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.

Pielke Junior on: The climate debate is ‘over’

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“Pielke Junior on: The climate debate is ‘over’” (2011-12-12). Wow, this must have been a whopper if Anthony Watts didn’t just brave it out as per usual! How nasty were his supporter’s comments?  So much for Anthony’s version of editorial review, in this case a blind copy-and-paste of a “Global Warming Policy Foundation” book review screed.

I have removed this guest post [by Shub Niggurath] because it has been brought to my attention that it is unfair and has caused inflamed reactions [especially in comments] that were unintended. It was my mistake for posting it without seeing this, and my decision to remove it. – Anthony Watts

What brought this on? Roger Pielke Jr., author of last year’s tepid “science” book The Climate Fix and until now a reliable comfort to denialists, recently said:

The debate over climate science is over and has been won by those who assert a human influence on the climate system.

This seems to have made him the target of denialist’s Two Minutes Hate (did Al Gore feel a momentary abatement in the voodoo doll pricking?). The jilted Global Warming Policy Foundation sniffs that Roger’s “wrong and irrelevant”. The comments on Anthony’s blog post must have been vicious.

Perhaps Anthony realized that if Roger was consumed in the righteous flames of denialist wrath there would be effectively no-one with even faint public policy credibility to point to as a “mainstream” supporter. A follow-up post containing more of Shub Niggurath’s reasoned criticisms was also deleted.

Take note Anthony; this is how your viciously doctrinaire followers will one day treat you. Praised as melding of Galileo and Martin Luther one day, Despised and hated the next. You are the tail, not the dog.

Quote of the Week – what Durban is really about

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“Quote of the Week – what Durban is really about” (2011-12-11). Anthony Watts thinks that esteemed climate scientist “Cal65” (aka random anonymous commenter) has managed to get to the core truth about the purpose of the Durban climate conference which has, infuriatingly, achieved positive results:

The UN plan will shift wealth from the first world’s poor to the third world’s rich without making any difference in climate control.

That was a real stretch, huh? The invisible hand of the secret commie world government revealed again!

Those “whiny grifters known as the Maldives” are building airports, which clearly means they know that the sea-level won’t actually change for at least eleventy hundred years. Therefore:

“Anything coming out of the mouths of Maldives officials related to climate, CO2, or sea level is pure bullshit.”

I love the nuance of Anthony’s usual noisy arguments:

  1. “Tuvalu and many other South Pacific Islands are not sinking, claims they are due to global warming driven sea level rise are opportunistic.” Good lead! This is as close as Anthony can get to a verifiable claim. Too bad the authors of the paper he’s trying to misconstrue have been summarized thus: “Webb and Kench warn that while the islands are coping for now, any acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise could overtake the sediment build up. Calculating how fast sea levels will rise over the coming decades is uncertain science, and no one knows how fast the islands can grow.“
  2.  “The Maldives can’t take a joke.” Yeah, that’s it! Anthony’s spittle is a joke! Roll with it, dudes.
  3. Willis Eschenbach are smart and he says islands FLOAT! Really Anthony? You’re trying to show that the reaction of the Maldives government to rising sea-levels is “FAIL” and you cite Willis? You should have saved him for last and hoped that your readers wandered away before reading this bit.
  4. “The sea level is actually dropping.” It’s called statistics, Anthony. You’re not using them right. (But you know that.)
  5. Lorne Gunther (a virulent right-wing columnist) says that kooky Nils-Axel Mörner can prove that sea-level ”hasn’t risen in 50 years.” Yes, ignore the sea-level charts you shoved in our faces in point 4, Anthony.
  6. The Maldives government is building things! So is Iceland, and they gots volcanoes. Not everything is intended to last eleventy hundred years.
  7. Airports too! So is the US military in Afghanistan.
  8. The Maldives tricked the USA into giving them $30 billion! Maybe you should change the battery in your Casio.

Anthony, you’re experiencing a panic attack. Frankly we were all a bit surprised that the Durban conference managed to achieve something. Please breathe into a paper bag for the rest of the day, OK?

The flying Monck

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“The flying Monck” (2011-12-06). Isn’t that just like Anthony Watts? Warm is cold, up is down, grimaces are grins. The aging and unfit Lord Monckton is so desperate for attention that he actually sky-dived over the Durban climate conference to ‘draw attention’ to climate change denial skepticism. Anthony declares that Monckton is “grinning” on the way down, but you be the judge. Anthony’s readers are equally enthusiastic in their admiration of this demonstration of Monckton’s intellect.

Hang on to them choppers, M’Lord. And open them eyes.

Actually, this may be Monckton’s primary talent. Oblivious grinning while his arguments are shot down.

Note also that, just like in the climate debate, Monckton’s role is to clown for the camera while someone else pulls the strings.

WUWT – helping to educate UEA students on climate

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“WUWT – helping to educate UEA students on climate” (2011-12-04). Gosh, Anthony Watts was “educating” students in a United Arab Emirates [senior moment reversed] University of East Anglia introductory Environment class according to some of the “new” stolen Climategate e-mails! He’s pretty puffed up about it too.

