Denier weirdness: Heartland Institute deniers don't want their disinformation questioned

You know how deniers are always going on about free speech. What they mean is that sometimes when they protest climate science they get rebuffed with sciency facts. I've already commented on the fact that Mark Steyn, that champion of "free speech" (or his version of it) doesn't allow comments on his blog. Now it seems that the Heartland Institute has decided that their public denier fest is not going to be public after all - although I'm guessing they will still be streaming the event to anyone who won't be bored senseless by it. (The only people who'll like it will be the already senseless.)

Kyla Mandel from DeSmogBlog reported on Twitter that the Heartland Institute has just kicked out one third of the women who rolled up to attend their denier fest at COP21, which has just begun - that is, Kyla Mandel, I'm guessing:

The formerly open to the public Heartland climate denial conference just cut number of women present by a third pic.twitter.com/8uUZzRDcyu

— Kyla Mandel (@kylamandel) December 7, 2015

Anthony Watts sinks to another vile low: Jim Jones' suicide cult and climate science

With only a couple of days to go until the Paris COP21 talks begin, science deniers are falling apart. Yesterday I wrote how Judith Curry stooped to tabloid writer David Rose as a pulpit for her brand of "no mitigation" advocacy and disinformation. (She is so anxious that her message is falling on deaf ears that she put out a plea to "Be sure to link to the article" and commented "I hope that as a result of this article, i will get a few more twitter followers and followers of Climate Etc.".)

Today Anthony Watts did a Heartland Institute. He posted an article at his blog, WUWT, likening people who accept climate science to Jim Jones and his suicide cult. His latest article proclaims (archived here):

Similarities to Jim Jones and the Cult of Climate Change

"...The apocalypse of an alleged climate change shares many of Jones’ cult-like qualities."

[Update: See the update below relating to plagiarism in the WUWT article.]

Free speech advocates make a fresh start by banning free speech

There's some sort of denier shindig going on in Washington, I've heard. WUWT is quiet, probably because Anthony Watts is away receiving his "dumbest fake sceptic of the year" award. (He's already been exercising what he thinks is his right to defame.) No-one can say much about this fresh start for fake sceptics, because the organisers have decided to ban some of the media.

What's clear is that The Heartland Institute has made a "fresh start" for "free speech". What that means is that these champions of free speech are going to preserve their right to make up whatever they like and say it to anyone dumb enough to listen, while making sure there is no-one around to disagree with them.

Seriously. You couldn't make it up.

(Kyla Mandel at DeSmog UK has the details. Check the headline, and the link at the bottom of the page.)

Maybe the Heartland Institute is going to adopt Free Speech HotCopper-style:

We fully endorse unfettered free speech (which is the right of every full-blooded proudly conservative white male, especially those over 50), and will do our best to suppress all stray bleeding heart liberals and feminazis who invade our space, so that you can exercise your right to free speech without fear of contradiction.

Pope Francis and Jeffrey D. Sachs get the Heartland Institute into a sulk about climate, at WUWT

Jeffrey D. Sachs has written an opinion piece: "Climate Change and the Catholic Church", directed at people in the USA. In a well-written article, he targets the political and other vested interests that are working against any and all action to mitigate climate change.  He frames climate change as both a moral and a scientific issue, which it is. His article starts with:

Pope Francis is calling on the world to take action against global warming, and many conservatives in the United States are up in arms. The pope should stick to morality, they say, and not venture into science. But, as the climate debate unfolds this year, most of humanity will find Francis’s message compelling: we need both science and morality to reduce the risk to our planet.

He goes on to cite research that I've mentioned here briefly, writing:

In a survey of Americans conducted in January 2015, an overwhelming majority of respondents (78%) said that, “if nothing is done to reduce global warming,” the future consequences for the US would be “somewhat serious” or “very serious.” Roughly the same proportion (74%) said that if nothing is done to reduce global warming, future generations would be hurt “a moderate amount,” “a lot,” or “a great deal.” Perhaps most tellingly, 66% said that they would be “more likely” to support a candidate who says that climate change is happening and who calls for a shift to renewable energy, while 12% would be “less likely” to support such a candidate.

The Heartland Institute is in a sulk

At one stage Dr Sachs mentions the Heartland Institute and its funded opposition to addressing the problem of global warming.

This year the Heartland Institute climate science denier fest is in Washington DC

This year the Heartland Institute's Annual Denier Fest is to be held in Washington DC. Going by Anthony Watts' headline, a lot of fake experts and climate misinformers will be presenting (archived here). All are welcome, particularly white men over 75 years of age who reject climate science, haven't been near a University science faculty in fifty years or don't know what a University science faculty is, and think that any and all climate science is a hoax.

What the Heartland Institute won't tell you

The Heartland Institute tells you what you want to hear, if you are a science denier. It won't tell you what is happening to our climates. That would be a step far too far for an extremist right wing lobby group in the USA. Instead, the Heartland Institute promises to feed you lies and half truths, from panels of fake experts, professional disinformers and anti-science bloggers.

Here is some of what the fakers from the Heartland Institute won't tell you:

Denier Weirdness: A mock delegation from the Heartland Institute and a fake enquiry from the GWPF

The GWPF and the Heartland Institute are struggling to find a way to undermine The 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC to be held in Paris later this year. (The GWPF is the main climate science denier lobby group in the UK, and the Heartland Institute is part of a network of denier lobby groups in the USA.)

The Mock Delegation from the Heartland Institute

The Heartland Institute claimed it was sending a delegation to the Vatican to persuade the Pope to become a climate science denier. Turns out they were just sending a bunch of deniers to hold a meeting in the Columbus Hotel in Rome, from which the "delegates" could get a view of St. Peter's Basilica, if they got a room with a view, but without any guarantee of a session with Pope Francis. There was no indication they'd tried to get an audience with the Pope - private or public.

The Heartland Institute website didn't even say who it was sending. When I clicked on the link for details, all I got was this "page not found".

The Fake Enquiry by the GWPF

The denier lobby group in the UK has taken a different tack to try to undermine the Paris talks. It has decided to set up a review into temperature records. It doesn't want to "believe" that ice is melting, that oceans are warming, that surface temperatures are going up and that climate change is happening. It also knows precious little about surface temperature, going by the terms of its review. And it doesn't care to, going by the people it has appointed to run its investigation.

Coincidentally at the same time another group has announced a review of the methods to remove non-climatic changes from temperature data, by the Task Team on Homogenization (TT-HOM) of the Commission for Climatology (CCl) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That review is headed by Dr Victor Venema. The terms of reference and membership are listed further down.

Compare the terms of reference of the GWPF review with that of the Task Team on Homogenization. The former is nothing but a political stunt by a denier lobby group, to try to get people to doubt that climate change is happening. The latter is aimed at improving the global temperature records.

Roy Spencer PhD and Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham on defying laws

Deniers are making hay while the sun beats down - or the little mice are playing while the boss is off doing something or the other.

As I've commented before, Anthony Watts has all but disappeared from WUWT recently. While he's gone AWOL, there are a lot of deniers using his blog to peddle their denial.

Yesterday it was David Middleton who seems to be a greenhouse effect denier. Today it's Steve "mad, mad mad" Goreham, who is employed to reject climate science. It's his job. I've just noticed that he is the Executive Director of one of those pretty well one-man bands that pretends to be a real organisation by giving itself a fancy name and building a website.

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]

OAS - The No-Name Society Hides its Light

This is a follow on to my previous article about Anthony Watts' big announcement of a new "sceptic" organisation for open atmospherics.

Here is some more detail, if you can call it that, about the OAS. No, it's not the Organization of American States - oas.org. Nor is it the short-lived Organisation de l'armée secrète. And don't confuse it with the OSS.

This is the Open Atmospheric Society or Free Air Society or whatever - theoas.org.

I've had a chance to look over the OAS website. Two words come to mind: Mickey and Mouse. It doesn't have a professional look and feel. It's a WordPress site "under construction" though not labelled as such. It's not finished by a long shot. Maybe they need funds from member subs before fixing it. (It's still got all the alpha and beta stuff in there. Not prime time.)

No names

The most curious thing about it is that not a single person is publicly formally associated with the society. The only names to be seen anywhere - at WUWT and at the OAS website, in any direct capacity, are Stephen and Dr. Mary Graves, which could be the Stephen and Mary Graves Family Foundation. They put up some money to get the show on the road.

John Coleman and Joseph D’Aleo are mentioned in the press release giving testimonials. John Coleman said he looked forward to being a member (would he qualify for full membership? I don't think he has a science degree, his degree is in journalism). Otherwise there is no suggestion that they are associated with the formation of the organisation (though you could take a guess). Anthony Watts has his name on a dummy article.  Of these three, it looks as if Joe D'Aleo is the only one who would qualify for full membership, which is open to:

An individual with a Bachelors or higher level degree in Atmospheric sciences, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences, General Science, Technology, or Engineering – OR- an individual that has at least three (3) published peer reviewed papers an individual that has at least three (3) published peer reviewed papers in any accredited peer review publications that have an ISSN designation.

I could not find a single name associated with the organisation in any official capacity. There are no directors - they are still to come. There is supposedly an executive director already appointed (according to the charter), but not identified anywhere. It's a "no name" organisation.

Whoever is in on this is very shy. Not a single person willing to be associated with it directly, except for John Coleman who is looking forward to being a member, and the commenters at WUWT who've said they've joined up. And they mostly use pseudonyms or first names only.

So much for transparency and shining a light on truth!

Strange name and motto

I wonder if they used a professional to help pick the name? It's a strange one. The Open Atmospheric Society. Not atmospheric science. Not earth science. The initials are unfortunate. Anyone looking for oas.org will end up at the Organization of American States.

The motto is "Verum in Luce". Veritas would have been better than verum I'd have thought, unless they are talking about some intrinsic truth about photons. But I'm not fluent in Latin. Anthony Watts says it means Truth in the Light. AFAIK verum is a specific truth about something, whereas veritas is about truth in a general sense. Perhaps someone who's studied Latin can shine some light on this :)

[Update: GM has commented on the motto. I also think I've figured out where Anthony Watts got it from. Not from any knowledge of Latin. Not from the Classics. I reckon he used Google Translate! ha ha. Sou 19 Sept 14]

What's weird is this notion of shining a light or getting at the truth, while hiding behind an organisation. As I said earlier - I could not find the name of a single person listed on the website in any official capacity whatsoever. The only names are those of the people who gave the start up grant - and even that could be a foundation rather than individuals.

