Tag Archives: Hypocrisy

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.

October Through March Was the Snowiest On Record In The Northern Hemisphere

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“October Through March Was the Snowiest On Record In The Northern Hemisphere“. Steven Goddard pretends once again that regional weather is the same as global climate while making snide remarks about Nobel laureates. This is B.S. to fool the gullible and Steven probably knows it.

But I have to ask; is his “no Global Warming” argument getting so weak that cherry-picking locations is no longer enough? Does he also have to pretend that higher snowfall is an indicator of cold temperatures? Since when does “more snow” = “colder”? Snow volumes depend on air moisture, which drops with temperature. So more winter snow actually means warmer winter conditions.

Maybe no-one will notice the logic disconnect, Steven.

By the way, I love how the numbers from the meteorological offices that suit Steven are gobbled up eagerly, but the ones that don’t suit him are (very) darkly questioned. Are the Met offices liars or aren’t they?

An aside, since I’m covering this WUWT post late and there are lots of comments over there. Steven is getting more and more juvenile in his response to critical comments and Anthony has contributed this revealing editorial remark:

REPLY: Phil, I’ll explain it for you. As a publicly funded professor at a major university who is too timid to put his name to his words, who uses a university email address and IP infrasturcture, and often posts inflammatory comments, all your posts automatically go to the penalty box along with SPAM for examination. When they are examined they get released.

Want more respect? Want to get out of the penalty box reserved for weasels on the public dole that are always critical but too cowardly to criticize on the same open level? Then have the courage to put you name to your words like I do every day and I’ll elevate you. Otherwise stop your whining. – Anthony Watts

That’s a pretty shocking display of prejudice against presumed public employees, proof of willingness to impede critical comments, and an unethical willingness to try to intimidate opponents by revealing personal information. So much for Anthony’s vaunted “open forum”. It goes further downhill from there. Disgusting.

Anthony you are an unethical, unscientific, hypocritical, partisan dissembler. Steven, you’re just an enthusiastically blinkered denialist.

Climate Craziness of the Week – MSM jumps on alarming headline

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“Climate Craziness of the Week – MSM jumps on alarming headline“. Anthony Watts dismisses a University of Leeds report that the melting of floating ice, mainly because of salinity and temperature differences, can make a small contribution to sea-level rise. And the “MSM” are talking about it! Shocking. The paper is Recent loss of floating ice and the consequent sea level contribution by Shepherd, et al. 2010 in Geophysical Research Letters.

Nothing like mocking new knowledge because it isn’t significant enough. That’s anti-science I guess. The general opinion was that the melting of floating ice would have no impact on sea-level because of Archimedes’ principle, but it turns out that the estimated volume difference is 742 km²per year! A large number to be sure, but spread over the entire ocean very modest.

Anthony mocks this because the calculated annual contribution is an almost unmeasurable 49 micrometers (0.000049 m). But what would his position be if this hadn’t been calculated and included? Undoubtably outrage.