Anthony Watts pushes anti-semitic conspiracy theories wrapped up as a climate hoax

There is not much happening on the denier front. They are either licking their wounds from two hottest years in a row, or hunkering down pretending that "it's not happening". For example, I don't know if Jo Nova believes what she writes (as archived here) or if she is really as deluded as she appears. She is says she is convinced that global warming "paused" and that it's about to get very cold. She claims to be also convinced that despite the world getting much, much hotter, more people are turning into science deniers. She's an oddball. I suspect having hooked up with her husband who has been bludging off her for quite some years now, by all accounts, she's finding it hard to admit she took the wrong turn. (Jo used to accept science, some years ago, though she was always a bit odd being a goldbug.)

Solar tides and air pressure

Willis Eschenbach is wondering why the barometer drops just before dawn and again just before it rains (archived here). He didn't think to use Google. The answer appears to be solar atmospheric tides (as you might have guessed), where waves are generated by the sun's heating of the upper atmosphere. These waves propagate from the upper atmosphere to the ground as they move around the globe.

Anthony Watts is surprised by past climate variability

Anthony Watts is also surprised that different parts of the world could get hot and cold before we started adding all the extra CO2 to the atmosphere (archived here). I thought he was supposed to have studied meteorology at one time, and worked as a weather announcer. P'raps that explains why he didn't graduate and why he's no longer announcing the weather (except at his local radio station). He doesn't understand it. What's curious though is that means he doesn't know that there have been ice ages and hot spells in the past. For someone who has claimed to be running a climate blog for going on nine years, that's remarkable.

Some of you might think that Anthony Watts has gone gaga, not understanding that the Arctic in particular can have large swings in temperature. It would be different if it were somewhere on the equator, where large swings in average temperature aren't expected (unless there's a big volcanic eruption, say). That's quite possible. Today he's also promoting the opinion that global warming isn't happening and all the hoo haa about CO2 causing global warming is a socialist Nazi plot.

There is no greenhouse effect sez WUWT

Anthony Watts posted another dumb article by serial defamer (alleged) Tim Ball (archived here), who says that CO2 doesn't cause warming. He wrote:

The author [Tim Ball and presumably Anthony Watts] believes the evidence shows that human CO2 is not causing AGW, that the hypothesis is not proved. 

Now in case you are wondering if Tim thinks non-human CO2 causes AGW, then your brain isn't working properly. (I don't blame you. Tim Ball has that effect on people as you can see in the 101 "thoughts" under his article.) The "A" in AGW stands for anthropogenic. So the question you should be asking is:

What does Tim Ball think is causing anthropogenic global warming?

Or

What does Tim Ball think is causing the global warming that originated in human activity?

Let's run with the initial question though, leaving the A out of AGW. The first question is does Tim Ball think that the planet is heating up? That's not something I can answer, because I don't recall him ever indicating that one way or the other.

Let's assume he does agree that it's getting warmer - like this:

Figure 1 | Global mean surface temperature since 1880. Data source: GISS NASA

If it's not being heated up by human CO2, then perhaps he thinks it's heating up from non-human CO2. Could it be that he thinks that the CO2 molecule from burning fossil fuel doesn't contribute to the greenhouse effect? It's only the CO2 that comes out of plants, or the ocean that is causing the warming. The CO2 manufactured by us when we burn fossil fuels is benign. It's all the other CO2 that is causing the warming.

I don't expect that's it really. After all, Tim Ball was the first author of the book that claimed there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect - Slaying the Sky Dragon. Further down Tim wrote:

"They assumed, incorrectly, that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase."

So Tim doesn't "believe" in the greenhouse effect. He's a greenhouse effect denier.

Anthony Watts promotes this nonsense on his blog several times a month. So it's fair to assume that he doesn't "believe in" the greenhouse effect either, despite what he's claimed.

Climate science is a socialist Nazi plot

The barrow that Tim Ball is pushing hasn't changed. Anthony Watts is promoting Tim's conspiracy theory that global warming is a socialist plot and a Nazi plot to boot. (Tim is a fan of Hitler if you'll recall, so it seems odd that he's blaming him for the climate hoax. He hasn't said if it's also a plot by his other dead hero, Osama bin Laden.)

