Denier weirdness: Inane comments from science deniers make "news" at WUWT

This week Anthony Watts posted two articles relating to climate science deniers complaining about climate science.  What intrigues me is what is it about mundane comments denying global warming that warrants raising them to "article" status?  Why does Anthony consider these items newsworthy?

Paul Caruso rejects climate science for no apparent reason

The first one was a few days ago (archived here). Paul Caruso finds it hard to accept the fact that global warming is happening and has gone to the effort of writing up a swag of generic denier memes in a book form.  He's trying to sell his book on Amazon.  I didn't buy the book but if the free reading pages are any indication, it consists of copies of the sort of comments one sees daily on climate science denying sites like WUWT.  Here's a sample of Paul Caruso's inaninities:

• I don't deny the climate is changing - I just think that it is a bit of natural variation.
• The climate has been changing for the past 4.5 billion years so I would be much more worried if it had stopped changing
• Believers in catastrophic global warming have taken to calling us 'climate change deniers' to try and imply some similarity with holocaust deniers or pro-tobacco campaigners.

All of the above are quite silly.  The first two are dumb as and need no further comment.  The last one demonstrates a lack of English language skills.  From the Oxford Dictionary:

Paul Caruso makes up stuff

If that's not enough for readers to see the chap is a very ordinary run-of-the-mill climate science denier, here is another example of shoddiness. Paul Caruso falsely accuses Joe Romm of calling for deniers to be "strangled in their beds".  Joe Romm has never said anything like that.  The "strangled" comment was made by a commenter on Climate Progress back in June 2009.  Dr Romm deleted the comment, writing quite clearly and plainly that he did not agree with it:

[JR: I have not expected all of these comments and not had a chance to go through them in some detail until now (Saturday). As the TOS allow, I am editing this comment. I would note the author elaborates on what he means below. The original was clearly not a threat but a prediction -- albeit one that I certainly do not agree with. Since some people misread it, I am editing it.]

(Compare that with some of the WUWT comments I've copied below!)

Based on what I've read, I'd say Paul Caruso is a sensitive chap who suffers badly from confirmation bias and feels dejected that nobody takes his rejection of climate science seriously.

He's not above making up stuff to support his rejection of science.

He is short on critical thinking and long on denier memes.  He wrote his book to let off steam, that's about it.  There is nothing to indicate the book has anything in it that hasn't already said a zillion times all over the internet. I imagine the only people who'll buy his book will be those who think they way he does.

A plea for evidence - huh?  What world does he inhabit?

How many times have you read a fake sceptic write something like what Paul Caruso writes:

...publish some verifiable empirical evidence that supports your argument...if you can persuade me that a 4/100th of a percent (sic) of the atmosphere is the control knob for the entire planet's temperature...

Of all the sciences I doubt there is any field of research in which more effort has gone into explaining it to all the myriad audiences.  Even the least able like Paul Caruso.

How many times have you fallen for this sort of rhetoric and pointed the Paul Caruso's to an IPCC report, or to SkepticalScience.com or realclimate.org or to a basic description of how greenhouse gases work or to that excellent AGU video by Professor Richard Alley on carbon dioxide as the control knob?  Only to have them reply "I don't believe it" or come back with the same inane request over and over again.

People like Paul Caruso are not interested in learning about science.  They are too busy rejecting what they can't be bothered to learn and understand.

Jim Cripwell rejects basic climate science

The second WUWT article was posted by Anthony Watts earlier today.  He plucked it out and copied it from one of his many blog comments from climate science deniers and raised it to the status of a blog article. Here is some of what Anthony Watts wrote with slight reformatting by me to make it easier to follow (archived here):

WUWT reader Jim Cripwell writes in a comment

I’m so annoyed with this…From today’s GWPF, I find http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-government-no-global-cooling-centuries/ I quote:

“The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con): The UK government has made substantial investment in research that concerns the likelihood and timing of future changes in global and regional climate.

All of the climate models and policy-relevant pathways of future greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions considered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent Fifth Assessment Report show a long-term global increase in temperature during the 21st century is expected. In all cases, the warming from increasing greenhouse gases significantly exceeds any cooling from atmospheric aerosols. Other effects such as solar changes and volcanic activity are likely to have only a minor impact over this timescale”

So, presumably the UK Met. Office used the IPCC models to prepare this reply. It is given in the House of Lords, by a Peer of the Realm, so by the rules of the British Parliament, it OUGHT to be accurate. Since the climate models are completely incapable of producing accurate predictions, the answer given by Baroness Verma is little more than a pack of lies.