A shaky start

The society is off to a shaky start. So far, they've had donations of $330 (probably excluding the startup grant) and 25 people have signed up to get emails. Not as stunning a result as the Climate Council, which raised $1m in only a few days after Tony Abbott got rid of the Climate Commission. The USA has more than 10 times more people than Australia. And the society is supposed to be international - so it has potentially 7 billion donors. Maybe it's decided on a slow and steady approach. I have a feeling that most full members will be engineers who happen to be climate science deniers. There just aren't enough research scientists who would want to be associated with it. I'd be surprised if it could snag someone like Judith Curry.

Role and purpose

They have a charter and goals. The charter is simple. The goals are primitive and full of conspiracy ideation (by implication). For example:

• To provide an organization that offers an alternative to the highly politicized organizations that exist now.
• To offer a safe place where ideas may be exchanged and examined without fear of retribution.
• To provide a scientific journal where publications can be made where no politically motivated peer review interference occurs. Papers must be replicable and pass on merit, not on a viewpoint.

It's not that the goals aren't worthy, it's the implication that there is a big bad world of science out there, full of bogey men out to snare poor little fake sceptics or stop them from publishing their fake science.

There you have it. Or what of it there is to know. Oh, except for some additional tidbits in the comments to my previous article on the subject, h/t Marco. Apparently Anthony Watts announced it at the Heartland Conference in Las Vegas this year.

Is Anthony the executive director? Someone else? Anthony was looking for a job earlier this year. I doubt he'd qualify as a full member so I don't think he could be on the board of directors, except as ED.

Let's be positive - if possible

I don't want to come across too negatively. There is a slim chance that this organisation will publish some good science. I say slim, because I'm finding it hard to imagine any real scientists wanting to be associated with it. That means that the review pool will probably be very thin and not of any quality. But you never know. I wish them well, but won't be holding my breath.

If they are able to deliver good science or make a decent contribution to public debate and policy, they'll fail the fake sceptics' aspirations.

So it's a double bind.

From the WUWT comments

Can't be bothered with the comments from WUWT. I've updated the archive here if you are interested. Oh, alright then. Just a few.

MarkW

September 16, 2014 at 9:03 am
The Open Atmospheric Society is going to be cloud based. I’m sure there’s a joke in the somewhere.
BTW, congratulations to everyone involved in setting this up.

Travis Casey

September 16, 2014 at 9:16 am
Best of luck with this endeavor. I fear that the establishment science community will treat this like they do open debate. There will be an aversion to publishing in the journal so as not to legitimize it. Then they can compare it to Fox News and laugh. The model-based “science” will still have their pet publications for alarm. At least it is a step in the right direction. 

coalsoffire  

September 16, 2014 at 9:33 am
I’m signed up as an associate. I don’t drink.
They may laugh at this in public, but behind closed doors… they will be sweating. This is an important initiative.Get something published from Judith Curry right away.

Colin

September 16, 2014 at 9:38 am
Congrats! Lifetime Founding Associate Member application and payment submitted. 

Latitude

September 16, 2014 at 9:55 am
it must be replicable, with all data, software, formulas, and methods submitted with the paper. …..
I hope that works out…….it’s going to be difficult with most of the facts being conjecture, and most of the history fabricated 

cjames prefers extremist right wing bias to scientific bias:

September 16, 2014 at 10:05 am
I am a Fellow of the AMS but dropped my membership several years ago due to its political bias. This organizations sounds like a great idea. I will join and I wish it great success. 

Terry Oldberg

September 16, 2014 at 10:47 am
Climatology has been plagued by applications of the equivocation fallacy resulting from ambiguity of reference by terms in the language of climatology This has resulted in widespread misperception of a pseudo-science as a science .Thus, it would be well if the authors of articles submitted for publication to the new journal were to be required to write them in a disambiguated language developed for this purpose by the OAS. 

Leigh

September 16, 2014 at 3:45 pm
Thinking along the same line.
As state sponsored “scientific concensus” on global warming is proven wrong by actual scientists.
And not just your run of the mill skeptic like myself.
The grants will start to dry up as the politicians that sign off on them.
Come to the shocking reality that they are going to be far more accountable to the owners of those monies they are handing over.
This little provision is going to be the cause for extreme angst among the Manns and co. of the fraud that is global warming.
“Open journal— The Journal of the OAS will be free to read by the public. Open science— a transparent online peer review process”.
Behold, the emperor has new clothes! 

Kevin Hearle

September 16, 2014 at 12:15 pm
Congratulations Anthony and all the team that was involved with you in creating this important new organisation to further open access science. The public across the world will thank you all. The formation of this organisation will shake the foundations of the established societies and not before time. 

Bloke down the pub - asking about Kenji 

September 16, 2014 at 12:48 pm
Anthony, will Kenji be taking out membership? 

Will Robertson  (is this a Poe?)

September 16, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Dear Gentlemen all,
I heartily endorse your efforts at creating a counterculture professional organization butting heads with the current madness concerning AGW. My best wishes to all of you who are arguing on the right side of the scientific and philosophical fence. However, even though I am but a simple meteorological technician, a work-a-day forecaster, out here in the hinterlands of the Desert Southwest, I can see that many of you for whom I have great respect have missed a (if not THE) basic tenant of the whole AWG regulatory push. At least I don’t see it written about much. Please consider that this whole kerfuffle is NOT about controlling climate chemistries for the benefit of mankind, it IS about controlling the actions of whole populations on a global scale for the benefit of those would be our dictatorial overlords. One government controlling all of humanity is their goal – with them in control. AWG is just one of the current vehicles designed to carry these individuals forward toward their goals of 1) setting enforcable global law precedent, 2) enriching those who are foisting, controlling and providing future management of these regulations, and 3) maintaining these individuals in positions of power because, of course, they are the solitary holders of the wisdom to know what is best for all the rest of us. IMHO, for them, scientific truth is irrelevant and in actuality an obstacle toward their intended ends. Dare I suggest that we are in a political power war, not a scientific opinion debate? However, scientific truth is gradually providing ammunition against these Napoleon Complex power brokers, so please keep up the good work. 

