Category Archives: Pull the Other One

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.

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.”

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.

Newsbytes: New Research Reveals IPCC In Bed With Green Lobbies

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“Newsbytes: New Research Reveals IPCC In Bed With Green Lobbies“ (2011-11-03). Oh my gosh, a carefully fact-checked newswire story proves that the IPCC are incompetent commie eco-facists! It’s a “scathing new expose“!

Oh, wait. It’s just another wild one-sided press release rehash from the denialist Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Benny Peiser. He’s uncovered a Fox News screed that trumpets how young some of the IPCC report authors are, and has found a few other semi-random news links. Also Donna Laframboise is a feminist, so we should have complete faith in her 43 recruits and their “audit” of the IPCC 2007 report. Go buy her book The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert! It’s sciencey.

The “green lobbies” accusation is somehow implicit, but of course everything is a “green lobby” to paranoid libertarians because it’s all part of the secret communist world government.

Thanks madcap paranoid libertarians, I knew you’d clear everything up!

It does seem a bit odd though that there’s no mention of atmospheric physics.

Getting GRLed

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“Getting GRLed” (2011-09-27). Did you know that Geophysical Research Letters editor Noah Diffenbaugh is a thug? According to Anthony Watts it’s true! You see the denialist’s favorite economist Roger Pielke Jr. submitted a paper on tropical cyclones (they’re not worse!) and it was rejected (it the sense of being told to resubmit), simply because the two reviewers wanted revisions! This is clearly more bullying by “the Team”. And also a conspiracy.

Summarizes Anthony, who knows scientific oppression when he sees it (emphasis mine):

It came back with two reviews, both with some corrections, one reviewer suggesting publication without major caveats [originally spelt “caeats”], the other grudgingly [originally spelt “grudingly”]suggesting publication to the editor, Noah Diffenbaugh, and asking for revisions. So far so good (you’d think).

The ever-stringent Anthony opines that the paper “seems straigh[t]forward enough”, but you’d think that Roger Jr.’s claim that “increasing damage around the world over the period(s) of record can be explained entirely by increasing wealth in locations prone to TC landfalls” might need some supporting analysis and not simply rest on what seems a mere assertion.

Perhaps Richard Tol’s comment on Anthony’s post gets to the real heart of the matter:

The decision for major revision was justified as the original paper oversold its results.
Instead of revising the paper, Pielke Jr decided to pick a fight and was told to FO.

Turns out this is all normal boilerplate editorial communication but the thin-skinned Roger Jr. will not revise (ie improve) his paper. He’s chosen to stomp away in a huff shouting about bad faith. The JGR is dead to him! Seems the bad faith lies with Roger Jr. unless you listen to Anthony’s followers. In which case Roger Jr.’s taking a noble stand against a fifth-rate “Team” journal’s bullying. Considering the years of complaining about scientific journals, both Anthony and his reader’s ignorance of how journal submissions work is quite stunning.

Tip to Anthony: look before you leap and pause long enough before posting to run spellcheck. Otherwise your posts look hasty and ill-considered. What? They’re supposed to be?

Bastardi: Science and reality point away, not toward, CO2 as climate driver

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“Bastardi: Science and reality point away, not toward, CO2 as climate driver” (2011-08-12). You know when Joe Bastardi guest-posts on Anthony Watts’ blog you’re in for a chuckle. Here he’s trying to expand on (spin?) his whopper-fest on Fox News a few nights ago.

With the coming Gorathon to save the planet around the corner (Sept 14) , my  stance on the AGW issue has been drawing more ire from those seeking to silence people like me that question their issue and plans. In response, I want the objective reader to hear more about my arguments made in a a brief interview on FOX News as to why I conclude CO2 is not causing changes of climate and the recent flurry of extremes of our planet. I brought up the First Law of Thermodynamics and LeChateliers principle.

“Brought up” in the sense of vomited, I guess. Joe has no clue what the First Law of Thermodynamics is (hey, Joe, the greenhouse effect doesn’t create heat) or LeChatelier’s principle (how a chemical equilibrium responds to changing conditions). In the first paragraph alone of his Fox News commentary everything he says is provably false. Five sentences, five boners. (Thanks tamino for holding your nose long enough to spell it out so clearly.)

After years of smack-downs he’s still pushing the “since 1997” lie, still trying to fake it. Here’s an example of Joe Science.

