Category Archives: Self-Pity

Big G panics

Posted on by
Reply

“Big G panics“. Harold Ambler makes an “if wishes were fishes” analogy between the biblical Goliath and the “higher-ups of the AGW movement”. The “higher ups” are the conspiracists who have risen to Imperial Wizard rank, I guess. (Or are they Grand Marshals? I’m so bad with org charts.)

Harold tosses in sullen assertions about how skeptic scientists “maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk” and face “ad hominem attacks of the most vicious variety”. I would suggest that he’s actually describing the literal treatment that Dr. Phil Jones has received and that denialist scientists get a free ride. They can play the “teach the controversy” card and can rely on libertarian cranks like Glenn Beck or Senator Inhofe to spin and accuse on their behalf.

I suppose an Old Testament analogy plays well with his audience.

Sea change in climate journalism: The Guardian and the D-word

Posted on by
Reply

“Sea change in climate journalism: The Guardian and the D-word“. It’s always interesting when Anthony tries to take the “high road.” Lately he’s been trying to get The Guardian to stop describing climate change denialists as “sceptics.”

They’re thinking about it. The money quote from The Guardian’s correspondence with him is this (emphasis mine):

The ’sceptics’ label is almost too generous a badge as very few are genuinely sceptical about the science but I think we have to accept the name is now common parlance.

Anthony ‘reciprocates’ by making a hollow call to “dial back and treat others with the same respect in conversation as you might treat dinner guests having a discussion at home.”

As he does on occasion, Anthony takes a moment to try to distance himself from his own posts:

My position has been that there is no debate that the earth has warmed over the past 100+ years, but that the magnitude of the measured warming and the cause(s) remain in debate. The question of whether such warming is beneficial or detrimental depends on who you ask. I’ll also point out that it took our modern society about 150 years of science and technology advances to get where we are now. Doing it cleaner and better won’t be an overnight solution either.

CTM is Contacted by the Norfolk Constabulary and Responds

Posted on by
Reply

“CTM is Contacted by the Norfolk Constabulary and Responds“. Charles Rotter, aka “Charles the Moderator”, was the anonymous behind-the-scenes guy on Anthony Watts’ blog until his involvement in disseminating the stolen Climate Research Unit e-mails. His most important responsibility was to harass Anthony’s critics by blocking or maliciously altering their comments, but he probably spent most of his time thinning out the worst comments of the denialist loony fringe so the cause didn’t look too bad.

Charles reports that he was contacted by the Norfolk Constabulary as part of their criminal investigation into the theft of CRU e-mails. Charles answers are to claim he’s just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he unwisely casts aspersions on the victims of the crime and offers up a self-serving theory of the crime as a noble act by unnamed persons. Good luck with that.

Judith, I love ya, but you’re way wrong …

Posted on by
1

“Judith, I love ya, but you’re way wrong …” Anthony Watt’s friend Willis Eschenbach, the self-appointed “citizen scientist”, rants about Dr. Judith Curry’s ill-conceived denialist-sympathetic comments about “credibility” in climate science.

His point? We can never trust scientists again. No matter what. They are stupid liars. Willis actually says with a straight face that scientists should emulate Steve McIntyre’s “transparency and openness and freewheeling scientific discussion and honest reporting“. My god, McIntyre is the most dishonest, manipulative, resentful, nit-picking denialist out there. He is the model for scientific behavior?

Epic fail.

On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II: Towards Rebuilding Trust

Posted on by
Reply

“On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II: Towards Rebuilding Trust“. A guest essat by Dr. Judith Curry, a mainstream geophysicist, on the subject of scientific trust and credibility. Tellingly, she describes credibility as “a combination of expertise and trust”, neither are in evidence on Anthony’s blog. Dr. Curry has been engaged in conversation with denialists long enough that their murky thought processes and falsehoods have taken on a kind of face-value status in her mind. This is like the false journalistic balance that gives complete falsehoods the same standing as sound science simply because they come from opposing sides of a controversy.

Overall her piece is quite vague about many of the factual matters, leaves key issues and definitions poorly defined, and seems more interested in personalities than science. Regardless, Anthony doesn’t like some of her characterizations so he prefaces her remarks with a few accusations and charges of disrespect before ‘taking the high road’ to “broadly report the issues.”

Anthony, if you did that I’d have to find a new hobby.

There’s a more detailed criticism of Dr. Curry’s essay over on Climate Progress.

The most slimy essay ever from the Guardian and Columbia University

Posted on by
Reply

“The most slimy essay ever from the Guardian and Columbia University“. Anthony Watts is somehow surprised to find himself connected to lobbyists that have also fought for a variety of profitable but destructive industries in the Guardian (other newspapers too!) article Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain. The ever-helpful Watts gives his readers some useful ways to harass the Guardian author.

I would have thought that losing his hearing and both parents to tobacco-related diseases would have given Anthony some insight into the consequences of the denialist machinery. When you spend so much time singing the denialist praises of Fred Singer the erstwhile tobacco industry spin artist you’ve got to nurse a pretty massive case of tunnel vision not to connect the dots.

