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.

“Watching the Deniers” makes hilarious goof while accusing WUWT of “doctoring” NSIDC images

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“Watching the Deniers” makes hilarious goof while accusing WUWT of “doctoring” NSIDC images (2013-07-05). If Anthony ever happens to be right about something, which like a stopped clock is about once every 43,200 instances, you can be sure he’ll beat it to death (or is it more strut about like a rooster?). When Anthony’s Aussie ditto head Eric Worrall spotted an accusation at Watching the Deniers (WtD) that Anthony had doctored an Arctic Sea Ice Extent graph to conceal the fact that the decline in Arctic ice extent was more than 2 standard deviations away from Anthony went .

Silly Mike, Anthony only by pure chance used the option on the NSIDC charting web page that suppressed the display of statistical significance! That’s just misrepresentation, not dishonesty, the kind of thin line that Anthony spends his life dancing back and forth over.

Anthony Watts likes to use the version of this chart that excludes statistical context. Makes it easier to imply that every wiggle is “just natural”.

Anthony Watts likes to use the version of this chart that excludes statistical context. Makes it easier to imply that every wiggle is “just natural”. Click to see the difference.

After a short display of indignation Anthony runs quickly through the gamut of blogging postures.

  • Victim card: WtD is driven by “hatred”!
  • Anticipation of censorship: “I’ve left a comment explaining Mr. Marriott’s absurd misconception and asked for an apology. We’ll see if it passes moderation, and if he lives up to his “professional services” label.” Oh, it made it along with all the other denialist ditto head attacks. Mike ain’t you, Anthony.
  • Megalomania: The king of the interwebs commandeth and threatens – “Change it sir. I won’t ask again.”
  • Ad hominem digging.
  • Dog whistle: “In the meantime, you can leave comments here.“
  • An update to the whining: Anthony contentedly reports that WtD has been forced to change their post, retracting the “photoshop” claim. Funny I can’t recall Anthony ever doing the same, I guess he’s always been right.

Thus ending Global Warming. Which was natural anyway if it was happening. Which it wasn’t.

Members quitting the American Meteorological Society over stance on climate

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“Members quitting the American Meteorological Society over stance on climate“ (2013-06-21). “This can’t be good” says Anthony Watts. Everyone’s quitting the American Meteorological Society because it’s an oppressive, dogma driven, anti-science organization! Global Warming is over!

Anthony knows this because renowned climate scientist Steve Milloy brought it to his attention. Steve Milloy is a Fox News commentator who runs junkscience.com (no, he’s not self-aware enough to know that his URL describes what he does) along with a variety of related political front organizations.

So, how many gullible meteorologists are left in that decrepit society? Three down, 13,997 to go. This is what Anthony wants us to think is denialist momentum?

What outrageous lies are the henchmen at the AMS trying to pass off as science? Here’s a taste:

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. – Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

Oh, that’s the same thing that literally every international scientific organization says. They’re all in on it! Watts & Co. demand to see every single member’s signature or the S.O.s are all lying, natch.

Remember when Anthony claimed that elderly Hal Lewis quitting the American Physical Society was “on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door“? That turd sank pretty quickly too.

The only dissenting voice in the comments, “jai mitchell” found himself under “moderation” (meaning blocked) after a torrent of hostility and attempted intimidation.

ERL rejects Richard Tol’s comment on Cook et al 2013, but won’t say who rejected it

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“ERL rejects Richard Tol’s comment on Cook et al 2013, but won’t say who rejected it” (2013-06-16). A little while ago Anthony Watts was greatly irritated by an Environmental Research Letters paper by John Cook, et al. which quantified the widely stated consensus that 98% of qualified climatologists agree that human industrial activity is having an undeniable warming influence on our climate. Much unsuccessful wailing and nit-picking by Anthony and Co. ensued.

Now we have word that Dr. Richard Tol, a denialist economist, submitted a killer Comment on the resented article. Sadly, declaring that he’s angry and doesn’t like Cook fails meet the threshold for scientific publication. For that he has to actually find something significantly wrong with the original paper.