The Bastardi supercomputer works overtime providing detailed statistics.

There’s an outraged analysis at Scientific American titled Fox Commentator Distorts Physics, and Climate Progress gives us Joe Bastardi Pulls a Charlie Sheen on Fox News, Pushing “Utter Nonsense” on Climate Science.

Anthony assures us that “a follow up post – more technically oriented will follow sometime next week.” So don’t pick on poor Joe! Presumably his “follow-up” walk back most of his wild errors…

2011-08-16 Update.

Still waiting for Joe’s re-explanation, although he does add his own meandering comment that suggests we wait 30 years to see that he was right all along. Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait scrutinizes Joe’s so-called arguments at Big Picture Science: climate change denial on Fox News.

There are some real whoppers in the Watts Up With That comments, but this early one really caught my attention for self-serving justification (stunned italics mine):

Ryan Maue says:

@Chris_Colose: you have to pick your battles a little better. Joe Bastardi is not an academic researcher but a private sector meteorologist. He is an advocate for his point of view based upon the knowledge he accumulates. He is putting out his opinions for public consumption but there is no accountability implied…

REPLY: Yes, this is the same silly claim that comes up again and again, one one hand when a they lose a point in an argument they’ll claim “but he’s not a climate scientist, so his opinions don’t matter” then when they feel they have the upper hand we’ll hear, “he’s not scientifically rigorous enough, his arguments pale in comparison to our best climate scientists”. – Anthony

So… ignorant or deceitful “advocates” should get a free pass? Also, please show me a climate science argument “won” by someone like Joe, Anthony. Shorter version of Ryan and Anthony’s argument: “We don’t know anything, but every time we flap our gums we win. Unless the other guys cheat.”

2011-08-18 Update.

Climate Progress piles on: Joe Bastardi is ‘Completely Wrong’ and ‘Does Not Understand the Very Basics of the Science’, Climatologists Explain

New Aussie skeptic movement

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“New Aussie skeptic movement“ (May 16, 2011). Anthony Watts promotes the comical Galileo Movement, founded by Australian “retirees Case Smit and John Smeed”.

Although once “they simply accepted politicians’ claims of global warming”, they were so “incensed” to discover that “climate claims by some scientists and politicians contradict observed facts” that they felt they had to “[risk] their personal finances” and bring Lord Monckton, “famous for explaining the scientific data, the statistics and the UN bureaucracy’s political fabrication of global warming alarm”, to tour Australia. Their background page is a sea of ad hominem claims, straw-men arguments and libertarian paranoia.

The purpose of “Case’s and John’s apolitical public campaign”?

  • Protect freedom – personal choice [the hell with everyone else] and national sovereignty [because no country’s climate is related to another’s];
  • Protect the environment [by doing nothing];
  • Protect science and restore scientific integrity [two words – Lord. Monckton.];
  • Protect our economic security [by impeding rational preparation for climate impacts on same];
  • Protect people’s emotional health by ending Government and activists’ constant destructive bombardment of fear and guilt on our kids and communities [instead bombarding them with right-wing conspiracy theories].

Famous climate denialist. From Wikipedia.

Why invoke Galileo Galilei? Well, apparently he “stood up publicly… to ensure [that] objective science replaced superstition, ideology, ignorance and state control.” Just like them, bravely espousing the radical new idea that CO2 has no climate consequences! Except of course that they are really defending an old idea that has been progressively replaced by new knowledge (gosh, CO2 increases do have climate consequences). Um guys, this analogy makes you the Catholic Church not the courageous scientist... You’re resisting change in your own short-sighted self-interest.

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

Get a load of the Galileo Movement’s collection of “independent advisers”, which apparently “includes diverse opinions”. It’s a Who’s Who of denialists and their apologists: Professor Tim Ball, Warwick Hughes, Professor Fred Singer, Professor Dick Lindzen, Professor Bill Kininmonth, Professor Bob Carter, Professor Ian Plimer, David Archibald, Professor Peter Ridd, Professor Garth Paltridge, Dr Vincent Gray, Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Jo Nova, Des Moore, John Nicol, David Flint, Andrew Bolt, John McLean, David Evans and Viscount Monckton. Don’t forget to include Alan Jones, whose “innate[?] expertise straddles the fields of politics, sport and the media.”

2011-08-15 Update: Scientific American has take notice of these bozos, posting Why Carbon Dioxide is a Greenhouse Gas.