You think I'm kidding? See for yourself. This is from an article on Anthony Watts' blog today (archived here), conspiracy theorising at its finest, or worst:

Kyoto provided the basis for the financial agenda. Money needed to fund the single world government was a global carbon tax. Many notable people, like Ralph Nader, claimed the tax was the best solution to stop climate change. Funding was part of the plan for the 2009 Copenhagen Conference of the Parties 15 (COP15). The COP can only act on the science provided by the IPCC. Apparently somebody knew the political agenda was based on false science and exposed it by leaking emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This worked because the scientists controlling the IPCC worked at, or with, the CRU. They controlled key chapters in IPCC Reports, including the instrumental data, the paleoclimate data, and the computer models. They also ensured their presence on the most influential document, the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). 

But that's only part of it. The people who are implicated in the climate hoax, according to Anthony Watts' blog article include a mixed bunch. It's not easy, because like all paranoid conspiracy theories, the conspiracy involves a "they" and a "them" and you have to wade past all the "they's and them's" to find out who these scallywags are. I've done that for you. Anthony Watts and Tim Ball will be proud of me, I'm sure. Here they are:

• Climate scientists working at or with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
• George Soros
• Maurice Strong
• Bill Gates
• the Rockefeller’s
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Ted Turner
• Adolf Hitler
• Alexander King
• Bertrand Schneider
• Paul and Anne Ehrlich
• John Holdren
• Ralph Nader

Interestingly, neither Michael Mann nor Andrew Weaver. I wonder why?

I don't think I've written about the conspiracy that Anthony Watts promotes a few times a month. It goes something like this.

Tim claims that a speech Vaclav Klaus gave to the Heartland Conference supports his theory that "environmentalism and AGW is a political agenda pushed by extremely wealthy and powerful left wing people most of who made their money exploiting the environment."

Tim Ball and Anthony Watts are promoting the conspiracy theory that the Club of Rome and Maurice Strong and the Rockefellers conspired to do something or the other.

Tim Ball is an inveterate liar as well as a conspiracy nutter. In one of WUWT's common if ghastly displays of forgery and misrepresentation, he wrote what he claimed was a quote from the 1991 book "The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of Rome" by  Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider (which Tim Ball said was a 1994 book - he couldn't even get that right):

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”

Here is the closest passage, from page 75 of the book, where I've corrected Tim's misquote. I've crossed out the words that don't appear in the book, and bolded and italicised the words that Tim left out:

The common enemy of humanity is man.

In searching for a new enemy to unite us against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.

Not that anyone at WUWT would know, care or bother to check. All is fair when you want the world to burn. Tim fabricated his "quote" so he could weave his conspiracy theory that:

They claim the list of enemies is designed to unite people. In fact, it is needed to overcome what they see as the divisiveness of nation-states and to justify the establishment of one-world government or global socialism. They believe that global warming is a global problem that national governments cannot resolve. The changed behavior they want is for all to become socialists.

Well, no "they" didn't. In fact "they" (Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider) specifically wrote that those items in the list were not the enemy, they were symptoms. And nowhere does it mention anything about a one-world government or global socialism! That's nothing more than a fantasy conspiracy theory that Anthony Watts and his lackeys promote. And it's an old one, which can be traced back way before the Club of Rome. It's anti-semitic, which fits with the bigotry and fanaticism you'll see at WUWT. It can be viewed as a variation of the Illuminati conspiracy theory, which spreads to David Icke and his lizard men.

Tim Ball supports Lewandowsky's moon-landing paper

Tim's theorising continues:

The process and method of setting up the AGW hypothesis through the UN paralleled those required to form a left wing or socialist government. It automatically identified those scientists who questioned the hypothesis as at least sympathetic to capitalism – guilt by association. It is part of today’s view that if you are not with me, you must be against me. Over the years, a few scientists told me they agreed with the skeptics but would not say so publicly because they were socialists.

What crap! What utter unadulterated bullshit.

Not only would no decent scientist ever talk to Tim Ball, scientists, sceptical or otherwise, don't say or not say things because they are socialists!

As for him arguing that scientists who question "the AGW hypothesis" (whatever he means by that) are "sympathetic to capitalism"... Leave out "scientists" and insert science deniers. Then think about all the fuss that WUWT made when the NASA faked the moon landing paper came out. In that paper, the researchers showed that free market ideology was a predictor of climate science denial. Oh deniers were all up in arms over that one. Now you've got Tim Ball saying pretty much the same thing and the illiterati are fawning all over him.

More of Tim's "One World Government" conspiracy theory

There is more where that came from. Tim Ball wrote:

Kyoto provided the political basis for the agenda. It was a classic redistribution of wealth that is the goal of a socialist government. Money from successful developed nations was given to less successful developing nations. To collect and redistribute the money required a government that overarched all nation-states. A single world government that managed a world banking system was the ideal. Temporarily the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund would suffice.

I don't know why he singles out Kyoto or global warming. There are a lot of United Nations aid efforts that are unrelated to climate. Either Tim doesn't know that or he knows that dim deniers are easy to hoodwink.

Anthony Watts' blog is nothing more than a wacky conspiracy blog

The bottom line is - the next time that you read about WUWT-ers complaining that WUWT isn't really a conspiracy theory wrapped up in a climate hoax. Next time you read how Anthony Watts doesn't like it when you say he runs a conspiracy theory blog -  just say the words "Tim Ball" and point out how Anthony Watts promotes his wacky theories several times a month. (He's not the only one, of course, but he's probably the worst of them. Climate science deniers are by definition conspiracy theorists.)

Newsweek recently had an article about how right wing extremists are a bigger threat in the USA than is ISIS. When you read some of the comments at WUWT it makes you wonder what these people are like in real life.

From the WUWT comments

As usual, Anthony Watts' followers come out to ratify Tim's conspiracy nuttery. The neo-nazis try to distance themselves from Hitler.

Goldrider is a rat sniffer:

February 21, 2016 at 4:50 pm
And there, in a nutshell, is why I smelled a rat and joined the ranks of the skeptics.

ristvan, who Judith Curry adores, believes in Tim's conspiracy theory, but doesn't want to get called a conspiracy theorist or be researched by Stephan Lewandowsky:

February 21, 2016 at 5:04 pm
A bridge too far, Dr. Ball. While there is some truth in what you assert (witness Christina Figueres, head of UNFCCC), it is mostly half truths. Asserting ‘Agenda 21 motives’ detracts from the skeptical rebuttal IMO, and opens our side to the conspiracy accusation nuttery of those like Lewindowsky.
Take the high science road. Use sound bites to rain rockslides down on the warmunists on the low road. And yes, I fully credited Vaclav Klaus and his book Blue Planet in Green Chains for inspiring the epithet warmunist.

commieBob

February 21, 2016 at 7:08 pm
“A bridge too far, Dr. Ball.
Academia has become nasty and political. Anyone who publishes anything inconvenient to the entrenched politics WILL be punished. Unsurprisingly, it is worst in things like gender studies and anthropology but it is still unacceptably venomous in climate science.
These folks aren’t interested in the truth and they won’t be swayed by inconvenient facts.
I have just become aware of a book titled “Galileo’s Middle Finger”.
“If activists are willing to shout down scientific evidence that they don’t like, then they are no better than Pope Paul V. Even worse, they are undermining the foundations of democracy, which, she says, flows from the same wellsprings as science: the Enlightenment belief in our ability to use reason to sort out the true from the false, which relies on a politics that leaves us free to do so. “Sustainable justice,” she says, can’t “be achieved if we [don’t] know what’s true about the world.” link
Roger Pielke Jr. has written a review. He also bears scars inflicted because he had the temerity to tell the truth.
“A bridge too far” refers to biting off more than one can chew, not to being wrong. We might criticize Dr. Ball for not making his case very well. We can’t criticize him for being wrong because there’s plenty of evidence that he’s right. The fix is in and anyone who gets in the way will be smacked upside the head.
“Are Environmentalism and Global Warming Effectively Religious Socialism Totalitarianism?” The answer is yes. Socialism is way too mild.

In case you think I got Rud Istvan wrong - he says he agrees with commiebob (above) and I presume he agrees with the last paragraph. ristvan replied:

February 21, 2016 at 7:26 pm
cB, I agree with your observations. BUT handing ‘the enemy’ conspiratorial ammunition is not my idea of a good winning strategy.

