Author Archives: Ben

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About Ben

I trained as a sedimentary geologist at a Canadian University, but have worked in the I.T. field as a programmer and manager for many years.

Live stream from Heartland conference

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“Live stream from Heartland conference” (2012-05-23). Anthony Watts is a predictably circular fantasist, but when the entire denialosphere gathers its hard not to set Atlas Shrugged aside for a minute.

Exciting times again! The Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change is underway! “Real Science, Real Choices.” Yeah, baby! They’ve even “reserved several dozen speaker slots for prominent warmists“! Gotta dust some credibility the speaker’s list somehow. (No takers.)

Václav Klaus! You know, the famous climate scientist. Oh, wait, he’s the right-wing Czech President.

Astronaut-Climate Scientists who’ve touched the gol-durn face of God! Well, mostly disgruntled/retired NASA engineers that sent a stern letter to themselves containing many exclamation marks.

Stand-up comedy too! Have you heard that hilarious Ricky Gervais? Oh, it’s Lord Monckton doing his one-man Morris dance? Pass.

Anthony Watts presenting science! Oh, he’s just going to warm over his debunked “How Reliable Are Twentieth Century Temperature Reconstructions?” aspersions. Not in the mood for a witless version of Ground Hog Day.

Still, Joe Bast! He knows how to throw a party, right? Maybe not. Attendance is down to 300 (but thousands more will see the videos fer sure). Joe “Unabomber” is suddenly having trouble getting donor meetings and is casting about for rich (senile?) uncles. Denialist throats need to be well-lubricated it seems. But heart-felt thanks as always to the Heritage Foundation and the Illinois Coal Association.

Ain’t gonna be no rematch I guess. Surely we can count on Watts, Monckton, Singer, Morano, Michaels and pals to keep the dog and pony show going, even if just by bellowing on their blogs?

No doubt Anthony will shortly explain how this is all proof that Global Warming is over (and was a lie).

The Heartland Institute Sends Legal Notices to Publishers of Faked and Stolen Documents

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The Heartland Institute Sends Legal Notices to Publishers of Faked and Stolen Documents (2012-02-19). Anthony Watts thinks the Heartland Institute is kickin’ butt and takin’ names. They’re absolutely insisting that Desmogblog.com take down those embarrassing Heartland documents, some of which might be fake, and delete everything they said about them. Of course being staunch defenders of every individual’s right to exploit others, the Heartland Institute has to preface this with a hypocritical bit of spin:

“We realize this will be portrayed by some as a heavy-handed threat to free speech.”

Desmogblog.com (apparently “already in legal trouble over the Tallbloke libel”) seems strangely unconcerned about Heartland’s bluster. As does a certain 71 year-old veteran.

“Stop talking about this!” seems like a weak position when the Heartland Institute was so quick to disseminate and interpret the actually stolen Climategate e-mails.

Here’s a comment at WUWT that calls a spade a spade:

Hunt says:

Heartland still has a link to the illegally obtained “climategate” docs:
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/death-blow-climate-science
Although if you click the megaupload link, it’s been closed down by the feds for racketeering. Kind of says it all.

It’s funny how the Heartland Institute can consider things done by opponents despicable but perfectly understandable when done by themselves.

Anthony of course doesn’t even blink.

2012-02-20 update: Peter Gleick, at the Huffington Post, is the source of the Heartland Institute leak and asserts their authenticity.

2012-05-22 update: After much caterwauling by the Heartland Institute about forgeries and the shameful behavior of nasty warmists, the true conclusion can be drawn: “Peter Gleick cleared of forging documents in Heartland expose”

California Academy of Sciences pulls the plug on their climate change exhibit

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California Academy of Sciences pulls the plug on their climate change exhibit (2012-02-19). Anthony Watts provides the following deep analysis: if a science museum (“the über green California Academy of Sciences”) replaces a climate change exhibit in a space used for rotating exhibits, this proves that there is no Global Warming.

Also, if a climate change exhibit isn’t eye-catching it proves that the public doesn’t trust commie climatologizers.

This counts as victory in denial-land?

The Anatomy of a Global Warming Smear

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“The Anatomy of a Global Warming Smear” (2012-02-18). ¡Ay, caramba! Anthony Watts desperately posts fellow Heartland Institute funding recipient Alan Caruba’s full-on rant about climate science, apparently triggered by the Heartland Institute document leak. Also, he hates the New York Times.

Here’s some nuance for ya:

Suffice to say, the “climate science” served up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been a pack of lies from the day it first convened.