In making a case against CO2 as a greenhouse gas, the Galileo Movement relies on irrelevant facts while omitting pertinent ones.

Nielsen-Gammon interviews North and others on Wegman – plagiarism may be related to a cultural misunderstanding by foreign exchange student

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“Nielsen-Gammon interviews North and others on Wegman – plagiarism may be related to a cultural misunderstanding by foreign exchange student“ (May 19, 2011). Anthony Watts decides it still might be worth trying to claim that the plagiarism scandal embroiling Dr. Wegman and his co-authors are all just a misunderstanding. After all, his associate Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon is trying to talk himself into believing it.

Says Anthony, sagely;

I’m surprised too, at the reaction of North and others. They may have a point.

Here’s the problem, Anthony: The clear plagiarism shows that the authors were operating outside of their expertise. This undermines everything they wrote. They couldn’t even correctly summarize the relevant bodies of knowledge in their paper! Their statistical criticisms were fundamentally irrelevant to the result they were trying to undermine (Dr. Mann’s 1998 historical temperature reconstructions often called “the Hockey Stick“) and their loopy cronyism accusations were unsupported.

Perhaps this has an uncomfortable echo for you, Anthony.

Sea Ice News – Call for Arctic sea-ice forecasts, plus forecast poll

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“Sea Ice News – Call for Arctic sea-ice forecasts, plus forecast poll“ (May 19, 2011). Pull the other one, Anthony Watts! I almost shot tea out of my nose reading Anthony’s blithe claim:

It has been awhile since I’ve done a sea-ice report. That said, not much of note has been going on in the sea-ice arena, we are in that time of year when all of the years converge into a tighter grouping.

I guess his stalwart bobble-heads were starting to need reassurance that Global Warming was still over. Unfortunately there are a few differing opinions out there:

Anthony even thought he could bluff his way past his own chart. Nice try. He does try to bury it among a busy collection of eye-glazing squiggles and bar charts.

Nothing to see here, says Anthony... My annotations in red.

The long[-]awaited surfacestations paper

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“The long awaited surfacestations paper“ (May 11, 2011). Hosannah! The great day has arrive-ened! Anthony Watts’ paper, Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, is in press at the Journal of Geophysical Research. The global warming house of cards has fallen-ed!

Just look at some of these definitely-no-global-warming quotes in what Anthony has pasted in from co-author lead-author Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.’s blog (emphasis mine):

Q: So is the United States getting warmer?
A: Yes…

Q: Has the warming rate been overestimated?
A: The minimum temperature rise appears to have been overestimated, but the maximum temperature rise appears to have been underestimated.

Q: What about mean temperature trends?
A: In the United States the biases in maximum and minimum temperature trends are about the same size, so they cancel each other and the mean trends are not much different from siting class to siting class.

Yowza! Game over? Oops.

What a lame exercise in irrelevant nit-picking. After years of just you wait squawking, even Anthony and company’s best spin boils down to whining about bluntly negligible data quality issues. This isn’t even backyard fireworks level excitement. Shame on you, Anthony.

Still, you have to feel a bit sorry for him. He’s not lead author on ‘his’ paper because he doesn’t have the statistical chops for even this damp squib. Dr. Pielke tries to give him a libertarian head-pat though:

The Surface Stations project is truly an outstanding citizen scientist project under the leadership of Anthony Watts!  The project did not involve federal funding. Indeed, these citizen scientists paid for the page charges for our article.

Of course we have to remember what the big picture is here. After all this scientific-paper-of-the-century is just about US temperature data and global warming is, um, global. Dr. Pielke has to come clean (emphasis mine):

Does this uncertainty extend to the worldwide surface temperature record? In our paper… …we found that the global average surface temperature may be higher than what has been reported by NCDC and others as a result in the bias in the landscape area where the observing sites are situated. However, we were not able to look at the local siting issue that we have been able to study for the USA in our new paper.

Anthony seems quite pleased with himself, but frankly this own-goal would be embarrassing even as a high school science fair poster. Why Dr. Pielke’s name is attached to this says something about the power of conviction over that of intellect. Sad, because sometimes he has something relevant to offer.

I guess those page charges were just too juicy for the JGR to let slip away.

Update: Anthony’s wounded howls of mistreatment pepper the comment editing. Wait until the scientists respond!