Reaction to Trump taunting "Drop Dead, World!" from @wattsupwiththat

Over at WUWT, eight of the nine most recent articles are celebrating Trump's decision to abdicate his responsibilities to people in the USA (see here). As you'll have heard, he has declared his intention to isolate the USA even further than he has already. In particular, at WUWT they are celebrating Trump declaring that he refuses to fulfil US obligations to mitigate global warming.

Let America and the world go jump, is the cry at WUWT. We live for the moment. If tomorrow we drown, starve or burn, at least we'll have shown those libtards what we think of them. We don't give a damn about people in far flung places, or the fact that the USA is responsible for more global warming to date than any other country on Earth.

(The picture shows how Trump's recklessness is viewed elsewhere in the world, by Der Spiegel. H/t Brian L Kahn.)

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.

Paul Driessen and CFACT promote climate "hoax" conspiracy theories at WUWT

Anthony Watts loves a good conspiracy theory, particularly the one about climate science being a hoax. He would probably claim that he doesn't "believe in" conspiracy theories, yet he constantly posts them on his blog.

Today it was Paul Driessen, who's employed by CFACT to lobby against environmental protection, in one of his more blatant articles (archived here). Usually he is moaning about clean air and water, wishing the USA would resurrect the smog and dirty water of decades past. Paul wrote stuff like this today:

The notion that manmade carbon dioxide now drives climate and weather – and we can predict climate and weather by looking only at plant-fertilizing CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” – is just as absurd now as before.

The quotes are a giveaway, even if you knew nothing about the subject. Putting the words "greenhouse gases" in quotes shows that Paul is a greenhouse effect denier. He doesn't believe in physics and chemistry.

Climate Hustle = "blah". The message: Attack the scientists since you can't dispute the facts

Reports from people who went to see Climate Hustle suggest it was typical Marc Morano, the 2012 climate misinformer of the year. The take-away message reported was "If the science isn’t on your side, attack the messenger". Shades of the shameful attack on Senator John Kerry by Marc Morano some years ago.

Anthony Watts gave a few half-hearted plugs to the film, saying it was a popcorn movie - well, sort of :) Judith Curry gave it faint praise, not saying much about what she thought of it, but telling readers that her daughter liked it - because it had her photo in the background. (Judith was taken with Marc Morano's charm, which I understand he can lay on thickly and easily, in the manner of other people sharing his personality traits.)

Despondent deniers: Why fake sceptics are losing and more...

There isn't a lot happening in the deniosphere. The hottest ever records and latest US opinion polls are making the climate conspiracy theorists somewhat despondent. I've pulled together a round-up of some recent articles at WUWT. It's a motley collection covering the fake sceptics war against science, denier hustlers, and weather forecasts and climate models.

WUWT's Latest Alarmism: The Climate Hoax Collapsing Civilisation Global Governance Hypothesis

Just after an article about reproducibility of psychological research, Anthony Watts has put up an article from Paul Driessen from CFACT (archived here), which is full of irreproducible nonsense. Paul is one of those people who wants to get rid of any and all environmental regulation. He won't rest until the USA brings back smog.

As you'd expect from a person whose job is to spread disinformation (Paul is employed as the "senior policy analyst" for CFACT, which I gather is code for "propaganda officer"), his article is full of falsehoods.

Anthony Watts, CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance

Anthony Watts allows his anti-science blog to be used to promote wacky conspiracy theories about climate science, One World Government, New World Order and other weird stuff. He also posts articles by CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance. These two organisations have linkages as described in an article at ThinkProgress back in 2010. There was an article at WUWT a while back in which CFACT was promoting the Cornwall Alliance.

I'm not suggesting that Anthony Watts is part of the Cornwall Alliance or CFACT. He claims to be Catholic and I doubt the Catholic Church would have a bar of the Cornwall Alliance. He is obviously sympathetic to the politics of CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance or he wouldn't be publishing their nonsense.

Paranoia runs riot at CFACT and WUWT: conspiracy nuttery doesn't describe it

On WUWT today (archived here), Paul Driessen of CFACT, has gone overboard (putting it mildly). In a very strange article he has gone full on Godwin's Law (21st Century-style), comparing people who accept science to fundamentalist militant butchers from the middle east. Paul Driessen has featured here before (eg here). Today he wrote a piece that would make Christopher Monckton green with envy.

This is the headline and opening paragraph:

Climatic Jihad?
ISIL and other Islamist jihad movements continue to round up and silence all who oppose them or refuse to convert to their extreme religious tenets. They are inspiring thousands to join them. Their intolerance, vicious tactics and growing power seem to have inspired others, as well.

Weirdly, and in a display of religious ignorance, Anthony Watts accompanied an article based on the militant group ISIS, with a cartoon showing a character wearing a Christian bishops' mitre.

Defamation tricks: "Slur and Slurp"

WUWT is one of the main disseminators of lies about scientists in the climate blogosphere. Anthony Watts has, at times, tried the defense that he doesn't read what goes up on his blog. As publisher, I doubt would hold up in court. In any case, he also is a source of some of the lies about science and scientists.