Sing it brother! What next?

Next to oxygen, CO2 is vital to all life on Earth as it sustains all vegetation which in turn sustains every creature that depends on it as a source of food.

I guess as a good environmentalist I should rush outside and pant on some shrubs.

Thousands of scientists have signed petitions denouncing global warming as a hoax.

If you’re gonna stay stupid things like that someone should tell you about the internet. Your wannabe petitions were all fake petitions packed with unqualified names.

There’s a reason the theme of Heartland’s sixth conference in 2011 was “Restoring the Scientific Method.”

Cute misspelling of “undermining”.

2012-05-22 update: After much caterwauling by the Heartland Institute about forgeries and the shameful behavior of nasty warmists, the true conclusion can be drawn: “Peter Gleick cleared of forging documents in Heartland expose“

Some notes on the Heartland Leak

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Some notes on the Heartland Leak (2012-02-15). Anthony Watts urges us, as others have noted, to ‘pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!’ The revelation that he co-ordinates with and has received money from the Heartland Institute does not mean that he’s just an unscrupulous mouthpiece. He’s definitely not panicked by the exposure either.

James Hansen! Algore! The e-mails were stolen! Some of them are fake!

Anthony’s just collateral damage here though. The real story here is that the notoriously partisan Heartland Institute, a “free-market think tank” theoretically ‘providing information to inform policy debate’ but long regarded as the political home of climate denial, tobacco enthusiasm and government hating, has suffered an embarrassing “leak” of documents. Nothing like a little sunshine to make the bugs skitter.

Read about it at:

Of course this is totally different from the “Climategate” e-mails, which revealed that in private conversation some climate scientists didn’t hold high opinions of global warming deniers. The fact that the Heartland Institute spends most of its time and money scheming to confuse the public and to undermine objective scientific advice (i.e. funding Anthony Watts) is an irrelevance in comparison! Thus ending Global Warming forever.

Anthony’s personal defense boils down to noting that the Heartland Institute and an “Anonymous Donor” have (to our knowledge) only given him $44,000 for one particular project. Dr. James Hansen has received way more dough, therefore Anthony is less of a hypocrite. Now that’s what I call claiming the high ground.

However, Anthony’s concealed “scientific” funding came from a biased political organization. That’s a tough one to skate away from, huh?

Note to Anthony: you just look stupid when you try to contrast all money spent in support of any environmental cause to just the political funding for opposition to CO2 regulation. Unless of course the Heartland Institute and their ilk are also busy arguing on behalf of, for example, killing more endangered species or putting more mercury in fish.

2012-02-20 update: Peter Gleick, at the Huffington Post, is the source of the Heartland Institute leak and asserts their authenticity.

2012-05-22 update: After much caterwauling by the Heartland Institute about forgeries and the shameful behavior of nasty warmists, the true conclusion can be drawn: “Peter Gleick cleared of forging documents in Heartland expose“

Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories

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“Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories“ (2012-01-20). Anthony Watts loves to give a platform to libertarian crackpots. Wild incendiary ideas get promoted, people Anthony doesn’t like get slandered, but he can stand back with his hands clean.

Here we have Alex Rawls, a climate change denier who’s also obsessed with, for example, the Flight 93 memorial (it is, of course, a “terrorist memorial mosque”), how the Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony depicted an orgasm, and of course “Republicanism’. He tells us that Obama wants to suppress rumors and conspiracy theories such as claims that global warming is a deliberate fraud or that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists.”

Strangely, these are precisely the wild claims that Alex, a “simple public-spirited blogger”, likes to shout from the rooftop.

Sorry Anthony, who you pass the megaphone to says a lot about you.

CO2 increases to make drunken clownfish

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“CO2 increases to make drunken clownfish“ (2012-01-18). Seriously Anthony? Researchers reported in Nature Climate Change (Near-future carbon dioxide levels alter fish behaviour by interfering with neurotransmitter function) that increases in dissolved CO2 changes clownfish behavior and all you can do is snicker about the word ‘clown’? Then you report The Daily Bayonet’s hint that the scientists were manipulatively using the clownfish’s cuteness to attract attention.

Anthony Watts looks in the mirror.

From the New Scientist coverage:

Carbon dioxide in the ocean acts like alcohol on fish, leaving them less able to judge risks and prone to losing their senses. The intoxication adds to the threats that global warming and ocean acidification pose to marine ecosystems.