Sez the ERL reviewer, “It reads more like a blog post than a scientific comment.” Swing! And a miss. But cue Anthony and his blog of disgruntlement, the natural home for things that don’t offer “a real contribution to the development of the subject, raising important issues about errors, controversial points or misleading results”.

Anthony Watts says that the editorial board of ERL contains thieves and suggests that right-thinking people “query” the journal’s editor-in-chief, offering a helpful link to their e-mail address. “Citizen science” becomes thug science in one easy step.

2013-06-18 Update: Richard Tol is flailing about trying the “he said, she said” defense over at Wotts Up With That Blog, a new website that shares my disgust with Anthony Watts’ antics.

Heartland’s NIPCC report to be accepted by Chinese Academy of Sciences in special ceremony

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“Heartland’s NIPCC report to be accepted by Chinese Academy of Sciences in special ceremony“ (2013-06-12). Too funny to resist this one. Anthony Watts informs us that he’s ‘been aware of this effort being underway for sometime” as he copy-and-pastes a Heartland Institute press release. But it’s just another example of Anthony over-selling himself while pimping for his political allies. I think Anthony tried to jump on a passing bandwagon but still doesn’t realise that he’s grasped a honeywagon.

To hear Heartland tell it, they’re in the final stages of a major scientific collaboration with their new Best Friends Forever, the Chinese Communist Party. A collaboration that proves the denialist “scientific” position has momentum. The Chinese Academy of Science is totally on their side and Craig Idso (Ph.D.), Bob Carter (Ph.D.) and Fred Singer (Ph.D.) are going to Beijing to get their medals!

Perhaps Rabett Run has it right though, the CAS’s comedy translation division has finished puzzling out the Heartland Institute’s Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, authored by the NIPCC, a denialist sound-alike to the United Nation’s IPCC (their “report” is a look-alike too). You gotta read the hilarious things these round eyes say!

Too bad this is the reality:

 “this is only a book cooperation between the Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library and Heartland Institute, and is limited only to copy right trading, with no academic research work involved.”

I guess this is a close to a win as denialist “science” gets. Anthony’s followers are giddy with delight in comments even as “Plain Richard” tries to peel the wool back.

A few other links on this:

2013-06-14 Update: I couldn’t resist poking the ant nest and commented on Anthony’s post failing to reflect the instant collapse of the Heartland Institute and his claims. The result was exactly what you would expect from inquiring website devoted to informing the public about controversial subjects. Not.

Anthony Watts NEVER avoids criticism.

Anthony Watts NEVER avoids criticism.

Some big changes coming to WUWT in the near future

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“Some big changes coming to WUWT in the near future“ (2013-04-10). “You may have already noticed that commenting is faster. That’s because whitelisting is now enabled.” So says Anthony Watts. Of course, if he doesn’t like you then chances are you haven’t noticed any improvement in service at Watts Up With That.

As many of my visitors can attest, blacklisting has been in place at Anthony’s blog for a looooooooong time.

If Anthony doesn’t like you you’ll discover that your comments are even further out of sync, if they ever appear, dropping into the backwaters of the “debate” unread. But Anthony’s passive-aggressive interference is NOT CENSORSHIP.

The early syrupy praise in the comments by richardscourtney is quite illuminating, in spite of the fact that he’s trying to support Anthony’s practices. He zeros in on exactly how Anthony rigs the game:

WUWT has the success it so rightly deserves because of your blog policy, your moderation policy, your selection of the excellent moderators, and your oversight of the moderators’ actions.

Congrats to all the 2013 Bloggie Finalists and Winners!

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“Congrats to all the 2013 Bloggie Finalists and Winners!” (2013-04-03). Today’s post isn’t taken from Anthony Watts’ blog, but from WordPress.com a week ago. The thirteenth annual “Bloggies”, a click-to-win people’s choice-style contest that Anthony likes to mobilize for have just concluded. You know there’s something deeply wrong with a selection process when Anthony’s nasty, malicious, misleading, personality-obsessed blog is regularly chosen as “Best Science or Technology Weblog”.