Today he provides another illustration of how climate disinformers try to cement a lie as "fact" in the minds of their readers. Anthony Watts published an article by Tim Ball (archived here). In it he tells so many lies and misrepresents so many people I reckon it could almost form the basis of a class action suit, if scientists decided to do so.

Tim Ball can't even get his lies right!

Let me add, that Tim Ball can't even keep his lies straight. His opening sentence is:

The most recent aberration of climate science is the apparent cherry picking of ocean temperature data by government scientists, Richard Feely and Christopher Sabine. 

Except the lie about Drs Feely and Sabine related to pH not temperature.

"Slur and Slurp" strategy

This article isn't about ocean acidification. It's about how climate disinformers spread lies. In particular, the use of the "slur and slurp" strategy, which is quite simple:

1. The slur: Plant the seed of the lie in enough places
2. Eventually someone will water the seed and it will grow and bear fruit
3. Sit back smugly and slurp the fruits of your sins.

Paul Driessen and CFACT want to send Americans back to the Smog Age

After an article about the Bronze Age, now Anthony Watts is touting the delights and health benefits of the smog age (archived here). Many Americans probably don't remember that golden era (dirty pink-yellow haze era?) all that well. When I was in primary school, we learnt about the smog in Los Angeles, where the topography collided with the vehicle exhausts and factory emissions and made the air downright dangerous to human health and well-being.

Anyway, Paul Driessen wants the USA to get rid of clean air regs and allow factories and cars to smother his fellow citizens in smog and pollutants. He wrote about:

...concerns about the effects the tsunami of regulations is having on the livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare of millions of American families.

Bring back SMOG - Yay!

Yep. Get rid of that tsunami of regulations. Bring back smog. 

Smog - Credit: Reuters, I think. It's all over the Internet.

What's getting him all irate now is that the EPA is looking to tighten controls to reduce ground-level ozone in the USA. He's rolled this gripe into an article about environmental regulations all up. It's Paul's job to complain about clean air. He works for CFACT, which AFAIK is an anti-environment lobby group for polluters in the USA.

So if you want unhealthy air, go over to WUWT and pledge your support for Paul Driessen and his dirty air pro-smog campaign.

Paul is complaining that the EPA is wanting to reduce the permissible ozone levels to "70 or 60 ppb", Well, this is old news. There's a paper from 2010 with the proposed changes:

The EPA is proposing to strengthen the 8-hour “primary” ozone standard, designed to protect public health, to a level within the range of 0.060-0.070 parts per million (ppm). 

In Australia, the national air quality standards restrict ozone to 0.10 ppm of ozone measured over a one hour period and 0.08 ppm of ozone measured over a four hour period, which isn't too different from what's being proposed by the US EPA. I haven't heard of anyone complaining about them. We like our clean air in Australia.

For more on ozone, here's a handy guide for you if you've got an ozone detector.

From the WUWT comments

There aren't a lot, only four so far and none worth reporting.

Evangelical Deniers: The poorest and most vulnerable and the lowest of the low @wattsupwiththat

You know how Anthony Watts on occasion has criticised other people for using photoshopped images or "fake" photos to illustrate a point, while at the same time faking images of his own. Well, he's done it again. This time pinching a photo from a company bringing cleaner energy to Africa (and South America), to argue that his readers should instead pollute "poor people" out of existence.

Compare and contrast - WUWT touting dirty energy (and religion), while using a photo about how a company helped a family in Rwanda move to cleaner cooking! (Scroll to the bottom.)

Today WUWT and CFACT (archived here) are touting support for the pseudo-religious cult, the Cornwall Alliance. (I've written about that organisation before.) The WUWT article has the headline:

Protect the poor – from climate change policies

The CFACT chap boasts that in seven years, the Cornwall Alliance has managed to attract a 150 people, stating that: "More than 150 have already signed the declaration." and urges WUWT readers to "Sign the declaration" of the Cornwall Alliance.

If you look back at the WayBack Machine, what that means is that 1350 people must have retracted their signature sometime since 22 September 2008! What's surprising is that this bunch of cranks got "1,500 individuals" to sign it in the first place. I'm not so surprised that 150 of them stuck it out. There will always be cranks and charlatans in the world. [Correction: KR has pointed out that this hypocritical cult is promoting a new document, pretending to care about poor people while promoting fossil fuel industry interests. Sou. 27 September 2014]

Ignoble cause: Anthony Watts tells a lie to stoke conspiracy theories - or justify his lies?

Anthony Watts is over the moon.  He's been told there's a paper that says it's okay for him and other science deniers to keep lying about climate.  Of course that's not the tack that Anthony is taking.  (Archived here.)

Irony: manipulating information to stoke a conspiracy theory

In an irony heaped on an irony, Anthony Watts is lying and exaggerating about a research paper on exaggeration and information manipulation - to stoke the conspiracy theory that climate science is a hoax.  The other irony is that the research is based on a model.  Deniers usually reject outright any finding that's based on a model.