Jim Cripwell accused the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of telling a "pack of lies".  I read Jim's quote a few times and couldn't find a single word that could be described as a lie.  Jim is another person, like Paul Caruso, who just cannot accept the findings of climate science.  Neither can Anthony Watts, which is why he created his science/scientist-attacking blog and maybe why he elevated Jim's comment.

As for why I bothered to write this article?  I really don't know.  Maybe it's just that I find it intriguing that Anthony Watts thinks it newsworthy that there are mundane climate science deniers who make inane and wrong comments about global warming.

From the WUWT comments

These are responses to Anthony Watts' article about Jim Cripwell rejecting climate science (archived here).  Go back and read the quote above (the bit in italics).  It is short, to the point and factual.  There is nothing in it that should have prompted any comment at all, let alone complaint.

Now read the comments below - and these are just a sample!  The comments show quite clearly the audience Anthony Watts blog targets.  Cranks is not a bad description.


Admad says:

October 31, 2013 at 2:49 pm
All Ican think is to force a Judicial Review – if a lawyer could be found to act pro bono.

Cheshirered says:

October 31, 2013 at 3:05 pm
The good Baroness has almost certainly uttered her own epitaph, perhaps along the lines of Dr David ‘children won’t know what snow is’ Viner.
She’ll be hung out to dry on this falsifiable statement. Tough.

geran says:

October 31, 2013 at 3:25 pm
Monckton, get in there and straighten this out, before tea time tomorrow, of course.
(Oh yeah, you can use shackles, chains, and other devices as necessary.)

J Martin says:

October 31, 2013 at 4:08 pm
The good baroness merely consulted the usual soothsayers, and so remains ignorant of the impending reality. And as for, we have another 10,000 years to go before the Holocene ends, I can only think that the British Antarctic Survey can’t been to the Antarctic recently. This has been looked at and debunked. Perhaps she got her nautical vessels mixed up and consulted the crew languishing in Murmanski jails.

If flip flop Lockwood’s current line of research holds up then this period of cooling we about to embark on will be the most rapid since the last glaciation. Something that is hardly suggestive of the Holocene holding out for a further 10,000 years. I appreciate that Milankovitch orbital variation shows a slower decent than the last few glaciations, but not sufficient to support the idea that we may get a further 10,000 years.

We don’t need to drop all the way into a glaciation, which can be a drop of 10 degrees, before we can no longer grow food in the Northern hemisphere.

Tiburon says:

October 31, 2013 at 4:26 pm
And I suppose that Mammoths found flash-frozen in the Arctic with stomachs full of undigested roughage and in need of toothpicks for the flowers between their teeth, count for nothing in this confident projection of “10,000 years till the next glaciation”.
Clowns. Hubris-tic Clowns.
We don’t have the faintest grasp (yet) of what drives Climate, in our Electric Universe.
But we can be pretty certain it ‘ain’t us’.
“They Want To Blame You”. Get ready for it. Diocletian’s Problem, Reaction, Solution applies, full force (Cloward-Piven; Agenda 21; All Aboard to Save the Planet)…and it’s Us against Them.

JimF says:

October 31, 2013 at 4:28 pm
When can we start measuring these dumkoffs and criminals for their pink prison suits, a la Sherriff Joe’s Arizona brigade?

philjourdan says:

October 31, 2013 at 6:00 pm
With all due respect, no one in authority is going to speak out against it. The relationship between alarmists and governments is incestuous. The alarmists provided a great excuse to curtail liberties. But it is failing. Governments had the means in their hands, but now it is slipping away, so they are doubling down (both sides – government and alarmists – as evidenced by the lack of science and the proliferation of spite and vindictiveness). They won a couple of hands at the poker table, but are losing now, and throwing more money hoping for a change of luck.

troe says:

October 31, 2013 at 6:29 pm
They will stop spewing this lunacy when we are able to attach a political price tag to it. Not a minute before.

John Whitman says:

October 31, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Jim Cripwell,
Yes, the news you pointed out is maddening.
At least we have the GWPF being invaluable by giving us this kind of news reporting, though it is maddening news.
Without the likes of organizations like the GWPF we might be complacent. They give us what we need to focus on.
Lindzen is one of the notable associates of the GWPF as is Ridley; among many other notables.
John

Chad Wozniak is still waiting for global cooling and says:

October 31, 2013 at 10:31 pm
It will take someth8ing I really don’t want to wish for, because of the injury it will do to so many – but the only thing that I believe is likely to stop this madness is a series of 15 or 20 years of crushingly cold winters and weak summers.