If you're wondering why I haven't been posting quite as many articles lately, it's partly because the deniers have dried up. (And partly because real life has been making demands.)
Judith Curry canvassed the views of her readers, of which the vast majority are deniers. I've also written about the two recycled paranoid conspiracy theories Anthony Watts posted in the past day or so - the Agenda 21 plot and the World Domination plot.
A couple of days ago Bob Tisdale tried to dismiss an updated publication by the Australian Academy of Science, muttering "models, models", then writing about internal variability instead of climate. (Bob doesn't understand the first thing about climate models. You can read about them here at Ars Technica.) I wonder how many quiz questions Bob would have answered correctly?
In an article today at WUWT (archived here), some American bloke called David Deming, who's a mate of Denier Don Easterbrook, complained that he was tired of reading about climate science, weakly protesting:
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and the Earth’s climate is not changing. So please, give it a rest. We’re tired of the array of tendentious claims and the endless litany of hysterical doom-mongering.
Yeah, right - David. What planet do you live on?
So, what do you think? Have science deniers run out of steam? Are they weary of recycling the same tired denier memes? Was the record hot 2014 too much for them? Have denier bloggers decided to shift their audience, getting rid of the merely ignorant or deluded deniers, to pander to the extremely nutty?
Even when the there is nothing left to deny some deniers will still deny.
ReplyDeleteBut even deniers with no skin in the game will still stick up for the bad guys.
Last Week Tonight's John Oliver did a powerful piece on tobacco companies harnessing international trade agreements to mount expensive legal actions (or the threat of them) to disrupt health policy in sovereign nations.
Mediaite carried the piece and the comments posted on its site in support of Big Tobacco were both angry and numerous. Deniers are like death and taxes.
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ReplyDeleteRob, you have your very own thread. Please stick to that for OT comments. (I'll repost your comment there, this time.)
Deletehttp://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/robs-gallop.html
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DeleteThat was not the smartest move, Rob. To make it easier for you, for the time being you may only comment in your own thread.
DeleteIn Deming's case I suspect that he found a new four-syllable word that sounds high-falootin' and thought that he could marry it with some recycling of the old carnards in order to perhaps make them more believable for a few gullible suckers.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that it's the deniers' false memes that are tendentious, and not the mainstream science...
Those WUWTians are so cute when they try to be clever.
Rob this is bad form mate. Please note the thread subject and then take a stab at making your comment relevant or withhold your commentary.
ReplyDelete"So copy the images into word and compare to see where the heat is coming from. "
ReplyDeleteEgads, I think that a new scientific analysis paradigm has been created!
Not.
Oops, my quote has been orphaned.
DeleteFor clarity is was propagated from this:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/robs-gallop.html?showComment=1424328716729#c7155595120409454473
I shifted Rob's comment, Bernard.
Deletehttp://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/robs-gallop.html?showComment=1424328716729#c7155595120409454473
Yeah - that popped out at me, too. I've never thought of using Microsoft Word as a thermometer or heat sensor before. How does that work, I wonder?
I'm not sure Sou, but I might invent something tonight and call it, say, "statistics", in order to optimise this extraordinary new Word approach.
DeleteOh...
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DeleteAre they running out of steam? There certainly seems to be a shortage of fresh arguments coming from that crowd, and (at least personally) I find it increasingly tedious and pointless to sift through the nonsense... the exercise reminds me of homeowners wading through sewage-flooded basements trying to salvage anything of value.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the next stage will be when the tiny cohort of scientists they can use as a figleaf (Lindzen, Spencer, Curry, Christy) retires or dies off, leaving them truly adrift.
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DeleteWhat's happened to ocean heat content in the last 18 years, Jennifer?
DeletePerhaps instead of resting on these imaginary laurels, deniers should be explaining that, or how a non El Nino year can be the warmest on record; warmer even than the greatest El Nino of the 20th Century.
I rather think this is the real reason why we're not hearing from you all, don't you?
"18 years of no global warming" ?
DeleteThere's your problem right there Jennifer. You have been getting your information from climate crank blogs. .
This is what the data gives says since 1996 (18 years ago)
GISTemp : 0.123 ±0.168 °C/decade (2σ)
Berkeley Land only : 0.213 ±0.221 °C/decade (2σ)
UAH Satellite : 0.123 ±0.168 °C/decade (2σ)
And that is not even looking at the increase in ocean heat content.