Err, make that “edumacating“. Climate scientists were stunned to learn that a lecturer was using material from university drop-out Anthony Watt’s blog, as well as from his Aussie twin Jo Nova (ask her about the Rothschilds), in his course material. Material which has frequently been shown to either intentionally deceive or be based on scientific ignorance.

Give yourself a pat on the head, but don’t try to rub your tummy at the same time, Anthony. You’re an expert now as long as no-one notices the lecturer’s admission that “I don’t have a grounding in climate science“. All you’ve really done is provide an example of how gullible random Googling can propagate lies and ignorance.

Hiding the decline down under – inconvenient papers censored

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“Hiding the decline down under – inconvenient papers censored” (2011-12-01). Yawn. Anthony Watts complains again about outrageous scientific censorship. Scientific papers disproving global warming were blocked! Except they weren’t.

A right-wing Australian newspaper has declared that former senior public servant Doug Lord’s “six scientific papers” about sea-level changes at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour were blocked by “post-normal” partisan (i.e. socialist) bureaucrats. Thus disproving Global Warming once and for all.

Except… even the supporting 1990 paper by E. A. Bryant later brought to Anthony’s incurious attention shows that rates of sea-level change across Australia are not uniform, with Sydney appearing particularly divergent. Funny that that’s the only one Anthony’s interested in talking about.

So… these six papers were the only ones ever prepared by a government employee that weren’t published? Seems a bit of a stretch. Oh wait, only five weren’t published. One of them was published. Which one, Anthony? Your skeptical intellect didn’t bother to investigate, did it.

Australian crank David Archibald (an Energy & Environment author and “endorsed by one head of state and four professors“) rushes in to ‘confirm’ that “there does not appear to be any evidence of acceleration” with his usual straight line slapped on top of a squiggle. While the commenters rail about progressive Australian politics. Same old same old.

Stupid: Oregon Museum of Science and Industry cancels climate talk due to skeptics being on panel

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“Stupid: Oregon Museum of Science and Industry cancels climate talk due to skeptics being on panel” 2011-11-29). Oh, so close! You can hear Anthony Watts’ disappointment behind his outraged accusation of censorship. Seems that Oregon Museum of Science and Industry canceled a climate presentation to be held on their premises because denialists might have spoken! Never mind that the “skeptics” weren’t “on the panel”, they were the panel. Anthony’s a bit vague about that detail.

So three denialists almost managed to stage an unchallenged “presentation” via the American Meteorological Society’s Oregon Chapter at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry that would have let them make arch self-references for years to come. Wouldn’t Anthony have loved to lead people astray with “A Oregon Museum of Science presentation showed that…”?

Sounds so much better than “my partisan think-tank article says…” or “a paranoid, narcissistic British peer trained as a journalist claims…”.

Didn’t they know that Climate Research is the journal for assuaging an ambitious denialist’s sense of inadequacy? Oh that’s right. Chris de Freitas is no longer there to receive the secret handshake. Sorry, I guess that was your best chance.

The AMS’s Oregon Chapter seems to think that a one-sided presentation on a controversial scientific topic meets their self-proclaimed mission to “advance professional ideals in the science of meteorology and to promote the development, exchange, and application of meteorological knowledge.”

In this outrageous case the OMSI begged to differ and brutally censored them. In the sense of telling them to hold that particular event somewhere else. And then saying that they’d support a balanced presentation because “[Their] job is to make sure it’s not just one voice that’s heard”.

Anthony casts about seeking a damning analogy but can’t do better that suggest that because the OMSI has an attack submarine on display they are equally hypocritical if they don’t also have some kind of hippy love-in exhibit for “balance”. So why hold denialists to a higher standard? Or any standard I guess. But you know what? You can buy a tie-die kit in the gift-shop. The circle of life is complete.

Leading with “Stupid” in the title seems odd though, it just leads to readers puzzling over the message and that leads in a direction that Anthony would prefer to steer away from. One side of a debate isn’t a debate at all, is it, even if you agree with that side. Anthony and his friends have scuttled their own intellectual submarine again.

An Open Letter to Dr. Phil Jones of the UEA CRU

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“An Open Letter to Dr. Phil Jones of the UEA CRU” (2011-11-27). Just like Anthony Watts, the first thing darling Willis Eschenbach did with the “new” batch of (years-old) Climategate e-mails was search for his own name. And he found it! Hardly surprising, after-all he was one of people who “mail bombed” the Climate Research Unit with “freedom of information” requests.

Again just like Anthony’s response, this “new” batch of old messages is merely an opportunity to serve up warmed-over self-righteous fury. Did you know that Dr. Phil Jones didn’t instantly respond to Willis’ meandering nit-picking accusatory e-mails? Indentured servants, err… university professors, must jump to attention when a taxpayer speaks! Did you also know that Dr. Jones failed to respond in the way Willis instructed him to? Such petty defiance!

Also, Dr. Jones no longer has his high school term papers available for public dissection. He’s hiding something!

