Deniersville: in the spirit of Christmas, the gift that keeps on giving

Over the past few days I've begun but not finished several articles - guiltily enjoying time spent on other worthwhile activities (such as making jam from nectarines fresh from the tree; and roasting coffee beans; and finding pretty jars; and wrapping them up for the family for Christmas). On Monday Sunday I drove to Albury, through weird stormy weather, watching the smoke from a scary bushfire in the next valley over. (I was reminded that the danger from bushfires isn't just the fire itself, sometimes the roads are impassable because of fallen trees. The wind was fierce and wild and the day was another scorcher - 42 °C, 107.6 °F)

In a fit of rationalisation, I figured this is as good a time as any to take a short break. HotWhopper turned 3 earlier this month, and over those 36 months, it has averaged almost one and a half articles a day. That seems like a good target for the next three years.

Credit: John Cook

Denialism doesn't take breaks

If you are missing your daily dose of denial, it marches on relentlessly.

At first, the fake sceptics didn't know how to react to the COP21 agreement in Paris this month. Some tried to argue that the leaders of 195 nations are deluded, along with their advisers, most of the world's media, 97% of climate scientists and almost all professional associations of scientists throughout the world.

Maybe they realised that wouldn't fly because that effort didn't last. It's old news, or maybe they are pretending it didn't happen.

Judith Curry continues full bore into science denial

Following on from her stellar performance as requested by US denier politician Ted Cruz, Judith Curry has decided to settle down and make her home in Deniersville. She has been publishing a swathe of articles by science disinformers and pseudo-scientists.

There was propaganda by professional disinformers Pat'n Chip (the CATO Institute pays them to come up with climate disinformation). She posted an article by one of WUWT's resident pseudo-scientists, Perennially Puzzled Bob Tisdale - who has only lately figured out something that scientists have known for a long time - that sea surface temperatures in the 1940's are iffy (though he missed the iffiest bit - the big peak). Judith posted Anthony Watts' press release about his surface station poster in which he went beyond the data into conspiracy theory land. About the latter, Judith even claimed that he "appears to have produced a robust and important analysis", though as usual, she didn't say what she found "robust" or "important" about it. If she read it, it shows she's incapable of analysis or critical thought herself. There were other bits and pieces, like a run-of-the-mill article by some otherwise unknown run-of-the-mill denier weakly protesting the 97% consensus.

As an aside, Judith Curry has been embraced by WUWT's resident conspiracy nutter, Tim Ball, as one of his kind. That's as big an endorsement as one can get if one aspires to conspiracy nuttery like Judith does.

WUWT on ozone and volcanoes

WUWT continues to forge ahead with business as usual. In deniersville this means coming up with one wacky idea after another. I mentioned in passing a couple of days ago the AGU poster session from Peter Ward, in which he claimed that there is no greenhouse effect. It's ozone depletion that's causing global warming.

Today I discovered there are two of them. Anthony Watts posted about the first one, Peter Landon Ward, PhD, a few days ago. Now he's put up an article from his other half, a David Bennett Laing, Asst. Prof.of Geology, Univ. of Maine (retired) (archived here).

Their hypothesis has more holes than 1980's grunge-wear. It's probably in the spirit of Christmas - a gift of denial intended to tug on the emotions - to make you laugh or make you cry or make you despair for deniers.

(Given WUWT's ozone hole denial, some people who are not aware that the one consistent thing about science denial is its inconsistency, might wonder that WUWT would post an article that relies on ozone depletion to explain global warming.)

Open thread

As I said, I'm taking a short break, which is why in this article, I've only written about the nonsense without saying why it's nonsense.

HotWhopper will resume normal service after Christmas, which comes a day earlier here than where many of you live. Meanwhile, feel free to comment about anything you like on climate, weather, energy policy or anything vaguely related.