“michele w.“, on WordPress’ behalf, posted breathless congratulations to the eleven WordPress-based winners and finalists, four of which are denialist blogs. (Watts Up With That, Australian Climate Madness, Tallbloke’s Talkshop and Climate Audit) This is just the kind of PR fluff that Anthony and company hunt for and naturally they all show up in the comments, except the faux-modest Steve McIntyre, to humbly accept the acclamation.

Curiously my comment, reproduced below, remains “in moderation”. In this case I think Michele simply doesn’t want to have her lack of critical thinking highlighted any further, but it does offer an entertaining echo of Anthony’s own style of handling criticism.

I have to echo Callum’s sentiments. The “science” and “environment” winners listed here are infamous, even malicious, promoters of false information. Their ‘achievement” in the Bloggies says nothing whatsoever about their quality or integrity, just their ability to mobilize uncritical supporters.

Blindly publicizing this rigged competition merely transfers the stench onto WordPress.

I’m all for recognizing achievement, but not when it is this easily gamed. Watts Up With That, Australian Climate Madness, Tallbloke’s Talkshop and Climate Audit are examples of partisan anti-science sites that use these “awards” to simulate the recognition they crave but re unable to earn.

Don’t feed the trolls!

But yeah, WordPress is a great web content system.

Bloggies 2013 Comment

Followup: As the updated graphic above demonstrates, my comment remains “in moderation” while someone else’s newer one has been approved. I visited the “Bloggies” website and saw that the winner and three finalists were all rabid denialist sites:

BEST SCIENCE OR TECHNOLOGY WEBLOG

WINNER

Watts Up With That?

FINALISTS

What are the chances that in the wide world of science and technology these four buddy denialist fringe websites would come out on top? Color me skeptical.

Another partisan denialist, James Delingpole(!), won for “best weblog about politics”, edging past The Global Warming Policy Foundation, the denialist website so widely quoted (not) in daily political conversation…

Pielke Jr. appears to get booted from a journal for giving an unfavorable peer review to some shoddy science

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“Pielke Jr. appears to get booted from a journal for giving an unfavorable peer review to some shoddy science“ (2013-02-21). So much truculent stupidity at Watts Up With That recently! All just background noise here in the world of reality. This one’s entertaining though, especially as once again it illuminates Anthony Watts’ habit of blindly piling on any complaint of persecution of fellow denialists.

What happened? Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. wrote another of his “everyone’s mean to me” blog posts because he was dropped from the editorial board of Global Environmental Change. Why? Because they hate him and only ever pretended to like him. The reality however is hilariously different.

First though, Anthony’s contribution. He insta-pasted a snide accusation from Mark Steyn, a notoriously inflammatory right-wing flunky, who after the obligatory self-referential muttering about the evil Dr. Michael Mann declared that “…Professor Pielke, expelled by the palace guard of climate conformism, appears to have been felled by the very pathology he identified.”

Our un-inquisitive and hasty Anthony was forced to walk it back a bit though as you will notice when carefully examining his post’s slug; “pielke-jr-gets-booted-from-journal-for-giving-an-unfavorable-peer-review-to-some-shoddy-science”. It’s missing the ass-covering “appears to get” which was added to the post title later. The post now starts with a non-correction by Roger. It seems he still considers himself rudely dumped, but not for the reason he howled about. I can still hear the wahhhh-mbulance though.

So what really happened? The thin-skinned drama queen thought he was kicked to the curb as payback for his blog criticism (Science is the Shortcut) of a paper, Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?, published in Global Environmental Change. Sadly, it turns out that none of the journal’s other board members were even aware of Roger’s devastating blast, making it hard to sustain the accusation.

