Denier Irony: Climate denial support group, WUWT, mocks climate "Good Grief" support group

The "world's biggest" climate conspiracy support group is today mocking a group that meets once a month to talk about climate change, how it affects them, and what can be done about it.

Some years ago, Anthony Watts set up a support group for climate science deniers called wattsupwiththat - or WUWT for short. He made it a denier-friendly zone that propagates fake news by banning almost everyone who is a friend of science. A few months ago he handed the reins to a nonentity called Eric Worrall from Australia (formerly of the UK), who has been writing several disinformation articles a week - often several a day, to keep up the spirits of dim deniers while global temperatures sky rocket.

This is typical behaviour from climate deniers. They are oblivious to irony. The support group Eric is mocking meets only once a month. The WUWT support group meets several times a day.

Daisy Simmons at Yale Climate Connections reports about the "Good Grief" group:

...this is not a typical support group. This smattering of artists, activists, writers, and others is discussing their feelings about how they each contribute to climate change....

...Photographer Leah Hogsten, who has been attending the meetings since April, says she likes the opportunity to talk with like-minded people – and discuss solutions, too. She also says she leaves the meeting feeling better than when she got there.

“You’ve vented and gotten some worries off your chest, and now you have a better understanding of what you can do as an individual,” she says.

It sounds like a great idea - very constructive.

Compare that to the constant stream of articles that climate disinformers dish out to "support" deniers who are bereft. They are struggling to cope with the fact that not a single one of their number has been able to prove that climate science is a hoax. That's despite thousands, probably millions of dollars given to denial propaganda outlets and politicians.

About the best the disinformers can come up with is "it's a magical bounce from the Little Ice Age" - and lots of talk about Marxist, fascist, Lysenko-driven watermelons. (Why not figs?)

Eric Worrall is outraged

Eric, who only a couple of days ago argued that starving drought-stricken Africans should be left to rot, fakes horror at the Yale article mentioning things that helped victims of the Nazi holocaust. This is Eric Worrall - someone whose every waking effort these days seems to be devoted to forcing the world towards climate catastrophe. At the bottom of his copy and paste, Eric in mock outrage wrote:

The reference to the Holocaust IMO is outrageous – comparing self indulgent climate angst to the hideous mental torment endured by the survivors of a brutal programme of mass extermination insults the memory of the victims of national socialism.

There are more than seven billion people on the planet today. By 2050 there will most likely be more than 9 billion people. If just 10% of people die early because of climate change, that would be 900 million people. If just one per cent died early - that would be 90 million people. That could only be described as mass extermination, and is almost 10 times greater than the number who died in the Nazi holocaust. That number will be higher if people like Eric Worrall and Anthony Watts have their way.

A powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans

There are only three comments so far from the WUWT support group. Nothing worth reporting. Instead I'll refer you to a 2015 study that was reported by Andy Borowitz in The New Yorker last year. (It hasn't been mentioned at WUWT - not even with a "claim" headline.) Andy Borowitz wrote:

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them....

...While reaffirming the gloomy assessments of the study, Logsdon held out hope that the threat of fact-resistant humans could be mitigated in the future. “Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen,” he said.

I'm not sure that hope is anything more than wishful thinking. But who am I to judge? One reason I'm sceptical is this article in another reputable online source, which supports my opinion. The Onion reports the behaviour of Facebook users, and quotes one of them, James Wheatley, 44:

“You can’t just accept everything you see online, which is why I always take a closer look at the claims that are made in every article and make sure that each one of them is backed up by my existing assumptions and personal feelings about the world,” said Wheatley

References and further reading

Sad about climate change? There's a support group for that. - article by Daisy Simmons at Yale Climate Connections

Scientists: earth endangered by new strain of fact-resistant humans - article by Andy Borowitz at The New Yorker

Facebook User Verifies Truth Of Article By Carefully Checking It Against Own Preconceived Opinions - article at The Onion

From the HotWhopper archives

• WUWT sez let Africans starve, and implies Trump has single-handedly stopped climate change
• Is climate science denial going out of fashion? Recycling Fred Singer and his predictions
• Hottest November on record for the troposphere - with a comment on Trumped Up Courage