This crazy climate! What do Anthony Watts and Alex Jones have in common? Prison Planet.

Some of you might think HotWhopper may on occasion go overboard reporting the lies, duplicity and straight up weirdness of deniers. That's not so. If anything, the articles here underplay the weirdness of deniersville. Some of what goes on in climate conspiracy land is not fit for publication on normal blogs.

WUWT has recently reinvigorated its crusade to libel or solicit libel of prominent climate scientists and climate hawks. In the last couple of days there have been articles about Michael Mann and Ben Santer, for example. When all else fails, disinformers turn to lying smears.

But that's not all.

WUWT is now using US conpiracy theorist Alex Jones' Prison Planet as a source!

In among all his deluded ranting about "anthropogenic global warming deception" and "false climate stories", Tim Ball regurgitated disinformation about the world-renowned scientist, Ben Santer, among other lies (cached here).

Ben Santer refers to fantasies like Tim's in an article at RealClimate.org. He said of some of the crazy articles in the press: "This was my first close encounter of the absurd kind.".

Tim Ball, being a classic paranoid conspiracy nutter, makes up stuff as a matter of pride, and wrote:

Santer did not admit the changes at the time and got his “discernible human influence” message on the world stage. According to one source, he later admitted that
“…he deleted sections of the IPCC chapter which stated that humans were not responsible for climate change.”

The link is to wildly wrong claims from, yes, Prison Planet.

WUWT and its lies - the evidence

In case you're tempted to think "maybe there's something to it" - don't! Ben Santer is of impeccable character, which is why disinformers can only resort to ugly lies when they want to defame him. Incredible that WUWT has to dredge up lies first touted more than twenty years ago.

You can read the facts at RealClimate.org. There is also a letter worth reading, with attachments. It is an open letter from the Executive Committee of the American Meteorological Society and and Trustees of UCAR, written in 1996 in response to an article filled with lies published by the Wall Street Journal. It shows that unwarranted despicable attacks on scientists and climate science are nothing new.

Conspiracy fruitcakes abound

Anthony Watts, who has on occasion claimed he accepts the reality of the greenhouse effect (not recently that I've seen), has for years promoted the disgusting, 'warped beyond all reason' conspiracy theories of Tim Ball. Tim is a greenhouse effect denier. He was the first-listed author in a book claiming the greenhouse effect isn't real. (The authors like to think of themselves as dragon-slaying heros - ha ha.)

Against all evidence, WUWT promotes the notion that CO2 cannot keep the planet liveable. Tim has called on Hitler and Osama bin Laden in support of his wacky ideas. He is a ridiculous figure, and has been subject to more than one lawsuit for his defamatory ravings.

I've sometimes wasted a few moments wondering why Anthony Watts promotes Tim's crazed ramblings when, until recently at least, Anthony clearly craved some sort of acknowledgement (if not respect) from real scientists. Is it extortion or is it just that Anthony wants to rope in delusional conspiracy nutters from across the spectrum of wacky?

I may never know the answer.

WUWT cites Prison Planet conspiracy madness

Let's get back to how WUWT is now resorting to citing Alex Jones' Prison Planet as a reference.

That's crazy, I know, but it's in keeping with the purpose of WUWT, which seems to me to be twofold:

1. to keep up the click count at WUWT. With climate science denier numbers falling, Anthony has to spread his net to encompass a wider spectrum of full-on nut cases; and 
2. as a platform for climate disinformers and nutjobs, to try to stop the world from addressing the problem of global warming so Anthony Watts can avoid paying tax.

Many of you will have never heard of Prison Planet. It's at the absurd and ugly end of the cyberspectrum which most normal people would be blissfully unaware of. It's one of Alex Jones' outlets. He's the chap who spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which nearly got lots of innocent people murdered. He's the chap who claimed the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax and the murdered toddlers were "crisis actors", prompting grieving families of murder victims to go into hiding because of attacks from Jones' dangerous fans. He's an evil person who invents and/or promotes dangerous conspiracy theories for the weak-minded.

He's like Anthony Watts on steroids.

Oops - apologies for that imagery!

Before the internet, most people would never have known how many people there are who harbour the craziest of notions. These weird individuals don't just harbour them, they seek them out and can even act on them. They used to gather in smaller groups as lynch mobs. These days we call them conspiracy nutters. They throng together in cyberspace in places like WUWT and various sites run by Alex Jones, such as Prison Planet, InfoWars and others less well-known outside of cyberweird.

Bottom line: when you have to turn to Prison Planet to support your lies and defamation, you deserve all the contempt and ridicule you get.

Unfortunately, it's a bit like Trump-reality. If another US President had done just one of the many sins and errors Trump has inflicted on the world, she or he would be gone in an instant. Because it is in the interests of enough other corrupt politicians, Trump has survived endless lies, pussy-grabbing, kidnaping children fleeing terror, kow-towing to Putin and other tyrants, starting trade wars then making taxpayers pay farmers who have lost markets, calling allies foes and enemies friends, and that's not the half of it.

My guess is WUWT will survive as long as there are enough mugs in the world who can't accept reality and need wacky conspiracy theories to grab hold of, or until Anthony Watts gives it up.