Tom is the only person I noticed who showed any curiosity about who might be involved in the organisation. And that was limited to Anthony Watts himself.

September 16, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Anthony, this seems like a welcome initiative, with open peer review. Who could sla y that idea? Could you just make it clear to the community if you have any financial interest, whatsoever, in The Open Atmospheric Society, OAS.org, or any derivative thereof?

Thanks. 

Steven Mosher

September 16, 2014 at 5:25 pm
just because people submit code and data doesnt mean its replicateable.
just a nit.. otherwise, nice idea. wish you well!

Brendan Montague tells of the Las Vegas denier festival from the inside

I've only just got around to reading Brendan Montague's account of the denier festival in Las Vegas. If you missed it - here's a link to the article.

Some snippets as tasters:

...The hundreds of sceptics around me not once questioned the bizarre, the illogical, the poorly constructed claims that swirled in front of our eyes. This parody of science was a deadly hybrid of 1970s Open University programmes and sub-Cirque du Soleil....

...Delingpole has written off one of the most influential climate studies as “ludicrous, comedy” and claimed its author, Professor Michael Mann at Penn State University, has “little discernible talent”. But during our confrontation he confirmed he had never interviewed Mann, never read his book and never read any of his scientific papers. I was dumbfounded. ...

...I buttonholed Joseph Bast and asked whether he had indeed chosen Vegas as a brilliantly daring provocation to his critics. The spin of the roulette wheel reminded me at least of the madness of sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps that plunged millions of Americans into penury. Was it social commentary? “No”, he said. “The rooms were cheap”.... 

Read the full article here.

Media Matters on the Las Vegas Denier Fest

Alexander Zaitchik of Media Matters has a very funny sendup of the Las Vegas denier fest that is being put on by the Heartland Institute. Given the articles from WUWT over the next week are bound to be nothing more than deadly dull faded denier tripe, being rehashed one more time, the Media Matters article is like a little ray of sunshine peeping through the thick fog of denial. It's also informative.

Climate Denial Goes Vegas

The Heartland Institute hits the Strip with some much-needed comedic relief

There's a rather nice illustration:

A sample:

...The biggest sign the genre is maturing hums with neon. Today, Chicago's Heartland Institute, the kings of unintentional climate-comedy, will hit the Vegas strip with a three-day show at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, featuring a chorus line's worth of hilarious climate rejectionists. The line-up will collectively perform the energy-policy equivalent of a Henny Youngman routine: "Take my planet capable of supporting civilization. Please!"

The think tank that flacked for Big Tobacco against the science of lung cancer will perform off the same playbook to flack for Big Carbon against the science of greenhouse gases. Tickets to see these self-styled climate researchers and political operatives -- almost none of whom are climate or earth systems scientists and nearly all of them funded at one- or two-degrees remove by oil and coal interests -- run $129, including meals.

On the Strip, Heartland speakers will pretend to be qualified to dissent from the equivalent to the National Academy of Sciences of every industrial country. Against the faint ring of slot machines, they'll dismiss the stark warnings of experts from 130 countries who contribute to the authoritative assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because the first rule of improv comedy is "Yes, and...", some Heartland speakers will concede that, yes, man-made warming is occurring. The kicker comes when they echo Heartland's April report concluding that this is a net positive for all carbon-based life forms. With this pivot toward "Yes, and...", Heartland is ensuring they'll continue to have topical comedy fodder for years to come, even after their carbon denial becomes as outdated as their lung cancer material....

You can read the full article here at Media Matters.  It includes a rundown of the Las Vegas denier fest performers.

Las Vegas Denier Fest: Awards for best con artists, denial propagandists and plodders for hire

I've read that this is the list of the science deniers who are getting bravery awards being patronised by the Heartland Institute at an upcoming denier festival in Las Vegas.

The awards are for mostly well-paid work, which involves pretending to be extremely stupid at best and/or deliberately conning the gullible about climate change. It's the equivalent of the Academy Awards I guess, where deniers pat each other on the back and put their hands up for more speaker engagements at denier festivals. Like the Academy Awards, it focuses on a person's ability to present fiction to the hoi polloi rather than, say, scientific documentaries. It involves a fair amount of acting and there are separate categories.

One category is script-writing. One or two of this motley lot run a blog and a couple even manage to write the occasional paper or popular science-denying book. They have even been known to get published in the scientific literature. Well not in the best journals. Nor usually in mediocre journals. But deniers can't be choosers. Often they have to resort to vanity publications.

Another category is best comedian/make-up artist - you can guess who won that award.

Another is best pseudo-religious characterisation. That award was shared this year.

The Heartland Institute also awarded some prizes for trying, to dull plodders in their dotage.