In fact, Roger had reached the end of his term and had clearly been coasting. Expected to review up to five papers a year, as many as 30 in his six years, he had been requested to review 18 papers. He’d only actually reviewed six and hadn’t submitted a review since August 2010. His replacement coincided with that of five others, who presumably all simultaneously pissed off the secret editorial board leaders…

2013-02-23 Update: “Rabett” calls it: victim bullying.

A Cool White Christmas – almost two thirds of the continental USA has snow cover

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“A Cool White Christmas – almost two thirds of the continental USA has snow cover” (2012-12-26). Snow! In Winter! Global Warming is over, Anthony Watts assures us. Wait, didn’t it never start? Or was it that Global Warming ended 16 years ago?

Still, snow this Christmas in North America puts the lie to British climate scientist Dr David Viner’s speculation that snowfall in Britain will be rare at some unspecified time in the future, doesn’t it?

It does if you’re Anthony Watts battling a straw man. Once again anything that supports Anthony’s assertions is climate while anything that contradicts him is weather.

Wait, it’s January 6th and the snow is already receding. Winter must be over, Global Warming’s back! (You can play too at National Snow Analyses.)

An open letter challenging the EPA on CO2 regulation

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“An open letter challenging the EPA on CO2 regulation“ (2012-12-28). A line has been drawn in the sand! The environmental gauntlet has been thrown! A fist has been clenched! A steely gaze has been directed! The GIANTS of climatology have been aroused! (Maybe we could have phrased that last one better.) Anthony Watts has added his name to a newspaper opinion piece!!!

So, preeminent 21st century climatologist (Not really. In fact, not even a bit), Joe D’Aleo has written a damning critique (not) of the EPA’s conclusion three years ago that rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations will have harmful environmental consequences. And an important newspaper, the Washington Post has printed it! (Err.. the “Examiner”.) The usual denialist travelers like Fred Singer, Tim Ball, Don Easterbrook and Anthony Watts have signed on along with others we will leave unmentioned out of pity.

Here’s the laser-sharp money quote fired, like a diamond bullet, at the very core of the EPA, that Anthony urges his readers to “consider widely republishing”:

“In summary, it is not incorrect to argue that further study of the role GHGs play in climate is in order.”

My mind is spinning! From trying to decipher the meaning. I guess they want the EPA to stop trying to “P” our “E”?

What are Joe & Co. steamed about? Well mainly they hate government regulation on principle. Also they think that the EPA should have spent ten years replicating all the findings of modern climatology instead of just pulling out the relevant peer-reviewed journals. By the way, did you know that some of those journals aren’t American?

In what alternate reality is this proud “Open Letter” anything other than a kick me sign? Have D’Aleo, Watts and pals forgotten that their grade-school assertions were all shot down three years ago? Maybe they’re hoping that we’ve forgotten.

Rabett Run has an amusing sampling of the EPA’s responses to various inept denialist complaints. I wish there was an index to them, but here’s a useful Google search string. Plenty of chuckles in there.

Antarctic warming courtesy of Mr. Fix-it

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“Antarctic warming courtesy of Mr. Fix-it“ (2012-12-27). Anthony Watts posts some profound scientific analysis – “Just a little something [David Middleton] threw together”.

On the basis of Middleton’s “Mk I eyeball”, careful scientific work on Western Antarctic temperature records is dismissed with a sneer as “manufactured” and denialist cooling (via squinting) replaces objective evidence of significant warming.

So David, did you just “throw it together” or just throw it up?

Here’s Anthony Watts’ own attempt to disparage the study three days earlier, in it’s entirety, supported by a cartoon of Santa’s sleigh:

They can’t find any recent warming, so they took a broken sensor with “intermittent gaps and other problems”, “recalibrated” it, “used computerized analyses of the atmosphere to fill the gaps” and “discovered” warming that “happened in the 1980s”. If you believe that this is science, then I strongly suggest you prep your telescope, lest you miss out on a spectacular sleigh sighting…

If you believe Anthony’s interested in science, you probably believe in the tooth fairy.