What Anthony and organised disinformers are feigning is shock and horror.  Anthony gives credit to the disinformation lobby group CFACT, for drawing his attention to a paper that says it's okay to exaggerate global warming.  Even though that's not what the paper is saying, going by the abstract.

Still, Anthony Watts and his fellow disinformers must be feeling all warm and fuzzy, saying to themselves that all their lies (including the current one about this very paper) are quite alright, because a paper that (doesn't) say it's okay to lie is (not) saying to the academic world that it's okay to lie.

Are you following all that? No?  it's just another example of how climate disinformers twist the facts to support their agenda of - bring on global warming.  Here is the abstract of the paper and its title:

Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements
It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.

Compare what Anthony writes...

Climate Craziness of the Week: Peer reviewed paper says it’s OK to manipulate data, exaggerate climate claims

Noble cause corruption gone wild. People tend to think of scientists as being unbiased, in climate science, apparently if you aren’t biased, you aren’t doing useful work.

...with what the abstract states:

news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate

See how Anthony Watts goes beyond accentuation and exaggeration to fabrication through innuendo!  He's spinning that this is about bias of climate scientists.  It's not.  He talks about noble cause corruption.  Anthony is a despicable "champion" of ignoble causes, who spreads his disinformation arguably for money (his tip jar, his plea for his readers to pay his (free) "entry" to AGU etc etc)


Oh, in his next paragraph lying Anthony Watts writes:

A new peer-reviewed paper published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, titled “Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements”, is openly advocating that global warming proponents engage in mendacious claims in order to further their cause.

The paper itself is reporting research on whether exaggerations in news reporting and environmental activism makes a difference to participation by countries in international environmental agreements and if so to what extent.  It found that ex post suggests yes, while ex ante is ambiguous.  The research is based on a model, which seems to have passed by WUWT-ers.  (Normally deniers poo poo any research based on a model, but not in this case.)


PS. Here's another paper by one of the authors, for people interested in the general subject of the economics and politics of international environmental agreements (downloadable).

From the WUWT comments

Climate disinformer Anthony Watts has told a big fat lie.  As usual he implies that climate scientists are the culprits.  The abstract says nothing about climate scientists.  It is talking about news media and "some pro-environmental organizations".  And it doesn't give the "permission" or "advocate" anything.  It certainly doesn't advocate that Anthony Watts and other deniers and disinformers lie.  But that's what Anthony does to supplement his income and push his cause.  And a prime example is this very article (archived here).

The conspiracy wingnuts come out in force

leon0112 has jumped right through Anthony Watts hoop to the wrong conclusion that climate scientists are lying and says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:18 am
Wow. Next time someone throws the phrase “peer reviewed literature” at me, I will point to this one.

Dire Wolf says "it's all a conspiracy":

April 4, 2014 at 8:30 am
Let’s parse this. A paper from China (which will never, ever restrict its CO2 output) says that it is good to manipulate the media (that is the media outside of China) to “[induce] more countries to participate in an IEA” which will cripple the industries of those countries leaving China untouched and unrivaled. So, how much is the chinese equivalent of the KGB paying them?

jauntycyclist is an easy mark for Anthony's spin and says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:34 am
manipulation is so common , entrenched, accepted and expected in climate science it has its own study? maybe it should become a subject with its own faculty that rates climate papers on a beerosphere-o-meter?

Peter Hanely is another willing conspiracy theorist says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:36 am
“Its ok to lie to people for their own good.” Typical left wingnut rationalization.

cnxtim goes even further and says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:37 am
These CAGW devotees have made criminal behavior a science

mpainter seems to think the finding should have been kept under wraps and says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:48 am
It is well that such a paper publicly says what many privately believe.Such extremism will be the undoing of the movement. Staggering that it was published in such a journal. What rot.

Barry Cullen says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:51 am
This from the little despots in training in leadership positions descended from despot Mao and friends. Not surprising. Anything to gain and maintain control over a populace is acceptable.
The “peer” reviewers must, by definition, share similar political views.

Col Mosby says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:53 am
Thru this published paper, we have acheved total corruption of a scientific discipline. I wonder if these two brainless authors realize the contradiction implicit in their argument : Claim that something not dangerous is dangerous, to induce folks to take actions to prevent this (non-dangerous) something. 

markstoval decides this paper confirms his conspiracy theory that climate science is a hoax and says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:53 am
“Peer reviewed paper says it’s OK to manipulate data, exaggerate climate claims”
It is good to see the climate “scientists” admit they have been doing this since they have been doing it for at least 30 years. It is good for them to tell us that their “science” is all fiction. We knew it all along, but it is damn nice to get peer-reviewed conformation on that issue.
Modern “climate science” is pure baloney.

chinook reminds me of the utter nutters at HotCopper when s/he says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:54 am
They’re just following the now fashionable Post Modern Scientific Method that’s become pervasive, esp in America. In order for the ersatz religion of ‘environmentalism’ and climatchondria to spread far and wide like the plagues of mentally impaired rationalizing that they are, anything goes. Possibly, real scientists who believe in the scientific method, the honest ones who leave advocacy, politics and dogma out of their work will slowly turn the tide back.

tgasloli says:

April 4, 2014 at 9:18 am
What would you expect from Chinese Communists? This is why the “greens” should be considered “watermelons”. 