Here are the people being paraded by the Heartland Institute, probably hoping to attract more funds from individual deniers who have more money than sense, and to faceless corporations with an agenda:

• Sherwood B. Idso - who is part of the Idso family, denialist shills for hire  
• Arthur B. Robinson, one of those who was behind the fake "Oregon Petition"
• Roy Spencer, a member of a science-denying alarmist cult called the Cornwall Alliance
• Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (I think it should be The Viscount Monckton aka the potty peer)
• S. Fred Singer,  another denier for hire 
• Willie Soon, another denier for hire
• Patrick Moore,  another denier for hire who falsely claims to have founded Greenpeace
• Tom Harris, a very weird person who can't even lie straight, and runs the Canadian branch of the anti-climate science coalition
• Alan Carlin, another American denier
• E. Calvin Beisner from the science denying alarmist cult, the Cornwall Alliance. 

Not all of the above have graced these pages yet. If they ever let women into denier festivals, maybe Judith Curry will get a guernsey when she's old enough.  She's been doing her bit for the denier cause these past few years.

Dennis T. Avery cycles toward an ice age; Anthony Watts senselessly ignores the ice @wattsupwiththat

They do have some funny ones at the Heartland Institute and doesn't Anthony Watts love 'em. This one's called Dennis T. Avery and apparently he's been an ice age comether for some time. He even scored a Wikipedia entry to prove it :)

Not only that, but he scored a ClimateProgress post all to himself when he couldn't tell the difference between growth and growth rate. And a SourceWatch entry. Now he's really hit the bigtime with a HotWhopper entry - but it's not all for himself. Ice age comethers are a dime a dozen at WUWT.

Dennis used to work for the government - the US Department of Agriculture. (Deniers forgive him because he's one of them.) I wonder how it feels to be a laughing stock among his former colleagues. It's easy to infer from his WUWT "guest essay" (archived here) that he doesn't accept the greenhouse effect. He was writing about an article by Geoffrey Parker in the NY Times. The article itself was about how climate change contributed to wars and social unrest in the past and postulated that it may well do the same as the world warms and food production is affected.  Dennis wasn't buying it. I think he figured that droughts only happen when there's a cold spell or something like that. He wrote:

Almost all past agricultural and cultural collapses occurred during “little ice ages,” not during our many global warm periods. 

Now I don't know if that's right or wrong but I do know that the way things are going, humans will never have experienced a global warm period like the one we're heading towards. The blue line in the chart below covers the period since civilisation. The red line is what's projected over the next few decades. Probably before this century is out.

Adapted from Jos Hagelaars

Dennis doesn't accept that we're warming the world. People in the future will probably feel heat like humans have never felt before. Ever. Not in all the time since we evolved. Dennis wrote:

The danger is the cold, chaotic weather of the “little ice ages” themselves. That will shrink agricultural zones and shorten growing seasons. Another such icy period is inevitably coming, though not likely in the next two centuries, if past cycles are an accurate guide.

Regardless, for the next 20-25 years, humanity will likely be in another cooling period, caused by the sun’s reduced energy output and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. We are about 150 years into the modern warming. Since the shortest of these warm periods during the Halocene was 350 years, and they generally last 350 to 800 years, it is unlikely that we will enter another Little Ice Age for a couple more centuries. 

That's it. He's doing climate by numbers - and not very useful numbers at that. He thinks that there are some sort of long term cycles lasting between 350 and 800 years - which is a nice wide margin for him, isn't it. He offers no evidence for his claim and it's not one I've ever come across before.

He's wrong of course. We aren't due for a major glaciation for around 50,000 years and as for mini ice ages, only if there's a few supervolcanic eruptions or an all-out nuclear war.

Anthony thinks that ice doesn't melt in the heat - again

Meanwhile, Anthony Watts has written another silly article (archived here) about how ice doesn't melt when it gets hot. Oh, he doesn't say so in so many words. What he does is claim that seas won't rise over the coming decades, or not by much. He reckons that the rate of sea level rise is currently linear (he's wrong) and that it won't change as West Antarctic ice slips into the ocean.  Anthony decided on the following senseless headline:

Making sense of senseless sea level scares in Norfolk Virginia – 60% of the rise is from subsidence, the remainder from landfill settling

It was Anthony's own article that was senseless, not the fact that seas are going to rise quite a lot. He didn't manage to make much sense, as usual. I've written enough about his fantasies on that score already (such as here and here and here and here) so I'll send you over to Tamino's excellent take down.

Before you go - or afterwards, if you want to see a couple of very good videos about sea level, try these two.

From the WUWT comments

Just a small selection today. First Goldie discusses the impending ice age that won't cometh for a very long time and says:

June 2, 2014 at 12:22 am
That sounds about right. But at the moment we have a group of people who are determined to blame everything on too much Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. I suspect the North Atlantic will freeze over and this group will still be trying to assign it to Carbon Dioxide. The reality is of course that these people belong to an interesting cabal who are anti any form of carbon based energy and instead would prefer to have half the population of the planet freeze to death whilst trying to use so called renewables. Indeed their thinking is so odd that they would probably prefer it if half of the population froze to death. 

ffohnad is writing about sea level rises and says:

June 1, 2014 at 8:46 pm
Do these people actually believe the ice caps could melt while the temperature remains far below freezing even with the 3 degree worst case projection ? It appears that only the dumbest portion of our population are hired by the media. 

Allies in Denial: Roy Spencer joins the Heartland mob at WUWT

Roy Spencer has joined the Heartland mob rejecting scientific evidence. He's written an article with Joe Bast of all people (archived here). I wonder what's in it for him? Remember when he called his fellow scientists Nazis? Now he's joined up with the denier crowd who compared everyone who accepts mainstream science with mass murderers.  That's the same mob who upset the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

What a nong! Thing is, he and his mate Joe list a number of papers that have shown that the overwhelming proportion of scientific papers that attribute a cause to global warming show that it's being caused by humans. To counteract proper science, he wheels out a dumb paper coauthored by the potty peer as "evidence".

Do you want to know how many scientific papers attribute global warming to causes other than humans? Well, in the past 20 years or so, the Cook study showed that of the 11,944 papers published between 1991 and 2011 there were 4014 that expressed a position on global warming.  Of these 4014, 3896 papers or 97.1% endorsed human-caused global warming, 78 or 1.9% disputed it and 40 or 1.0% indicated the cause was 'uncertain'.

You wouldn't know that if you only read WUWT. But then if you only read WUWT you'd probably think that global warming is caused by Russian steampipes and that the world is about to plunge into an ice age and that killing off mammals would be a good solution to stopping the global warming, which isn't happening but if it is it's caused by insects.

How long will it be before Roy Spencer starts arguing that burning fossil fuels doesn't release carbon dioxide? He's already explained how he fudged the charts he fudged, now he's snuggling up to Heartland, it's no big step to greenhouse effect denial.

From the WUWT comments

Latitude is typical of denier illogic and wants to be able to reject science in peace, without anyone pointing out the overwhelming consensus - and says:

May 30, 2014 at 2:18 pm
What amazes me the most…..is that most people don’t think claiming something like that….is as lame as I think it is

If the science was “robust”…they wouldn’t have to claim anything….and they wouldn’t

Latitude probably thinks that pointing out that mainstream science shows that evolution is real only prove it's a myth.

From Anthony Watts, alarmist

Anthony Watts added his two bobs worth of alarmism, writing that shifting to clean energy will "cripple our economy". It's much more likely climate change will do that if we don't start shifting to clean energy in earnest soon:

There’s just one problem – aside from the fact that this assertion [Sou: that most scientists accept mainstream climate science] is being used to help justify policies and regulations that are closing down fossil fuel power plants and crippling our economy. The claim is completely bogus. As Heartland Institute president Joe Bast and climate scientist Roy Spencer make clear in this article, the papers used to create and perpetuate the 97% claim are seriously and fundamentally flawed. The alleged consensus simply does not exist; much less does it represent anything remotely approaching 97%.

Ha ha ha. Anthony thinks that most climate scientists don't accept climate science. He puts his faith in an anti-science lobby group and a wacky scientist who reckons his god will save him from all natural disasters (but not economic failures). Anthony reckons it's "bogus" to say that scientists accept science. What a nutter! I wonder what proportion of climate scientists he thinks do accept climate science? What does he think the rest of them do - dog astrology?

---

Cook, John, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A. Green, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs, and Andrew Skuce. "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature." Environmental Research Letters 8, no. 2 (2013): 024024. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024

The Heartland Institute can't get anyone to promote their NIPCC report

The poor chaps at the Heartland Institute are doing it tough. Craig Idso (respected scientist?) can't find anyone to do some free PR and advertising for the Not the IPCC Report version umpteen. So he is falling back on an old standby, Anthony Watts and his pseudo-science blog, wattsupwiththat.com (archived here).  Which means, of course, that he is preaching to the converted.

I'm not sure that WUWT is an old standby. It might just be a fallback position. While Anthony occasionally posts an article by one or other of the Idso family of disinformers, it doesn't happen very often.  Still, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Their "big launch" of the latest version of the Not the IPCC report attracted the following people, according to skepticalscience.com:

• 5 Heartland participants
• 5 grumpy-looking old white guys 
• 1 supporter from the American Enterprise Institute
• 2 bored looking middle-aged guys playing with electronic devices
• 1 journalist from CNS news ("The right news. Right now")
• 1 guy running the Fox TV camera 
• 2 women who came in late
• An SkS author and co-conspirator.

They knew they were in trouble. Maybe they put in a call to their mate, Tom Harris, because yesterday it was Tom Harris from Canada and the grandly if inappropriately named International Climate Science Coalition, who explained that bible science trumps climate science, and then denied having written it.  He also denied writing that "In the long run, the climate scare will be revealed as the most expensive hoax in the history of science", which is pretty odd, because it turns out he's claimed climate science is a hoax on other occasions too (h/t Anonymous).

It could be they weren't satisfied with Tom's promo, or maybe it was part of the PR effort but today it's Craig Idso's turn.  To his credit, he admitted right up front that he couldn't get reputable media organisations to publish his nonsense, so he's making a plea for any science denying bloggers to put his article up on denier blogs.

Too hot dull wrong to handle!

Craig Idso started off somewhat hopefully: "NOTE: This op-ed is apparently too hot for some editors to handle."

Ha ha - when was an op-ed about climate "too hot to handle"? More commonly they would be considered too dull to handle.  In this case it wasn't that it was too hot or too dull, it turns out it was too wrong to handle.  As Craig admitted (my bold italics):

"Late last week it was accepted and posted on politix.topix.com only to be abruptly removed some two hours later. After several hours of attempting to determine why it was removed, I was informed the topix.com editor had permanently taken it down because of a strong negative reaction to it and because of “conflicting views from the scientific community” over factual assertions in the piece."

Yep, Craig didn't portray the science properly.  So let's see how much he got wrong. His first paragraph was okay but then he quickly strayed from the facts, writing:

Really? Is Earth’s climate so fragile that both it and our way of life are in jeopardy because of rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions?

In a word, no! 

Craig is wrong! And he doesn't accept paleoclimatology.  A sudden rapid change in CO2 can precipitate a major extinction event.  Earth's climate is fairly robust as long as nothing changes too rapidly.  The earth system has fast and slow feedbacks and prefers slow changes so that everything in the system has time to adjust.  Give it a big shock and the results are difficult to predict.  But looking at big shocks to the system in the past provides some clues.  For example, the Permian-Triassic extinctions.

Then Craig makes a couple of other "wrong" statements in quick succession:

• The human impact on global climate is small; Wrong! Human activity is probably responsible for more than 100% of the warming since the 1950s, and some of the warming before that time).
• any warming that may occur as a result of anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions is likely to have little effect on either Earth’s climate or biosphere - Wrong again!  It is already and will continue to raise temperatures, melt ice, raise sea levels, drop ocean pH etc etc, all having massive flow-on effects to life on land and in the oceans.

Craig gives up at this point. The rest of his article is mostly empty rhetoric with lots of mentions of his silly Not the IPCC report, which he can't seem to be able to give away to too many people.  I noticed that Craig provided no evidence for his bald statements of untruth, other than his Not the IPCC report.  Readers are meant to take on faith that all the world's scientists are wrong and the Heartland Institute is right.  Which if you stop to think about it is ridiculous.  (If you have to stop to think about it you are probably not familiar with the Heartland Institute.)

From the WUWT comments

There wasn't all that much discussion of the scientific content errors in Craig's article. The majority of comments didn't seem to relate directly to the article at all. The commenters got distracted by other commenters' comments :)

Ian W says rather hopefully:

April 20, 2014 at 8:24 am
Panic must really be breaking out if the politicians and grant seeking catastrophists have to pull strings to remove such a mild ‘op-ed’. They obviously have not heard of the Streisand effect.

Greg cries "censorship" and says:

April 20, 2014 at 8:25 am
Hardly radical. This well demonstrates the fact the alarmists now realise the game is over and all they have is an attempt at total censorship of opposing views and information.

RMB says something about not being able to heat water through its surface. He's wrong. How does he think that water evaporates - from underneath? (This is something you'll read in the WUWT comments from time to time, usually refuted by other WUWT commenters):

April 20, 2014 at 8:30 am
The good Dr doesn’t appreciate just how right he actually is. The fact is that you cannot heat water through its surface. If you doubt me try heating water through the surface using a heat gun. The heat is completely rejected. Energy only enters the ocean via the sun’s rays not via the heat of the atmosphere. The reason is surface tension. Surface tension is not a powerful force but it is powerful enough to block heat passing from the atmosphere into the ocean. No matter how much co2 is put into the atmosphere the heat from it cannot pass through the the surface of water. In short there is no way of storing or building heat on the planet, no matter how long you leave your suv idling. Therefore there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming and the oceans cannot be boiled away.

Leonard Weinstein comes to the rescue of WUWT and does refute RMB and says:

April 20, 2014 at 8:43 am
RMB,
Your reply manages to contaminate a good blog, and give ammunition to pro CAGW viewers, that will quote your error as typical skeptic ignorance. Surface tension is not the cause of blocking heat entering the oceans. 

Col Mosby points out that the article has no evidence and says (excerpt):

April 20, 2014 at 8:37 am
What’s lacking in the op-ed is some nice concise facts to illustrate the main failings of the AGW position ...

 Steven Mosher puts his head on the WUWT chopping block and says:

April 20, 2014 at 8:48 am
“The human impact on global climate is small; and any warming that may occur as a result of anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions is likely to have little effect on either Earth’s climate or biosphere, according to the recently-released contrasting report Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, which was produced by the independent Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).”

so the science is settled. little effect?

I wonder how the clowns who wrote the NIPCC scientifically determined that there will be little effect in the future? how’d they do that? I read the NIPCC. I saw no experiments that proved there would be little effect. I saw no statistical analysis in that report that proved there would be little effect. And they explained why you could not use models to project the effects.

How did those clowns deduce from no evidence that there would be little effect

From here on in, as expected, much of the discussion turns to Steve Mosher, not Craig Idso and the Not the IPCC report.

BioBob is partly correct when he responds to Steve Mosher and says:

April 20, 2014 at 9:20 am
Steven Mosher says: April 20, 2014 at 8:48 am How did those clowns deduce from no evidence that there would be little effect

Is this a trick question ? Here is my response….
The same way warmists concluded the opposite: they made it up ? /sarc

Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter) dumps on Steve Mosher and says:

April 20, 2014 at 9:25 am
Clowns, mosh? My apologies to Anthony and the rest, but you just took a HUGE step down in whatever estimation I had of you. 

Brad says how sad it is that deniers get criticised for their nonsense:

April 20, 2014 at 9:28 am
Mosher,
Once again you exhibit the fear your side has for an alternate stance. You are reduced to calling people you disagree with “clowns”, and generalize the NIPCC findings to suit your position.
Very immature, and very sad.

kim says:

April 20, 2014 at 9:28 amUh, moshe, it’s paleontology. CO2 warms and greens the globe. Be thankful the level has risen.
The Early Bird shares the worm. Bon Appetit.
==========

Anthony Watts belatedly joins in with the lynch mob. He wanted to wield the axe to chop off Steve Mosher's head and rescue Craig Idso and says:

April 20, 2014 at 9:38 am
Mr. Mosher needs to learn the value of debate and alternate ideas. Don’t be a Mannic oppresive. 

