correspondence. Oh no.

   Says Richard Muller:-

   “Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK. This confirms that these studies were done carefully and the potential biases identified by climate change sceptics did not seriously affect their conclusions.”

   Bang. There goes most of ‘Climategate’.

   And here is why Anthony is squirming …

   “Stations ranked as ‘poor’ in a survey by Anthony Watts of the most important temperature recording stations in the U.S. showed the same pattern of global warming as stations ranked as OK. Absolute temperatures of poor stations may be higher and less accurate but the overall global warming trend is the same and the BE analysis concludes that there is not any undue bias from including poor stations in the survey.”

   Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

   [Anthony Watts is utterly contemptible. But he’s also utterly hilarious. – Ben]

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