Some WUWT-ers are more astute and aren't buying Anthony's spin

Anthony had better watch it. Not all of his readers are buying his spin.

Bloke down the pub says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:26 am
Are they advocating it or just saying ‘hey man, sh*t happens’

AnonyMoose says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:48 am
They’re saying that exaggeration happens, and they’re not judging whether it is wrong, but the distorted information can increase participation in environmental agreements, and that end result is always good. They seem to be assuming that environmental agreements always have good results for the general welfare, and anything which enhances the general welfare is good. (Are “general welfare” and “enhance” defined?)

Mark 543 says:

April 4, 2014 at 8:57 am
You have misread the paper, or have not read it. By “rationale” they mean a rational explanation for the observed phenomena, not a moral justification for the behavior. The paper goes on to say “However, because people update their beliefs using the Bayesian rule, such information manipulation has a negative externality on the other state when climate damage is really huge, in which case the aforementioned information provider will not be sufficiently trusted even if it indicates the true state.” In other words, crying wolf leads to greater skepticism.

The paper also makes serious claims about errors in Al Gore’s film and an earlier IPCC report.

Aphan says:

April 4, 2014 at 9:16 am
Hang on a moment, I hate it when the AGW crowd says something about a paper that the paper itself doesnt actually say. We also wouldn’t to be guilty of “exaggerating” the claims in this paper would we?

The “article” (as opposed to a study) as represented above does NOT say anything about scientists manipulating data or using corrupt methods in scientific studies. It speaks to how the MEDIA and environmental groups manipulate and exaggerate “the damage done by climate change” to further their agendas.

Those are two very different things and I think we on the sceptical side of things need to be just as careful with how accurately we reflect the conclusions of papers we dont agree with as we are the ones we do.

Conspiracy theorists vs sceptical readers

There are many more comments archived here, which can largely be split into two types as above:

• the conspiracy theorising deniers - of whom Anthony Watts is one in this instance, and
• the sceptical deniers - and there are a small number who aren't taken in by Anthony's spin.

---

Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao, "Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements", Am. J. Agr. Econ. (2014); doi: 10.1093/ajae/aau001


There's another paper here that you might be interested in:

Hong, Fuhai, and Larry Karp. "International environmental agreements with mixed strategies and investment." Journal of Public Economics 96, no. 9 (2012): 685-697.

Is Judith Curry arguing for political constraints on climate science?

Anthony Watts blog at WUWT is tending to the really boring nutty right now so I popped over to see what was happening at Judith Curry's blog.  She's decided to go all out in favour of politicians putting limitations on scientific research.  Apparently , Nebraskan lawmakers are wanting scientists to prepare a report on "cyclical climate change" but telling them they are not allowed to consider any human influences on climate.  Judith finds it "strange" that any scientist would object to such limitations. (Archived here.)

Here is the advert for the study:

The advertisement looks innocuous, but apparently some lawmakers in Nebraska won't permit the scientists to take into account any human factors.  In other words they are putting political limitations on science.

Here is a report about the farce in a local news service:

The request says researchers “should consider 'cyclical climate change' to mean a change in the state of climate due to natural internal processes and only natural external forcings such as volcanic eruptions and solar variations.”

The use of the term “natural” would rule out the primary cause of the climate changes that have occurred in the last half-century: humans.

The issue of “cyclical” climate change was successfully amended into Haar's bill by Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, a Republican candidate for governor.

McCoy on Tuesday elaborated on his opposition to using state tax dollars to study man-made climate change: Humans aren't capable of influencing climate patterns.

CFACT bought into the issue, writing (archived here)

A few weeks ago, Nebraska lawmakers called for a wide-ranging study of “cyclical” climate change. Funded by the state, the $44,000 effort was to be limited to natural causes – not additional speculation about manmade effects. Amazingly, University of Nebraska scientists are not just refusing to participate in the study, unless it includes human influences. One climatologist at the university’s National Drought Mitigation Center actually said he would not be comfortable circulating a study proposal or asking other scientists to participate in it; in fact, he “would not send it out” to anyone. The director of the High Plains Climate Center sniffed, “If it’s only natural causes, we would not be interested.”

Their dismissive stance seems mystifying – until one examines climate change politics and financing.

CFACT went further, writing this nonsense:

None of these Nebraska scientists seems reluctant to accept far larger sums for “research” that focuses solely on human causes; nor do professors at Penn bearprotestsState, Virginia, George Mason, or other academic or research institutions. They’re likewise not shy about connecting “dangerous manmade global warming” to dwindling frog populations, shrinking Italian pasta supplies, clownfish getting lost, cockroaches migrating, and scores of other remote to ridiculous assertions – if the claims bring in research grants.

