Most people want to mitigate climate change. Anthony Watts thinks this is "crazy"

Anthony Watts runs a climate conspiracy blog. He specialises in pseudo-science and dark conspiracy theories for the wackos on the internet. Today he's put up some photos from the various climate marches, which attracted huge numbers of people from all over America, and called them "crazy".

Wow: enormous crowd for the Climate March today, just a week after the March for Science. People are fired up.pic.twitter.com/oz9PtdgpK3

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) April 29, 2017

[I'm relieved that the weird slogans didn't put people off going to the march. (Who the heck thought them up? An activist from the 1960s? No, activists weren't that bad back then. A subversive wanting to mock the march, perhaps?)]

Many of Anthony's photos (archived here) are underexposed so it's hard to read the writing on the posters. It's not really hard to read the signals that Anthony Watts is sending, though. He's a fossil fuel advocate who wants his fans to end civilisation as soon as possible. Here is some of what Anthony Watts thinks is "crazy", with my comment in italics.

Bret Stephens lowers the bar for intellectual honesty and more @NYTimes

Many climate scientists have been quite horrified that the New York Times boasted how it had hired Bret Stephens. They pointed out he is a climate science denier, though he's probably more correctly labeled (if you like labels) a climate change disinformer of the usual ideological kind. (Irrational commitment to an ideology can do strange things to the brain. It can kill logic for one thing.)

I thought, okay, let's see what he writes and, hopefully, the NYT will have arranged for Bret to stick to subjects he knows something about and not let him spout his climate science denial.

That didn't happen.

In his very first NYT article you'd not have guessed that Bret Stephens had ever been awarded a Pulitzer. You'd not have known that he was a journalist at all, let alone one with any sort of reputation. You'd have thought he was a hack paid to spread disinformation by one of those flaky denier groups so prevalent in the USA, someone from fake insinuation and straw man land.

Published climate science denial ignored by Christopher Monckton @wattsupwiththat

Christopher Monckton has issued a call to defund all the weather bureaux. He wants us all to stop monitoring weather and climate. The headline of his latest article on Anthony Watts climate conspiracy blog (archived here, latest here) is: "Time to defund the weather-forecasting rent-seekers".

What upset Christopher this time was a climate statement issued by the Royal Meteorological Society and endorsed by 33 organisations around the world. He doesn't like to be reminded that global warming is real and happening. Christopher's answer to his cognitive dissonance is to stop funding weather agencies. He'd rather not know if the sun will shine or the rain will pour tomorrow, than have to read that global warming is real and dangerous and caused by us.

Dishonest premises from Ross McKitrick at WUWT and the Cato Institute

Today at the conspiracy blog WUWT I came across another copy and paste from Anthony Watts. This time it was an article by Ross McKitrick (archived here) that he seems to have first posted at the conspiracy tank the Cato Institute.

Ross McKitrick is a climate disinformer from way back. He wants Donald Trump to pull out of the Paris Agreement so that he and his mates can continue to wreck the planet. He disgusts me.

Disinformers will happily promote the fallacy that because we probably can't reduce global surface temperatures easily by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, we shouldn't even try to slow the rise, let alone stop them rising. These people are clearly genocidal. The Cato Institute, Ross McKitrick and Anthony Watts can't wait for the world to burn at 2, 3, 4 or more degrees Celsisus above pre-industrial. (They are doing what they can to get it to 12 C to kill all our descendants.)

As you probably know, the Paris Agreement is aimed at keeping the rise in global temperature to 2 C above pre-industrial, and preferably at 1.5 C. It's not all that likely (but still worth trying for) that we'll make 2 C, let alone 1.5 C. As Ross says, Pruitt, who now runs the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), is busy wrecking the environment, and Ross McKitrick is urging him on. What the current US government and President are doing will make it harder to stay safe. On the other hand, there is also a lot happening in the USA that is going to help, despite the efforts of the world destroyers who are currently "in charge".

Is Tim Ball wanting to try the "insane" defense in his court cases, with the help of Anthony Watts?