Denier troll alert!
DeleteJust so you know, Killian / Margaret / Jennifer / Sebastion / Oliver / Charlotte are the same person, who needs some help to figure out if they are male or female and to remember their own name.
David Deming?
ReplyDeleteHe is quite famous... an Oklahoma petroleum geophysicist well-liekd by James Inhofe.
Wikipedia.
McIntyre quoted him.
That's the "dog astrology journal" quote.
See the TOC from his book.
The chapter titles will help assess his views.
SOU: on a different topic, you may want to watch Anthony Watts speaking to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness.
>>you may want to watch...
DeleteI tried at the time John. Too boring, too long and too wrong! :D
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/08/an-hour-of-anthony-watts-on-video-too.html
Did anyone not get 12/12 on the quiz. Rob you have to answer in your own thread.
ReplyDeleteI think the "18 years of no warming" was kind of a "battle of the bulge" move. If the pause doesn't continue in a way that can be justified by extremists like McIntyre, I imagine they will go to the fall back positions that have already been prepared. the lukewarm option, of "it will not be vey bad", "it is too big a problem to deal with, so we just have to adapt" with sub plots that they have been saying all along "it will destroy the economy to stop it"
ReplyDeleteMy denier friends have already done an about face from, "china will NEVER agree…" to "china will never ACTUALLY do anything". and undaunted in their refusal to accept the actual concrete things china has already done ( not that I have a great trust in china's altruistic desire to save the planet from ACC).
My hope (A failing of mine, I know) that the republicans have so loudly and intently howled the hoax argument, that they will be unable to wiggle out of this, and it will seriously hurt them by 2020. I still dream of a conservative party that is based on real issues and a careful approach to solving problems. but I am guessing that would require taking money out of politics, just as a start
"I still dream of a conservative party that is based on real issues and a careful approach to solving problems. " I agree.
DeleteThe US Republican brand is too valuable to be left to the current management for long. There are only two brands in the market, after all. When the Kochs go toes up - as all men must, even mega-rich white men - the price will drop and new owners and managers will take over, selling a new product to a younger, more sophisticated market. Sorry, I mean "voter demographic".
DeleteOr not; maybe the loonies have taken permanent command of the asylum and a new second party will emerge. That hasn't happened for a very long time, though.
It's hard to see what new tricks the denialists can come up with, which is not to say they won't. The FoI tactic fails now because everybody's ready for it. Hacking emails and forums is, well, hackneyed. By the time another 'Pause' comes along it'll be far too late and most of them will have succumbed to the demographic imperative by then anyway. Publications in obscure journals like the (no longer Chinese) Science Bulletin or the Telegraph remain obscure.
DeleteThe conspiracy card is about all they're left with as they wait, ever hopeful, for the Great Comething of the Ice Age. While they wait the blame game can begin - who messed up the message? Was it the Sky Dragons with their extremism or the greenhouse believers with their moderation? I predict hair-pulling, much screeching and - why not? - litigation.
The next stage is well underway: corruption of government.
DeleteIn the US you have voter ID laws that disenfranchise opponents, corrupt supreme court justices who are blatantly connected to and working in the interests of pollutocrats, and a political party that has been hijacked by a pollutocrat funded and organised rabble.
In the UK you have a government that talks big on climate change while its actions are winding back on the pitifully feeble measures of the previous party. It too is being funded by pollutocrats.
In Australia you have a more blatant, less sophisticated version of the UK gov.
Polluting industries have a long history of greasing the pockets of politicians. It has always been cheaper than acting in an environmentally responsible way. Now that skill in corrupting our government is becoming the only way they can survive.
If they are going to destroy the planet they are not going to worry about destroying our democracies.
Did anyone not get 12/12 on the quiz. Rob you have to answer in your own thread.
ReplyDeleteWatt's censors conspiring to silence commenters who don't believe in conspiracy theories is no reason to get paranoid.
ReplyDeleteAh the old trick of accusing deniers' critics of behaviour associated with deniers. It even has the advantage of requiring zero imagination or intellect. How very gauche of you.
DeleteI think it's quite adroit myself, but then I do see tongues in cheeks everywhere.
Delete