As if scientists determine the results of their research before they do it. CFACT isn't interested in facts.  They prefer to make stuff up as long as it's congruent with their aim of trashing the natural environment as fast as their little legs can carry them.

The Texas State Climatologist and Professor of Meteorology at Texas A&M University, John Nielsen-Gammon has written about it in the Houston Chronicle. What John is saying is that one of the scientists who refused to bid for the funds studies drought.  He is an expert in drought. Just drought.  Not drought from only natural causes or drought from only human causes, just drought. Period.  He wrote:

Knowing who these Nebraska scientists actually are, this [CFACT] article is simply sickening.  It goes on like this for a while, bringing up Galileo, Einstein, Stalin, and Lysenko, and concludes:

“Nebraskan (and other) researchers must end their hide-bound focus on human causes – and start working to understand all the complex, interrelated factors behind global climate changes and cycles. Government financiers and policy makers must do likewise. Our future well-being depends on it.”

Hey, CFACT, I have news for you: we climate scientists, at Nebraska and elsewhere, are already doing this.  We refuse to be told by politicians to restrict the scope of our scientific investigations.  Some of us feel so strongly about this that we are willing to pass up grant money that comes with politically-motivated restrictions.  And we’re willing to do this even at the possible cost of having our reputations dragged through the mud by the likes of you.

Because, despite our best efforts, some of us get used as political pawns anyway.

By the way, in a footnote, CFACT notes that the same authors will “discuss harassment of CAGW skeptics in a future article”.  Hypocrites.

 Judith says John's explanation doesn't "make sense" to her.  Apparently in Judith's world it is okay to put political constraints on the factors that academics can take into account when doing scientific research.  She lives in a strange little world.

What Judith is arguing for is that climate scientists should accept a requirement that they refuse to consider any factors that are associated with all the added greenhouse gases in the air.

Yep.  Judith Curry is advocating politically constrainted "science" if there is any such thing. How could scientists possibly study something if they are not allowed to consider all possible factors?  How could scientists study any weather change without acknowledging that the extra greenhouse gases are affecting climate and weather? Whatever results they came up with would have to be wrong from the start.  They wouldn't be able to use any climate models that included the current level of greenhouse gases, nor allowed for the growth of greenhouse gases.

Judith has put her hand up for the money.  Not only that, she's offered to do a study where she has already decided the results, writing (my bold italics):

JC message to Nebraska lawmakers:  I understand why you want to better understand and predict the natural variability of drought in Nebraska, such as seen in Figure 1 above.  I have been studying climate variability in the high plains, specifically temperature and winds, for a DOE funded study on predicting wind power variability.  For $44K, I would be happy to extend our study to include precipitation and drought, interpreting Nebraska climate variability in context of the stadium wave and including probabilistic projections of extremes for the next two decades. And I am sure that there are other researchers outside the state of Nebraska who would be willing to address this topic also.

Is Judith claiming that Nebraska droughts are caused by her stadium wave?  AFAIK she hasn't even said what causes her so-called stadium wave.   All she's done is say "here's a pattern we think we've found".

It gets worse, with a logic fail from Judith.  In the comments she writes:

curryja | November 29, 2013 at 11:38 am | Reply
Can you look at Figure 1 and deny that there is natural variability? 

I've added the following comment (Sou 5:14 pm 1 Dec 13):

curryja | November 29, 2013 at 3:30 pm | Reply
Hi Don I agree. I am tweeting with Gavin about this, the main objection seems to be their refusal to consider AGW. Well AGW seems to be getting a lot of consideration, whereas natural internal variability seems to be the main driver on the time scales of interest, and is getting insufficient consideration. So political posturing on both sides; you expect this from politicians but not from scientists.

Since when did it become "political posturing" to be able to do science free from political constraints? (It's science deniers who keep bringing up Lysenko conspiracy theories trying to claim that AGW is a Lysenko plot!  Judith is arguing that a research project that takes into account all possible factors, regardless of whether they are natural or anthropogenic is "political posturing".) (Edited re later comment from Judith. Sou 5:14 pm 1 Dec 13)

The point is not whether there is "natural variability".  The point is that no politician should be putting these sort of constraints on scientific research.  It would be like handing out grant money to study the common cold and telling researchers that they are not to consider any viral causation.  Natural variability is taking place in a world heated up by global warming.  There is no pure natural variability any more.  All weather is influenced by the added greenhouse gases.

You can't just remove greenhouse warming from the equation and say - oh look, this is what the weather would be like without greenhouse gases.  That would be of no value to Nebraskans.  The farmers there want to know what to expect in the future.  What is realistic.  Not what would have been expected if we hadn't been adding greenhouse gases to the air.

A responsible scientist would not be able to do the research in good faith.  But Judith Curry would.

If Judith doesn't win the tender, maybe Anthony Watts will find a use for their money.  He could do a review of weather stations in Nebraska and conclude that even if they get more droughts it will be okay, it won't get too hot.  Any extra heat associated with drought can be put down to "Nebraskan UHI disease".

What is it with science denying organisations wheeling out ageing astronauts to make fools of themselves in public?

Poor old Walt Cunningham, an astronaut who studied physics, was wheeled out by CFACT to give a talk to a stunned audience - umm, I mean a DuKE** of deniers -  at a pseudo-science conference in Warsaw.  Anthony Watts put up a video of his talks at WUWT (archived here).  Not everyone was impressed enough to pay attention.

Audience of DuKEs at CFACT, Warsaw
Source: WUWT

Walt and the history of human evolution

One of Walt's first claims was how humans have adapted to "continuous climate change".

Now our whole planet may appear kind of fragile from space but it is really plain, ah, how well humans have adapted to the continuous climate change over the last million years.

Homo erectus (Wikipedia)

Ha ha.  Not just continuous climate change but humans over the last million years?  Lets see now.

A million years ago there was Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis.  I don't see too many of them prowling around today.  Do you?

There aren't too many Homo sapiens neanderthalensis who survived to tell the tale either.  And they weren't even around a million years ago.

If Walt is referring to modern humans, then he is about 800,000 years out of sync.

On the other hand, if he is referring to recent thinking that climate change spawned modern humans, maybe he is thinking outside the square and predicting that with this new climate, a new species of Homo is just around the evolutionary corner.

Not here to argue the scientific case against human-caused global warming?

Early on Walt reckons he's not going to argue the science.

I'm not here to argue the scientific case against human-caused global warming, or anthropogenic warming, or AGW, or climate change or climate disruption or whatever is the current phrase that are being used by the alarmists to claim human-caused global warming. 

And immediately launched into his reasons for rejecting science - it's all about the money:

Now these are all code words for governmental control of energy consumption and consequently our standard of living. ...

...While scientists are best qualified to deal with the scientific and academic aspects of this question, we all of us here have to deal with the financial consequences of any actions taken based on bad science. And today's war on global warming is a fight to avoid the economic destruction of our society and the lowering of our standard of living.

Walt doesn't like being labeled a science denier or a fake expert saying:

Those of us who are sceptical of the alarmist claims are characterised as climate deniers or fake experts or against climate change. When everyone I know believes in climate change. Climate has been changing.

But in almost every sentence he utters he labels climate scientists as "alarmists".

Then, after saying he wasn't going to discuss the science, Walt starts putting up all the silly WUWT charts that people like denier Don Easterbrook uses and starts chanting the denialist mantras like "climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years" and "correlation does not mean causation".  I don't think he even once mentioned the words "greenhouse gas" or "greenhouse effect" though I admit I didn't watch it all the way through.  Maybe he hasn't heard of the terms.

Boring, boring...

Just another climate denier.

Here are Walt's conclusions - as if you couldn't guess.  Denial plus:

His final words were "Now it's up to you to come up with your own answers".  I don't agree.  If it were just up to us to come up with whatever answers that suited us we'd never learn anything.  Answers have to be grounded in evidence and fit with physics, chemistry and biology.  Just because you are anxious about your hip pocket is no reason to reject 200 years of science.

It's all a bit sad really.  Walt Cunningham reduced to being wheeled out sputtering science denial nonsense for a "destroy the environment" lobby group like CFACT.

Mother Jones had an article about Walt Cunningham a few months back:- Climate Denier at CPAC: Trust Me, I'm an Astronaut.  From reading that article it looks as if it was exactly the same speech as he gave at CFACT's talk in Warsaw.

From the WUWT comments

The comments are a mix of adoration of the astronaut and moaning that less than 3% of of the thousands of scientists who study the earth system share his opinions.  (I wonder why that could be - not!) (Archived here.)

Resourceguy wonders where all the science denying physicists have got to and says:

November 25, 2013 at 8:57 am
We need a lot more efforts like this. Where are the physicists? Surely Feynman would have stepped up to counter the junk science in proportion to the need for defense of the scientific method. Is everyone else hiding in fear with their grants?

lurker, passing through laughing says his voice is worth listening to (pity about the sounds he makes):

November 25, 2013 at 8:57 am
He is a truly interesting man, and has accomplished what the vast majority can only dream of. His credible and reasoned voice is one worth listening to.

omnologos thinks Walt is heroic for rejecting science for ideological reasons and says:

November 25, 2013 at 9:13 am
It’s got to have something to do with Cunningham’s lack of fear of alienating the NASA bosses during Apollo 7, something that costed him the Moon.

philjourdan points out that even though he rejects two centuries of climate science, at least he doesn't think NASA faked the moon landing and says:

November 25, 2013 at 9:23 am
And he denies the moon landings? I guess in Lewandowsky’s mind he does.

Ed_B is astonished to find that ice cores prove climate science.  Oops, I'm wrong there - deluded Ed_B thinks they prove the opposite and says (excerpt):

November 25, 2013 at 9:47 am
I am in agreement with his presentation. I would add that I was persuaded back in the 1980s by the early “science”, where the rise in CO2 was asserted to be causing a rise in temperature(A Scientific American article). I never checked the data myself until nearly 20 years later after someone challenged me.(I trusted “scientists” to keep me informed) I was astonished to find that I had never heard that the more accurate ice core analysis had disproved that early assertion. Why not? Ditto the missing hot spot, and ditto on the nearly identical temperature swings back over the last 100 years.