Global warming is real and happening, yet there will probably always be a small coterie who choose to promote the craziest, wackiest conspiracy theories rather than accept reality. Anthony Watts is one such person. Soon he'll no doubt announce that he's also joined a Flat Earth Society.

I've wondered for a while if Tim Ball is wanting to try on a defense of insanity when he goes to court. Is that the reason Anthony Watts publishes his utter nutter conspiracy theories? I know Anthony is conspiratorially-minded himself and likes to play the part of the persecuted victim/hero, but I find it hard to accept that he believes the incredible dark conspiracy theories Tim spews.

Yet he promotes Tim's wackiness - often. So another idea is that Anthony Watts holds the same immensely stupid notions that Tim Ball does. In his latest piece (archived here), Tim Ball is claiming once again that global warming is a dark conspiracy. Strangely, according to Tim, this conspiratorial plot is backed by virtually all the world's climate scientists and virtually all the professional scientific organisations in the world but he still claims it's a political plot!

Science March in Melbourne - some photos

For those who haven't been able to get to a March for Science, here are a few photos so you don't feel left out. These are from Melbourne Australia.

The early arrivals gathered at the State Library surrounding Redmond Barry, who valued knowledge a great deal.

Marching for Science on Earth Day, Saturday 22 April 2017

I hope lots of people will join in the March for Science. There are hundreds of them being held around the world. There are ten events being held in Australia, and more than 500 others elsewhere. I'll be going to the rally and march in Melbourne.

To find the nearest march to you, the best site to start with is the main March for Science website, where you can look it up.

Blogs are better? Delusions of grandeur from Class B Climate Conspiracy Theorist Anthony Watts

There's an article at WUWT today (archived here) which is edited by that Master of Delusion himself - Anthony Watts. Anthony is portraying himself as a super-hero (again). He is telling his readers that blogs are better than scientific journals. In particular, his climate conspiracy blog is better - oh boy!

Anthony thinks that a blog article he came across via a tip from Judith Curry (of all people) means that WUWT is better than Nature and Science when it comes to scientific articles. (Remember, Anthony is also under the delusion that his climate "hoax" conspiracy blog WUWT is a science blog.)

WUWT pushing climate lies (again), this time from Scott Pruitt

There is a predictability to climate science disinformers like Anthony Watts and his guest authors at WUWT. They can't keep their story straight but they can and do lie and promote lies about climate. Why they want to speed up global warming - I doubt even they know the answer to that one.

Some of them do it because they are paid to do it. Others do it for a mix of dubious motives. Money is one factor. Climate science deniers are predominately right wing extremists who worship the golden calf. They are obsessed with money. For some, greed appears to be their only motivation in life.

Yet that doesn't explain it either. Not logically. Climate change is bad for the economy, meaning that climate science deniers will find it hurts their hip pocket as much as it will hurt the fortunes of normal, rational people.

Second hottest March on record - NASA global temperature update with year to date comparison

According to GISS NASA, the average global surface temperature anomaly for March was 1.12 °C, which is 0.16 °C lower than the hottest March in 2016, making March 2017 the second hottest March in the record.

Here is a chart of the average of 12 months to March each year. The 12 months to March 2017 averaged 0.93 °C above the 1951-1980 mean and was almost identical to the 12 months to March 2016, being just 0.02 °C cooler. This makes it the second hottest April to March 12 month period on record.

Figure 1 | Global mean surface temperature anomaly for the 12 months to March each year. The base period is 1951-1980. Data source: GISS NASA

Will we tip or turn? Michael Mann vs thick-as-a-brick Eric Worrall at WUWT

Eric Worrall is one of Anthony Watts' frequent guest writers for his climate conspiracy blog wattsupwiththat (WUWT). Eric's practically taken over WUWT this past few months, with Anthony Watts all but disappearing from the scene.

Now Eric isn't all that smart when it comes to climate, which is why his only outlets are right wing nutter and conspiracy websites. He hasn't had an article published in Time, that I'm aware of.

Today Eric showed his lack of critical reading skills once again, and his lack of follow through, and his lack of morals (archived here). He was wanting to disparage one of the world's leading climate scientists, Professor Michael Mann (which is a favourite pastime of climate disinformers. Since they can't dispute the science they try to disparage the scientists.)