John Robertson

February 21, 2016 at 5:33 pm
Good comment Dr Ball.
However I am not sure gangrene needs a governing philosophy.
Too many idle hands produce idle minds, the vacuous mob who chant “Carbon Pollution” are beyond parody.
It seems to be mostly virtue posturing, raw emoting…

Analitik goes for the "algoreisfat" conspiracy theory:

February 21, 2016 at 5:49 pm
I blame Al Gore
The bogus “scientists” (eg James Hanson), and left wing, apocalyptic lobbyists (eg Naomi Orekes) and industral profiteers (eg Maurice Strong) would not have been able to pervert the general scientific community without strong political backing and Al Gore provided this during his stint as Vice President under Bill Clinton.
The Club of Rome ran the “running out of resources” agenda for decades with only minor success but it was the political patronage from Al Gore that allowed the Global Warming/Climate Change cohort to gain traction and undermine the scientific process. And once “the science is settled” mantra was backed by the climate scientists the whole left wing, CAGW, Agenda 21 movement was able to go mainstream. 

Chris blames communism and lots else on "bankers", which is a derivation of the anti-semitic Jewish conspiracy theory, from the same parent conspiracy theory to the one that Tim Ball promotes. He or she even uses the word "kibbutz":

February 21, 2016 at 9:46 pm
Communism was created by the same bankers who promote global warming. Same with Feminism, same with the SJW’s. There were Fourier Socialists who promoted a decentralized kibbutz style of communal living before Marx and his top down central bank version. The Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt school all came from banking families. All designed to concentrate wealth and resources under oligarchy control. Another good place to look at what’s happening is the COMER vs Ministry of Finance lawsuit. 

ntesdorf

February 21, 2016 at 10:18 pm
I would definitely endorse Environmentalism and Global Warming Belief as being Religious Totalitarianism. Socialism normally leads to Totalitarianism as did Communism, as people start to see that the system (read CAGW) is not working for the masses, but only for a small elite, who have to introduce terror to control the masses and enforce the system. 

Mark doesn't mince his words:

February 21, 2016 at 11:53 pm
Climatism is a culture. Literally, with everything from how to live your life, beliefs, religion, outlook and even diet. Only as a cultural shift could it gain any traction. To that end, it fits progressive and socialist thinking perfectly.
It is designed to do so, to tap into the macro cultures already out there, and combine them.
Self hating humans, socialists, control freaks, intellectual bean counters, progressives and environmentalists. All rolled up into one.

richardscourtney says Tim Ball is wrong. It's not a socialist plot it's a right wing plot. (The Rev's own bold):

February 22, 2016 at 12:57 am (excerpts from a very long comment)
Tim Ball:
Your above polemical rant is a classic collection of falsehoods and misrepresentations of which Goebbels would have been proud....

...The original “political agenda” was right wing (n.b. not left wing) and was rapidly adopted by people, parties and countries of all political persuasions. Marginalisation of opponents is a common political action used by all political activists and is called ‘negative campaigning’.

The scientific hypothesis of global warming had existed for a century and was ignored by almost everyone because the nineteenth century calculations indicated that global temperature would rise by about 1°C but it had not. Then, in 1979 the right wing Margaret Thatcher came to power as UK PM, and for personal reasons immediately upon taking power she raised global warming to become a major international policy issue. Why and how she did that can be read here.

So, in reality,
An interesting pattern developed early in the official involvement in global warming. If a person challenged the claim that humans were causing global warming (AGW), it was assumed they were Thatcherite (i.e. on the political right). If you supported AGW, then you were on the right. This categorization was not related to the science, but to the politician promoting the science involved.

The USA sensibly took little interest in global warming for nearly two decades after the scare had taken hold in much of the world. The reason for this is same as the reason why other countries adopted the scare. Thatcher had generated the global warming scare by campaigning about global warming at each summit meeting, and overseas politicians began to take notice of Mrs Thatcher’s campaign if only to try to stop her disrupting meetings, so they brought the matter to the attention of their civil servants for assessment. The civil servants reported that – although scientifically dubious – ‘global warming’ could be economically important. The USA was the world’s most powerful economy and was the most intensive energy user. If all countries adopted ‘carbon taxes’, or other universal proportionate reductions in industrial activity, each non-US industrialised country would gain economic benefit over the USA. So, many politicians from many countries joined with Mrs Thatcher in expressing concern at global warming and a political bandwagon began to roll.

Throughout this time the global warming scare ceased being a right-wing issue and became an all-party concern: the rewards for gaining economic benefit over the USA would be obtained by all other countries at the cost of the USA. To this day the global warming scare remains an issue that is opposed and is supported by people and Parties across the entire political spectrum. For example, communist China put a ‘death blow’ into the scare at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009....

References and further reading

Why Atmospheric Pressure Peaks At 10am And 10pm In The Tropics - article at ScienceDaily.com, 14 December 2008