Couldn’t be because clownfish were “the first type of marine ornamental fish successfully bred in captivity on a large-scale“, could it? Neither Anthony Watts or the Daily Bayonet have made the slightest effort to think it through.

SOPA: Watts Up With That?

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Most netizens will be aware that today is a day to protest SOPA, the controversial “Stop Online Piracy Act” bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives in October 2011 but not yet passed.

In essence, SOPA would give content creators a tool to enforce copyright by, among other things, blocking access to “infringing” websites. The driving force behind this are wealthy corporate interests in the music, television and film industries. The concern is that this will be used as a tool for suppressing free speech by simply alleging copyright infringement.

In the context of climate denialism you’d think that Anthony Watts, who often rails against imagined suppression and censorship of “climate skepticism” would be particularly concerned. But no. Crickets over there on an issue that Anthony would have us believe is fundamental to his activities.

Perhaps Anthony sees an easy way to harass people expressing views he doesn’t like and tool for impeding his critics. He’s tried, comically, to use copyright infringement as a weapon in the past.

2012-01-19 Update: I track Anthony’s blog by RSS feed, which apparently didn’t include his post about the horrors of SOPA. It ends with a press release from conspiracy enthusiast Senator Jim Inhofe, who has in the past seemed eager to use the power of his office to intimidate. Anthony’s late-in-the-day take on the issue turns out to be predictable, as are many of his reader comments are about how SOPA is intended to help the Obama communists crush individualism. Progressive resistance is more nuanced; SOPA is a gift from beholden politicians to media conglomerates intent on protecting their profits that, through ill-design, places free speech at risk. Isn’t that the same thing?

The new Hollywood blacklist

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“The new Hollywood blacklist“ (2012-01-14). Oh the inhumanity! Kyocera hired Ben Stein to play an uptight dullard in a TV commercial and then changed their mind. Therefore, McCarthyism. Now Mr. Stein is suing for attention breech of contract. (Tip for Anthony: McCarthyism refers to right-wing politicians making false claims about secret political motives of people they consider politically unpalatable and then coercing businesses into shunning them. Some present examples might be Lord Monckton, Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole, Andrew Montford, Ken Cuccinelli, Marc Morano. Minus the influence in the arts.)

I think Kyocera discovered that Stein wasn’t just an accidentally funny cameo as a monotonous economics teacher in that Ferris Bueller movie back in the Eighties, or the host of a dimwitted game show a few years back. He’s also a controversial misinformer on a number of scientific issues, namely creationism (he narrated the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed) and climate change denial (it’s an Obama conspiracy). Not quite the association an advanced technology company wants to encourage.

So they used a real glass-wearing economics teacher instead.

Anthony Watt’s nuanced response, aside from overblown self-pitying political posturing is this:

I’ll never buy another Kyocera product ever again.

I thought it was “the greenies” that wanted to go back to living in caves in the dark, but perhaps resentful denialists renouncing society will get there first!

Monckton responds to “potholer54”

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Monckton responds to “potholer54” (2012-01-11). Anthony Watts really needs to think about who he associates with. Sure, the comical/pompous/paranoid attention-whore Lord Monckton will bring web hits, but it’s the bad kind of attention. It shows that you’re all about politics and shouting and not about thinking.

In this case Monckton’s guest post is about the “silly allegations” on YouTube of

a former “science writer” who uses a speleological pseudonym “potholer54″ [to] sneeringly deliver a series of petty smears about artfully-distorted and often inconsequential aspects of my talks on climate change.

Monckton does a good job of obscuring his argument, but if you strip away the pompous weaselly word play, his 2334 word response to the boils down to yeah, but… and because I said so. So little payoff for so many words. And long ones too!

So what can we determine from Monckton’s post? Well clearly potholer54’s penetrating observations have hit home with the thin-skinned Viscount, particularly because he goes to such effort to minimize them. The funny thing is that Monckton’s posts serve as “kick me” signs, his flowery attempts to dismiss his critics simply point us to where his claims are most effectively destroyed. You just know that getting to the bottom of his arch reference in this same post to a “no-account non-climatologist at a fourth-rank bible college in Nowheresville” is going to be worth the Googling (we covered it here).

Viscount, shouldn’t you keep quiet about where your arguments are so neatly skewered? We know that you love the spotlight and the sound of your own voice, but you’re really not helping yourself.

Anthony Watts helpfully provides the real name of the “potholer54” YouTube account holder in case his readers want to make their life miserable.