As for Anthony’s assertion that the denialists are simply a “growing revolution of like minded people”, I think that right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation are cultivating the passions of libertarians for their own benefit through flattery and not cash. As the Tea Party movement shows, there’s a pretty big undercurrent of easily exploited right-wing anxiety out there. But the goofy “CO2 is good!” television commercials and those Washington foundation staffs only come from the cold hard stuff.

Bringing Skillful Observation Back To Science

Posted on by
Reply

Steve Goddard, or Issac Newton?

“Bringing Skillful Observation Back To Science“. The always entertaining Steven Goddard tries once more to defend his chronically biased data manipulation with more ill-advised analogies and further demonstrations of statistical ignorance. I also love the chosen post title! If only Steven brought some skill to the table…

I suppose Anthony Watts counts on his readers to glance at some charts, read Steven say “I’m right” and subside back into their gullible state of agreement.

Quote of the week #29

Posted on by
Reply

“Quote of the week #29“. Anthony Watts draws attention to perceived disrespect in a quote from Dr. Gavin Schmidt that points out that Steven McIntyre could have made a real contribution to climate research instead of spending five years whining about being ill-treated. This is a signal to Anthony’s followers to drown out any rational comments with a flood of denialist noise.

The article in question, Climategate’s guerrilla warriors: pesky foes or careful watchdogs, from Steven McIntyre’s hometown paper The Globe & Mail and brought to Anthony Watts’ attention by the thin-skinned one himself is actually a fairly insightful. Here’s a telling quote from it that I like better than Anthony’s (emphasis mine):

The key objection to the work of bloggers such as Mr. McIntyre is that they are engaged in an epic game of nitpicking: zeroing in on minor technical issues while ignoring the massive and converging lines of evidence that are coming in from many disciplines. To read their online work is to enter a dank, claustrophobic universe where obsessive personalities talk endlessly about small building blocks – Yamal Peninsula trees, bristlecones, weather stations – the removal of which will somehow topple the entire edifice of climate science. Lost in the blogging world is any sense of proportion, or the idea that science is built on cumulative work in many fields, the scientists say.

Amen.

It’s Like Drinking from a Fire Hose!

Posted on by
Reply

Anthony’s had a busy weekend. I guess we’ll have to fall back on quick hits tonight.

Anthony starts by rooting through the personal life of someone he doesn’t like.

The National Oceanographic Data Center has corrected some data on Ocean Heat Content and if you look at a small enough time period (tunnel vision helps here) it proves once and forever that Climate Change is a lie!!! Uh oh, Anthony has deleted some of his conclusions.

The possibly rebounding water levels in one lake prove once and forever that Climate Change is a lie.

Anthony waxes once more about the Urban Heat Island effect that conspiratorial scientists all deny. Except he then provides cherry-picked papers and graphs that show that scientists actually talk about it all the time and discuss measuring it, correcting for it, etc. However this proves once and forever that Climate Change is a lie.

A new satellite will examine Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. The subtext is to remind Anthony’s readers that gamma rays are the real and natural source of all Climate Change.

There’s some cold water off the Florida coast! This proves once and forever that Climate Change is a lie.

Dr. Roy Spencer says “it’s all, or at least mostly, natural!” in a new cross-posted blog entry. I guess blogging’s easier than pulling together all the proper data and references and trying to sneak into a refereed paper.

One of Anthony’s friends fiddles with some settings on an interactive GISS data page that he doesn’t understand and makes parts of a chart go red! RED!!!

Penn State’s investigation into indignant denialist accusations against Dr. Mann hasn’t solicited the opinions of denialist bloggers!

Anthony says “Climategate” again. Some problems with Chinese weather stations in a 20 year-old study by evil Dr. Phil Jones are proof of the vast conspiracy to trick everyone into thinking that the Urban Heat Island effect is really Climate Change. This one’s developing, but does Anthony really think that possible problems with a 20 year-old study make all the other independent data that show the same conclusion evaporate? [Feb 2, 2010 update: The University of East Anglia defends Dr. Jones quite ably.]

Well, at least they didn’t use a lizard

Posted on by
Reply

Yawn. Watts Up With That? has been busy trying to build the case that an unsubstantiated prediction about Himalayan glaciers in the IPCC’s 2007 Report means that everything the IPCC has published is wrong.  Of course out here in the real world glaciers almost everywhere are losing mass. Even in the Himalayas! Anthony knows this, but that’s not a fact that suits his purpose. He also thinks it’s clever to suggest that IPCC Chairman Dr. Pachauri looks like a caveman.

Meanwhile, a proper scientific analysis by Menne, et al, 2010 of the data collected and released by the surfacestations.org troopers has shown that contrary to Anthony’s sweeping “conclusions” there is nothing wrong with the USHCN’s weather data, or the regional climate trends derived from it. Read the story here on Skeptical Science. [Update: Poorly sited U.S. temperature instruments not responsible for artificial warming from Dr. Jeff Master’s website is another good analysis of Anthony’s anecdotal data.] Anthony’s response, other than expressions of outrage at the discourtesy towards himself, has been: crickets… He did post a photo of his favorite “bad” weather station site. Supporter and confirmation bias victim Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has also sniffed about “professional discourtesy” because Menne published before Anthony did. I’m guessing that Pielke doesn’t consider Anthony’s Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?, “interpreting” the same data and printed in 2009 by the Heartland Institute an actual publication. We can agree on that apparently.