Leonard Weinstein notes that there are a few retired astronauts who can't accept climate science and says:

November 25, 2013 at 9:59 am
It is not just Cunningham, Harrison Schmitt and Buzz Aldrin, among many others, are also skeptics.

Like I said.  It's sad more than anything.  And someone at WUWT agrees. Simon says:

November 25, 2013 at 11:09 am

J. Swift says…”Courage, rationality and intelligence are rare commodities. Walter Cunningham has an abundance of all three plus a clear eye and a sharp mind. He’s the kind of man politicians fear and loathe and avoid debating at all cost.”

Sorry but I see a very different man here. I clearly don’t have the same sense of patriotism as do the US readers. I just see a sad old man fumbling around reciting hackneyed old sayings.

---

Shultz, Susanne, and Mark Maslin. "Early Human Speciation, Brain Expansion and Dispersal Influenced by African Climate Pulses." PloS one 8.10 (2013): e76750.

---

**DuKE - a collective noun eg A DuKE of deniers TM Lotharsson.

How's that Polish exaggeration going, Anthony Watts?

After numerous posts complaining about "exaggeration" of one of the most powerful storms in recent times and maybe even the fiercest storm on landfall on record, Anthony Watts of the fake sceptic blog WUWT has decided to take a short break from downplaying weather disasters and do some exaggerating instead (archived here).

Anthony Watts posted this headline:

50,000 at rally against climate agenda in Poland

Not Welcome: UN climate summit in Poland greeted by 50,000 angry Poles rallying against UN

50,000 people rallying against a climate agenda?  In Poland? Well, that doesn't sound too plausible.  If there were 50,000 angry Poles they weren't "rallying against the UN". The rally had nothing to do with the UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw.  No, it was a rally celebrating Independence Day.

Anthony, on the other hand, decides to spin it differently.  He pretends that the crowd was there to listen to some goon from CFACT, who was invited to speak on one of the right wing platforms.  Anthony posted a CFACT video with lots of dubbed music to hide the fact that no-one was taking any notice of what the CFACT bloke was saying.

Do you want to know what the CFACT man said?  Below is the entire speech I transcribed from the video, and picked out some key words:-

We in America watched as brave Polish workers took to the streets to demand political and economic freedom. Today on my first visit to your wonderful country I am proud to stand with you in a new battle for freedom against those who would use environmental and climate alarmism to steal away our liberties and to give international bureaucrats control over our energy sources, our daily lives, our prosperity and our national sovereignty. Last year the head of the UN climate conference said that the goal of the United Nations was a complete economic transformation of the world. That is what they desire. But that is not good news for those of us who love freedom. And it is not good new for the people of Poland. The Old Testament Book of Proverbs it says that the wicked flee they run away.  The wicked run away. Even when no-one is chasing them. But the righteous good people they are bold as a lion. The environmentalists and the bureaucrats they don't want to debate these issues. Because they know they are deceiving the world. There hasn't been any global warming in more than 15 years and this is simply an excuse for more government oppression. But thankfully you and I are not deceived. We stand for freedom. We stand for opportunity. We stand for our families. And we stand for a strong and prosperous future. Together let us be bold as a lion. Thank you for the privilege of speaking here today. And may god bless Poland.

Eloquent?  Nope.  Make sense? Nope.  Lots of conspiracy ideation and god-fearing nonsense? Yep.

Angry Poles

When Anthony wrote there were 50,000 angry Poles he was exaggerating.  There may have been 50,000 people but they weren't all "angry".  From the reports the rally did attract some extremist groups who could be described as angry (but very few of the crowd was involved in the violence).  If the louts weren't angry they were acting like it.  The violence made headlines around the world from Germany to Wall Street New York and Russia.  The latter because the mob attacked the Russian Embassy in Warsaw.

Maybe some of the violent mob listened to the CFACT rabble rouser and thought they'd pretend to be lions battling for freedom, prosperity and national sovereignty.  Though it's much more likely that nobody gave a damn about this weird American who spoke about proverbs and righteous wicked people who want to take over the world and flee - or whatever he was going on about.

Hey, wait a minute Anthony!

In a rare display of scepticism, some WUWT-ers called for Anthony to change his headline to reflect the real story.  Anthony changed the headline but he couldn't manage to go quite as far as his fans requested.  He changed it from this:

50,000 at rally against climate agenda in Poland

Not Welcome: UN climate summit in Poland greeted by 50,000 angry Poles rallying against UN

to this:

50,000 attend rally with speech against climate agenda in Poland

Not Welcome: UN climate summit in Poland greeted by 50,000 angry Poles rallying against UN

See much difference in meaning? No, neither do I.  But that's as far as Anthony would go.  He only went that far because his loyal fake sceptics decided to be sceptical for a change.