As noted in comments here, Willis’ open letter to “Dear Dr. Jones” about his “polite, scientific request” uses the word ‘lie’ at least twenty times and the word ‘liar’ at least twice.

The intention of the “mail bombs” was to obstruct the scientist’s activities and to sift through their responses for anything that could be twisted to the denialist’s purpose. That game continues.

P.S. All the highlighting of disputes and arguments between the real climate scientists “revealed” in the latest batch of old stolen e-mails kind of undermines the whole conspiracy thing. Bit of a mixed message, Willis.

Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!

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“Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!” (2011-11-22). Remember Climategate? The stolen climate scientist e-mails that denialists tried to cherry-pick and twist into… something? Happened just before the Copenhagen climate conference. Anthony Watts and his team remember and they’re still sullenly licking their wounds over that misfire (but putting on such a brave face…).

Now we have new stolen e-mails with “new revelations!” Coincidentally, just before the Durban climate conference.

Oh. It’s just a second batch of even tamer messages from the first theft. Still, plenty of opportunities to make a fuss, tut and titter, and infer darkly. That’ll do, right Anthony? Especially since the first thing Anthony seems to have done is search for his own name. (Could vanity be the motivation behind everything Anthony’s done?)

Here are a few links on Climategate 2.0, I doubt I’ll cover what will undoubtably be a flood of outraged irrelevant posts on Anthony’s blog:

Look for Fox News, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and similar news organizations to credulously report the new “revelations.”

Don’t mock the Monck

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“Don’t mock the Monck” (2011-11-20). Anthony Watts “don’t have a dog in this fight” but wants us to think that at least one of the comical Lord Monckton’s denialist claims are true. Apparently unable to out-argue Monckton’s denialism his opponents can only make up slanderous personal criticisms.

So… Anthony Watt’s continuous coverage of Monckton’s scientific activities (hereafter referred to as “antics”) and Monckton’s frequent appearance as a WUWT guest writer are to be taken as indifference to Monckton’s credentials? Pull the other one, Anthony.

Who would have thought that the blowhard Monckton would respond to scrutiny of the single credential he can even vaguely lay claim to by running off at the mouth even more? The real House of Lords has repeatedly told Monckton to stop using an invented portcullis crest that looks almost the same as the House of Lords’ and to stop representing himself as one of their Members. The indignant Monckton responds with “soi-disant”! “criminous”! “misfeasance!” “defalcating”! And trots out the paid opinion of lawyer Hugh O’Donoghue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Since Anthony stands in rapt admiration of Monckton’s sparkling verbiage, here’s a word for him to look up: logorrhea.

So when Monckton defended his claim of being a Member of the House of Lords, maybe his answer of “Yes, but without the right to sit or vote” was correct? Why yes, in the sense of not appointed and completely without authority, rights, or (dare I say it) qualification.

I guess since the only response possible to Monckton’s searing global warming arguments are these ‘personal attacks’, he automatically wins every climate debate from now on. That’s so galling to us global warming alarmists.

Oh, wait. The is he/isn’t he issue is completely beside the point, 99% of the criticism of Monckton’s claims are about his repeated bold-faced scientific lies. See here, here, here (this is a good one), here, here and here. For the visually oriented, start here. Hell, just fire up Google and type “Monckton debunked“.

So this whole tempest is just ineffectual misdirection, perhaps intended to keep their follower’s emotions running high. Monckton, like our own Anthony Watts, has a long history of taking self-important offense to imagined slights.

When the dust settles we again find ourselves just where we started: Monckton is a vainglorious, paranoid, reactionary right-wing politician and journalist with no scientific credibility whatsoever. Everything Monckton does is in the interest of his own self-admiration. You can make your own connection between portcullises, lipstick and pigs here, while Anthony might want to ponder fleas and dogs and perhaps also own brushes and tar.

Note: Monckton is keeping quiet about his claim to have won the Nobel Prize.

IBD picks up my article on the US cooling trend

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“IBD picks up my article on the US cooling trend” (2011-11-11). Wow, the mainstream media gets it! Anthony Watts has made it to the big time!

Oh, the “IBD” is the Investors Business Daily. Seems they love them some stupid, which makes their Watts-miration quite understandable.

Here’s some tidbits from their deeply scientific editorial Don’t Stop Doubting, mixing Muller-spin with garden-variety denialist chart pumping (an old standby in investor circles too).

The alarmists, of course, leveraged Muller’s statements to suit their agenda.

But Muller’s [conclusion] is not the “consensus” position of the team.

Now comes meteorologist Anthony Watts armed with data showing the continental U.S. has not warmed in the last 10 years

Granted, the Lower 48 aren’t the entire world, [but] “heat islands” — big cities — [] should be skewing temperature data upward.

we remain skeptics and would be even if [Muller] were right.

Seems oddly emphatic for a subject so far out of their area of expertise. I guess it’s unsurprising that it’s so short on substance too. Still “don’t stop doubting” is good advice even if the IBD editors swallow Anthony’s line in a single gulp (they even think he’s a meteorologist). I know I won’t be taking scientific advice from a stock-picking website.