Climate science denial dismissed - Judge finds Tim Ball too wacky to be believed

Over at WUWT, Anthony Watts has gleefully announced to his climate conspiracy mob that a Canadian judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Tim Ball. What Anthony didn't (and probably won't) tell his readers, is that the judge dismissed the complaint because:

Simply put, a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the Article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views, including his views of Dr. Weaver as a supporter of conventional climate science.

Now we know that no-one who is a fan of WUWT is a "reasonably thoughtful" or "informed person". And we also know that about 99% of them won't bother reading any judgement, and most don't read DeSmogBlog (or HotWhopper) either. Still, I thought it might be useful to spread the word, thanks to Richard Littlemore - who wrote about this first.

If the argument put by the judge is extended, it means that he regards most fans of Anthony Watts' wattsupwiththat blog as unreasonable, lacking in thinking power, and distinctly uninformed. He also holds a large minority of the US population in contempt, the ones who still believe anything their authoritarian idols tell them to believe.

Another key quote was how the Judge found Tim Ball intended to harm then climate scientist Andrew Weaver:

The judge agreed, saying, first of all that Ball’s intent to injure was adequately established in the evidence:
“These allegations are directed at Dr. Weaver’s professional competence and are clearly derogatory of him. Indeed, it is quite apparent that this was Dr. Ball’s intent.”

That's why I think Andrew Weaver stands a chance if he chooses to appeal. Even though I agree with the judgement in its essence, it's also not unreasonable to argue that something like 30% of the US population might be "reasonably thoughtful" despite being wrong about climate science, and are instead merely "uninformed". (That's not the case for probably most WUWT commenters. The long term fans can only be considered as unscrupulous disinformers who deliberately spread lies, or are wilfully ignorant, because they've had ample time and means to find out the facts for themselves.)

Now will Anthony keep his promise and perhaps post the judgement (pdf) or not. Any bets?

By the way - I did predict that Tim Ball was trying for the insanity defense, back in April last year. He must be very pleased his efforts have come to this!

As an aside, sorry for being tardy in getting back to blogging. Other commitments mean articles will be a bit slow coming for a little while yet. Sorry about that. I shall return in full swing shortly.

Further reading

Is Tim Ball wanting to try the "insane" defense in his court cases, with the help of Anthony Watts? - HotWhopper article from April 2017

More about Tim Ball from HotWhopper

The spectacular failure of the 2007 climate "bet" by denier J. Scott Armstrong

Today at WUWT there's a rambling, indecipherable article about some bet that a science denier called J. Scott Armstrong unsuccessfully tried to make with Al Gore way back in 2007. It's a tale of a failed denier prediction, and worse. Having failed so spectacularly, J. Scott Armstrong is doubling down and betting on a drop of up to 4.5 °C in global temperature over the next decade.

Armstrong was wanting to bet that there'd be no change in global average surface temperatures between 2008 and 2017. He figured, wrongly, that Al Gore would bet there would be warming. Al Gore didn't take the bet. Why would he deal with a nincompoop denier like J Scott Armstrong.

Armstrong's first draft of the bet was a bit weird. The essence of it was this: