Category Archives: Just Goofy

Towards a theory of climate

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“Towards a theory of climate“ (2013-11-10). Why on earth does Anthony Watts cling to that fog horn Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley? It’s like watching a drowning man clutch an anchor.

Monckton is an utter loon who clearly takes absolute delight in his own rabid, meandering self-reverential declarations. Would any intelligent person read past this tripe?

I have just had the honor of listening to Professor Murry Salby giving a lecture on climate. He had addressed the Numptorium in Holyrood earlier in the day, to the bafflement of the fourteenth-raters who populate Edinburgh’s daft wee parliament. In the evening, among friends, he gave one of the most outstanding talks I have heard.

Professor Salby has also addressed the Parliament of Eunuchs in Westminster. Unfortunately he did not get the opportunity to talk to our real masters, the unelected Kommissars of the European tyranny-by-clerk.

 Monckton’s head is so far up his own ass that he’s actually seeing daylight again.

The message from on high that Monckton is attempting to deliver is that Dr. Murry Salby, the fired Professor, has reached the “explosive conclusion that temperature change drives CO2 concentration change and not the other way about”.

Therefore Global Warming is a communist lie.

So Monckton and Salby have discovered that real, long-term, natural, climate changes will affect our atmosphere’s chemical composition. Wow. Only one of them can be hailed as the new Galileo, which one will it be? Surely we can split all the Nobel Prizes between them though.

So where’s the huge, near-instantaneous, temperature spike 800 years ago that naturally produced the skyrocketing CO2 concentrations we’ve seen in the last century? Oops.

But we’re still being repressed by the “climate communists”, right?

The AGU climate policy statement as redrafted by Monckton

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“The AGU climate policy statement as redrafted by Monckton“ (2013-08-07). Anthony Watts posts a “guest essay” from the denialism’s leading intellectual, the publicity-seeking self-promoting fringe politician Lord Christopher Monckton.

Monckton gives us the denialist fantasy version of the American Geophysical Union’s periodically restated policy on climate change. No link to the true document provided by Watts or Monckton. In Monckton’s fevered imagination, “Our influence on the climate is minor but beneficial.” So, sorry everyone! False alarm.

His version would be correct if the AGU’s scientific go-to guy was a demented fringe politician with a journalism diploma who publishes Sudoku books instead of fifteen real and highly qualified scientists.

Journalist, AIDS curer, Nobel Prize Winner!

Monckton’s verbal acrobatics can be entertaining as he tries to simultaneously obscure his flimsy arguments and showcase his ‘towering intellect’ through wacky insults, but I won’t bothered wasting my time on the underlying debunked garden-variety nonsense. Try wottsupwiththatblog or HotWhopper if you want to figure out what he’s squawking about.

An Open Letter to Dr. Marcia McNutt, new Editor-In-Chief, Science Magazine

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“An Open Letter to Dr. Marcia McNutt, new Editor-In-Chief, Science Magazine“ (2013-08-04). This is awesome for Anthony Watts. One his best buddies, Willis Eschenbach, has just been published in Science!

Oh wait, it’s just an astoundingly condescending and sexist, as well as painfully long,”Open Letter” containing the usual Gish Gallop of denialist rants written for Willis’ private wish-fulfillment. Probably a frustrated response to the Science special issue, A Once and Future Climate two days earlier (hint: no one thinks the planet is turning into a tropical paradise). Also, Al Gore.

Is Willis the only man with the intellectual strength to tell Dr. McNutt the TRUTH rather than stutter sycophantically?

Is Willis the only man with the intellectual strength to tell Dr. McNutt the TRUTH instead of stutter sycophantically?

Summary: Yer good lookin’, so pandering limp-wristed climatologist men have fed yer hippie inclinations. Listen to someone rugged like me copying and pasting denialist crap, not your own 30 years of real active scientific work!

So Willis Eschenbach, a trained masseuse, blowhard blogger and unpublished 1975 psych major, tells Dr. McNutt, a PhD geophysicist with direct research credentials in environmental topics, that “people laugh at the bumf that passes for climate science in your pages”? There’s laughter take place Willis, you got that right.

Anthony’s readers naturally salute Willis’ courage in speaking truth to power, albeit with about 30 grammatical suggestions and a certain amount of wincing.

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.

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.

A controversial look at Blackbody radiation and Earth minus GHG’s

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“A controversial look at Blackbody radiation and Earth minus GHG’s” (2011-12-26). Anthony Watts provides more space for ill-informed attacks on “the Greenhouse Theory”. Here a savant named Reed Coray eagerly proves his wishful thinking, ominously triggered by Lord Monckton’s blithering. Funny how Anthony lets others espouse ideas that he’s officially too embarrassed to defend.

In this case everyone, except Reed, has miscalculated the Earth’s albedo and therefore there is no Man-made Global Warming. I guess the Earth’s albedo must have mysteriously, and naturally, changed in the last century.

Still, when his thesis is peppered with expressions like “I’m not sure what the definition of the ‘Earth’s characteristic-emission temperature’ is”, “If I am correct” and an apparent belief that he’s the first person to notice clouds and oceans, we are forced to conclude that we are dealing with an ill-informed but enthusiastic amateur with the usual opaque motivations.

It’s always entertaining when cranks latch on to black body radiation. If he’d referenced a spherical cow there might have been some redeeming comic value, but I think one of Anthony’s commenters sums it up best: “This is painful to read.”

Congressman Rohrabacher’s speech on climate issues

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“Congressman Rohrabacher’s speech on climate issues” (2011-12-17). Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher stands up and recites the current extended list of stupid denialist arguments (“ice caps on Mars”, “CO2 is not a pollutant”, “systematic oppression”, “global elites” hate “meat eaters”, etc.). He holds in his hand a list of fifty communists… scratch that… an editorial from Investor’s Business Daily to prove it.

This is now “a matter of public record” for the approving Anthony Watts, thus ending Global Warming once and for all, again.

Rohrabacher for President! He’ll read whatever we shove under his nose!

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.

High level clouds and surface temperature

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“High level clouds and surface temperature“ (2011-10-06). Anthony Watts thinks that winemaker Erl Happ is S-M-R-T, so he posts his long explanation of why global warming, which isn’t happening, is all because of clouds.

Although tamino has a different opinion of Erl’s science, I’ll just say that I think Erl’s complete quotation of Wordsworth’s poem is the most convincing, and useful, part of his argument.

Next!

Greenhouse Thought Experiment

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“Greenhouse Thought Experiment“. A Guest Post from Jeff Condon. Denialists go to great lengths to misrepresent the “greenhouse” effect and direct our attention to partisan television commercials telling us that CO2 is “essential for life”. Mr. Dunning–Kruger Derek Alker, inspired by Tim Ball et. al.’s comic novel Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, sent Jeff an Excel spreadsheet and a really ugly PDF that “ends the AGW scam” (again).

Apparently Derek received a geometric flash of insight into Earth’s shape. Them dumb physicists are ignoring the “back” half! Only they’re not of course…Science of Doom tries to turn the conversation back to reality on Jeff’s “No Consensus” website (sorry, I can’t write that without quotes around it).

But for us, this is Jeff’s launching point for a thought experiment about “the greenhouse”. He considers two Earths (specifically, a happy 1℃ warmer Republican Earth and a miserable colder Democratic Earth). Which will appear “warmer” to an external observer? After-all, a real greenhouse will appear warmer to an external observer. As any Physics 100 student will tell you, the answer is that the two Earths must exactly balance the radiative energy. In = out.

The interesting question is how could one Earth be 1℃ warmer than the other. Who wants to guess?