Paul "destroyer" Driessen from CFACT is outraged the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee isn't (yet) extinct

Source: USFWS

The anti-environment activists are impatient with Donald Trump because he hasn't yet managed to destroy all the trees and cover the USA in tar, cement and smog. Paul Driessen thinks that Donald Trump and his administration dropped the ball by not killing off the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee before it could be declared endangered - or something.

It seems that there are some people who care about this bee, which is native to north America. Some government authorities don't want to see it disappear, which is incomprehensible to Paul Driessen of CFACT.

Coral reef bleaching with world-renowned expert Terry Hughes - and a Gish Gallop from "science" quack, Jim Steele

Bleached staghorn coral
on the Great Barrier Reef
between Townsville and Cairns, March 2017,
Credit: Bette Willis, Source: JCU

Some years ago I visited the Great Barrier Reef offshore from the resort town of Port Douglas. It was a magical experience (and I think the only time I've scuba dived in the ocean). Later I had the privilege of swimming over part of the Great Barrier Reef again from the seas around the Whitsundays, staying at Airlie Beach. Apart from some snorkelling over coral reefs in a few other places, such as Bali, and doing some work with the fishing industry, I know very little about coral reefs. Any knowledge I do have is thanks to experts.

What I do know is that coral reefs are extremely critical ecosystems for maintaining marine life and protecting coastal environments, and for all sorts of human activities too, such as fishing, tourism and more.

I also know that our actions are killing many corals and even entire reefs.

Although I've written about them in the past, I'm reluctant to delve too deeply into a topic as complex and specialised as coral reefs for risk of giving wrong information. However the sort of nonsense that you read by deniers and disinformers, who seem to want to kill the reefs off as quickly as possible, has prompted me again. That plus the fact that governments in Australia (the Australian Government and the Queensland Government), a suspect coal company from India, and less prominent players are doing all they can to speed up the death of the Great Barrier Reef by giving our hard earned money, plus permits, for Adani to mine coal and wreck the reef (and use up our precious water).

On top of all that, the Great Barrier Reef is suffering another bleaching event this year, hot on the heels of the worst mass bleaching ever that happened last year.

What finally got me going was an article at WUWT by Jim Steele, in which he tried to tell his readers that the 2016 coral bleaching wasn't really widespread (it was the worst ever), and was caused by any of a whole number of different reasons he offered up, except the real cause - excessive ocean heat. Jim Steele's a global warming denier, in case you've not heard of him.

See update below, too.

Anthony Watts flubs his cherry picked photosynthesis

A new paper was published in Nature this week about the increase in global terrestrial gross primary production. Essentially it was about how there is a lot more plant mass on land than there used to be.

The paper was from a team from France, the USA and Finland, led by J. Elliott Campbell from School of Engineering, University of California, Merced. (That should have got deniers gossiping, but it didn't). I don't have a copy of the paper yet, so I won't say too much about the work itself (I'll add more if I can get a copy, if it's much different to what's written below). Update: Got it now, thanks MS and JEC.

What I can say is from the press releases, of which there are two that I'm aware of.

Lamar Smith and denier scientists were outwitted and outperformed by Michael Mann

I'll keep this short - and it's sweet :)

Anthony Watts' pet uber-conspiracy theorists both thought Michael Mann performed best at the recent committee hearing that Lamar Smith and his cronies orchestrated.

Tim Ball, who promotes the nuttiest climate conspiracy theories, wrote (emphasis mine):

My challenge to skeptics is to view the hearing as an uninformed citizen. From that perspective, I would argue that Mann was the most effective and persuasive. He was assertive, apparently provided hard evidence, had the backing of most scientists and scientific societies. He turned the minority status role the organizers gave him into the base for his victimization role. It wasn’t a debate, but he turned it into one and clearly believed, as would most uninformed observers, that he won.

Leo Goldstein (aka Ari Halperin), who is also as nutty as they come, (see here in particular) wrote (emphasis Leo's):

If it had been my first time hearing about this subject I would have concluded that the climate alarmists were right.

Good for you, Professor Mann.