Category Archives: Whining

When you don’t like the poll numbers, make up your own poll

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“When you don’t like the poll numbers, make up your own poll“. Anthony Watts is disgusted that the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University is spending public money on opinion surveys and releasing their conclusions: Majority of Americans Continue to Believe that Global Warming is Real. The PDF is here.

When pollsters ask Americans to name the most important problem facing the country, fewer than 3 percent mention the environment. But when asked to name the most serious problem facing the planet if left unchecked, the environment and global warming rise to the top, according to a May 2010 study by Woods Institute Senior Fellow Jon Krosnick.

Conventional pollsters have asked the “most important problem” (MIP) question since the 1930’s and short-term issues always predominate in tough economic times. Climate change is less immediately pressing than paying the rent, so climate change has dropped in “the most important problem” ranks.

This is what the denialists have been shouting as proof that they’re “winning”. Once again the denialists have staked their position on a misrepresentation.

2007 Sea Ice Post Mortem

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“2007 Sea Ice Post Mortem“. Lately it’s been embarrassing for denialists to talk about the 2010 Arctic Sea Ice Extent, so the indefatigable Steven Goddard tries to recast various denialist comments about the record low 2007 season and misrepresent the remarks of professional climatologists from the time.

First, he tries to pretend that ice volume was what really counted in 2007, not ice extent. Actually, they fought pretty hard against that metric back then. Too bad the ice volume has been steadily declining.

Next, he tries to tie the expert’s ice predictions to newspaper speculations. That’s just plain dishonest.

It seems that no progressive loss of Arctic sea ice will make Steven admit he’s spitting in the wind unless the Arctic Ocean is completely ice-free. Whenever his ‘nothing to worry about’ BS starts getting shaky, he simply moves the goalposts. The only thing thinner than the Arctic sea ice is Steven’s own skin.

EPA’s action Jackson on the “resolution of disapproval”

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EPA’s action Jackson on the “resolution of disapproval”. Anthony Watts posts a press release and the prepared remarks of U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson aka “clean Lisa” about, among other things, a resolution of disapproval proposed by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, aka “dirty Lisa”.

Dirty Lisa doesn’t like anything to interfere with her oil industry supporters making money (and give her a little taste). She’s trying to undermine the EPA’s ability to, you know, perform environmental protection.

Anthony leaves the hard work of invoking gubmint conspiracies to his faithful commenters.

A note about boundaries

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“A note about boundaries“. I said I’d start covering Anthony Watts posts on WUWT again tomorrow, but this post by Anthony was too ironic to pass over. Anthony is complaining that a critic intruded into his personal life! Oh, the hypocrisy.

I certainly support the principle that people’s personal lives are private. I am without question a very small fish in a large pond, but already in the short life of this website I’ve experienced intrusive activity by denialists that could be characterized as attempts to intimidate or discredit me (OMG, I have a facebook account! With friends!). Unless the topic is religion, for example, a person’s religious convictions are irrelevant. Does it really matter how big Al Gore’s house is?

If Anthony’s description of this particular person’s behavior is accurate (a big if) then they’ve definitely crossed the line. Challenging a denialist in a public forum, whether online or at a relevant public event, is legitimate (that if fact is the purpose of this website) but accosting them outside of that context is not.

Unfortunately Anthony Watts has made a habit of prying into the lives of his opponents and “researching” people making critical comments on his blog. He’s also been quick to publish e-mail and postal addresses of scientists or journalists he doesn’t like to enable his followers to harass them. It seems to me that Anthony’s own comfort with skipping over the line when it suits him diminishes the legitimacy of his protestations about privacy.

Most idiotic global warming headline ever

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“Most idiotic global warming headline ever“. Anthony Watts should look in a mirror I think. He’s found a “what-if” newspaper article in a new-to-me paper called The Canadian about methane hydrates from 2007 to get steamed over. He recommends not reading. Instead, send an angry letter to the editors.

Now it’s caterpillar outbreaks caused by global warming

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“Now it’s caterpillar outbreaks caused by global warming“. Anthony Watts is annoyed by an article in The Independent titled “Caterpillar plague on Isle of Wight was caused by climate change, says expert“. Here’s the offensive passage:

In general, these insects are getting worse in this country because the climate is changing and the summers are getting warmer.

Outrageous! Hopefully Anthony’s readers will flood the article comments with truth.

Climate Craziness of the Week – New Scientist: The Denial Depot Edition

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“Climate Craziness of the Week – New Scientist: The Denial Depot Edition“. New Scientist has printed a number of articles about “denialism”. Anthony Watts thinks it’s a “sanctioned hatefest” and that New Scientist is now “nothing more that a political science mouthpiece.” Anthony makes sure his readers can get to the articles and bombard the comments.

Why are any articles critical of climate change denial proof that the publication is corrupt, while supportive articles are always evidence of courageous reporting. Confirmation bias is a funny thing.

So why do so many people refuse to accept the evidence? What are the clear lines between scepticism and denial? How does denialism satisfy deep emotional needs? Do smokescreens really work wonders for big business? Is it easy to send a lie flying around the world, and almost impossible to shoot it down? Must we let denialists be heard, and respond with patience, vigilance and tireless rebuttal? Is calling an opponent a denier is illiberal, intolerant and ineffective?

That’s some uncomfortable reading there Anthony. Unless you can convince yourself to dismiss it as a “hatefest”.

Where the !@#$% is Svalbard?

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“Where the !@#$% is Svalbard?” Willis Eschenbach posts his 2006 “paper” printed in the discredited journal Energy & Environment. Willis was trying to nit-pick the weather-station records for Svalbard Norway, and didn’t like the way he was treated (to my eye he was a simply making a pest of himself). The best he could do was gnaw a tiny bit on the probability that the post by Michael Mann & Phil Jones assigned to the Svalbard 2006 spring temperatures.

His “paper” really boils down to a rant against the climatologists at Real Climate. It’s full of unsupported speculation, irrelevant “he said, she said” passages and claims of blog comment censorship and unfair treatment. Now it’s updated with praise of Anthony Watts’ website as a shining(!) example of good scientific blogging.

Thanks for the chuckle, but what a sad example of the crap that Energy & Environment was publishing then.

New bear species discovered: Ursus Bogus

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“New bear species discovered: Ursus Bogus“. Anthony Watts claims he’s been “avoiding this photo issue” but he somehow manages to jump in with both feet. The denialists are outraged that the recent letter in Science about the political and personal attacks by denialists on climate scientists was printed with a photoshopped image of a polar bear on an ice floe. This is a deception!!!!! Damn those graphic artists!

iStockphoto.com is part of the conspiracy!

When you’ve got no real argument to make I guess you argue about nothing.

Climate Actually Changes! Film at 11:00!

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“Climate Actually Changes! Film at 11:00!“. The USA’s EPA has done a masterful job of responding to denialist submissions about their finding that rising CO2 emissions constitute an environmental danger. Anthony Watts and Co. have, sensibly, been pretty quiet about this hoping that their readers will remain unaware of the smack-down.

Part of that effort was an educational report released in April, 2010 called Climate Change Indicators in the United States.

Willis Eschenbach's statistical analysis of the state of climate knowledge...

Willis Eschenbach tries to brave it out here, inventing a cute pie chart that apparently “shows” how little we know about climate. Other than that he simply waves his arms about indignantly about choices of words and other nit-picked irrelevancies. They don’t interpret the Heat Wave Index trend the way he thinks they should! A reference link doesn’t go to the data it’s supposed to! The Drought Monitor indicator is too new!

24 indicators, nit-picks with two of them.