Some WUWT regulars don't buy Anthony's spin...

omnologos is the first to query Anthony and says:

November 12, 2013 at 3:39 pm
Do we have independent verification for this? Where the people out there for something else, to which somebody attached climate skepticism, a topic maybe of minimal interest to the mass of people in the square?

I am afraid we need to be more skeptical about this kind of claims than any of Gore’s or Romm’s.

saltspringson says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:16 pm
I hate to be a wet rag, but I didn’t see many people in the audience clapping, let alone cheering…Great that the message is getting out, but I don’t know how much of it actually soaked in….

pokerguy says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:25 pm
Yes, they barely seemed to know what was being said. Most of them looked puzzled.

J. Fujita doesn't buy it either and says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:29 pm
I am truly in line with the aim of CFACT but I have to agree with omnologos in his earlier post – I, too, am puzzled by the seemingly unenthusiastic response to Rothbard’s speech. Is that typical of the Poles, or were they restrained by the presence of police due to previous acts of random violence at gatherings? Or were they there primarily to celebrate their National Independence Day? I’m just looking for accuracy here. The exaggerations often put out by warmists only hurt their claims of support of the masses; I wouldn’t want to be found to be in the same boat as they.

omnologos suggests a better heading for Anthony's article:

November 12, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Perhaps the title of the post should change to “50,000-strong rally hear speech about the UN’s dangerous and oppressive climate agenda”

Bill Parsons reckons the people at the rally didn't exactly warm to the CFACT goon and says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:40 pm
Bravely done by CFACT president David Rothbard. I say this because he’s speaking to a crowd clearly not very receptive. The chilly response doesn’t jibe with the headline and sub-head for this post. Scattered applause is covered by the overdubbed Polish national anthem.

Madman2001 isn't convinced and says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:44 pm
I agree that the title is misleading. A better title might be “50,000 Poles rally for independence, hear impassioned CFACT speech against UN climate agenda”

Leo Morgan says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:50 pm
Anthony, please edit the headline for accuracy. That sort of misleading spin is a significant reason why the alarmists are losing credibility- lets not do the same thing to climate realism!

The story says the facts are that 50,000 Poles who gathered in downtown Warsaw on Monday to celebrate National Independence Day were addressed about Climate. That’s a very different thing from the headline.

REPLY: Sure no problem…was a quick posting -A

Mike Bromley the Kurd says:

November 12, 2013 at 7:27 pm
I’m with omnologos on the impression that this article gives. As much as I’d love there to be a popular uprising against the COP’s and their agenda, this wasn’t it.

Jeef says:

November 12, 2013 at 8:47 pm
There’s more hype here than in the 10.,000 philippine typhoon deaths. Sorry. I don’t buy it.

David, UK says - "oh dear":

November 13, 2013 at 12:36 am
Oh dear. Barely a reaction from the crowd at all, except a look that says “meh.”

Other WUWT-ers go 'rah 'rah - let's destroy the planet!

milodonharlani says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Yesterday Australia! Today Poland! Tomorrow the world!
¡Ojalá!

High Treason says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:47 pm
This is great news. Of course, the most important thing is that it gets picked up by mainstream media. May there be more such rallies in Poland to expose the UN.

Zeke writes from the conspiracy theory play book and says:

November 12, 2013 at 5:06 pm
CFACT is the only website I know of that provided the draft text of the document agreement from Rio +20. And we learn from CFACT that they were not allowed access to the final draft.

You all will remember Rio+20, the international meeting attended by Hilary Clinton and Lisa Jackson, the unelected, unaccountable ex-head of the unelected, unaccountable EPA. What was she doing at an international meeting? She has no authority to agree with international leaders on domestic energy generation and use issues.

Zeke thinks that an unelected politically-motivated group that lobbies against environmental protection should have more influence than the US Secretary of State and the Head of the US Agency responsible for environmental protection?  At a major international conference on sustainable development?  Really?


Does Eric Worrall really think violence is okay if you don't like the representatives elected by a majority vote?  He says:

November 12, 2013 at 5:30 pm
JMurphy, when people can no longer vote their politicians out of office, they turn to violence.

Mark Urbo says:

November 12, 2013 at 6:39 pm
Love the Polish people !!! Kick these eco-freak “green” whack-a-doos of the CAGW agenda driven cult religion off the planet.

Janice Moore says, ahem...wait for it, put down your cup of coffee - the science giants of WUWT - ha ha ha ha he he he guffaw:

November 12, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Dedicated to All the Heroes of Truth in Science –
Carter, Salby, Soon, Watts, … and all the Science Giants of WUWT:

Bruce Cobb trots out all the right buzz words (pun intended) and says:

November 12, 2013 at 4:02 pm
The UN climate agenda is a giant, freedom-killing, economy-trashing machine waging war against all of humanity. We must rage, rage against the machine.

John Lord says:

November 12, 2013 at 3:51 pm
Great news! Having had to stomach 40 years of socialist propaganda, they can easily spot something similar coming down the track. Green is the new red!

More comments are archived here if you aren't already bored out of your brain...