Chad Wozniak says to hell with airing differences of opinion:

April 20, 2014 at 10:38 am
The only “clown” here is Steven Mosher, with his disingenuous attack on the real science offered by Dr. Idso. Steven, why don’t you just shut up and go away somewhere? Go find a place that provides you with no energy nor any of the other benefits of carbon-based civilization, and stay there. 

Mark Bofill comes to the rescue of Steve Mosher and says (excerpt):

April 20, 2014 at 10:59 am
Steven’s only saying what he often says one way or another, which is that skeptics should apply (where applicable) the same standards and criticisms to reports with conclusions we like as we do to reports with conclusions we do not like. As usual, it’s hard to argue with his point. 

Matthew W bemoans the fact that dissension diverts discussion away from unanimous applause and says:

April 20, 2014 at 11:34 am
It’s a real shame that some of the best topics here get little to no real disscission in the replies because most of the replies have to deal with Mosher saying something stupid. 

James Ard makes the point that Steve Mosher asks the impossible of fake sceptics and says:

April 20, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Did Mosher just imply that the onus is on us to prove their doomsday scenario is wrong? I thought he was smarter than that. 

thegriss reckons Steve Mosher ought to hang out with the science deniers not sceptics and says:

April 20, 2014 at 6:39 pm
Moshpit, you really should stick to low level journalism. ! The one thing you might be good at.
And ‘hangin’ with the crew from BEST isn’t helping your scientific credibility 

There were quite a few other comments diverted to Steve Mosher rather than Craig Idso's article. Some telling him in no uncertain terms to shut up and go away, others implying that he's wrong or a traitor to the cause or something. I won't bother with them.

Santa Baby doesn't understand science, but knows what he/she likes (or in this case, doesn't like) and says:

April 20, 2014 at 9:16 am
The whole climate theme is so political created by the democrats and Al gore, Obama etc.. in the USA that it’s vomiting to watch it.

Policy based science is what it really is. And policy based on policy based science is no longer a sign of a functional democracy?

USA better wake up and rid themself of this ideological corruption before it’s to late?

cnxtim copies and pastes her/his regular comment and once again builds a strawman. Does s/he know the difference between the troposphere and the upper layers of the atmosphere? Does s/he know that the greenhouse effect is in the troposphere not the upper atmosphere?  Has s/he ever heard of convection? S/he and says:

April 20, 2014 at 10:36 am
And can anyone here on either side of the CAGW debate please explain to me, by what physical process(es) CO2 generated at ground level by the burning of fossil fuels makes its way to the upper atmosphere to become a greenhouse gas? 

Chad Wozniak can't contain himself as a rare event has just taken place, he bursts out and says:

April 20, 2014 at 10:41 am
I just gave myself an idea – we skeptics are defenders of carbon-based civilization!

Terry Oldberg seems to think that science is divided according to party politics in the USA and says:

April 20, 2014 at 11:17 am
Among the news outlets that do not tolerate deviation from the party line are the San Francisco Chronicle and PBS News Hour. The other night, in reporting on global warming politics the latter organization presented its audience with two experts, each of whom presented the Democratic party line. Cancellation of one’s subscription to the Chronicle and contributions to public broadcasting stations would be appropriate responses.

Steve from Rockwood says:

April 20, 2014 at 4:14 pm
50 years from now Michael Mann and James Hansen will either be regarded as ahead of their time brilliant leaders of science who fought so bravely against the hoard of denying heathens … or … complete buffoons who duped so many with their faulty science and set the world’s great economies on a wild goose chase while so many were forced to remain in poverty. I’m leaning heavily toward the latter.

Paul Woland says:

April 20, 2014 at 4:29 pm
RACookPE1978:
Incidentally, the Pentagon thought that climate change was a serious threat even under bush. Do you think that was political manipulation as well? Then how do you explain it considering the fact that Bush never accepted the reality of climate change?
http://www.rense.com/general70/pepen.htm 

Which doesn't go down too well with the denialati, hunter says:

April 20, 2014 at 4:51 pm
Paul Woland, Argument from authority just makes you look rather ignorant. You seem to thrive on argument from authority, when you are not relying on condemnation by association (even when you have to fib about the association). 

To which Paul Woland responds and says:

April 20, 2014 at 4:59 pm
Hunter: My authority in this matter is science. When I mentioned the fact that Pentagon has accepted climate change as a reality for a long time, it was only to falsify the argument of RACookPE1978. I suspect the Pentagon make their choice in part through some institutional process that evaluates science as well. 

lordjim74, citing no evidence or authority at all other than himself, pipes up and says:

April 20, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Argument from authority needs a bit more than ‘my authority in this matter is science’. It requires (inter alia) a genuine consensus amongst qualified experts. There is no genuine consensus amongst qualified experts that co2 emissions will lead to CAGW, so the argument from authority fails. 

I kept looking for discussion of specific points raised by Craig Idso, but they were few and far between. Most comments related to politics, not science.  Or Steve Mosher. Or whether or not the oceans can warm from the top.

The biosphere is breathing more heavily! Crazy quote of the day.

A quickie today.  Time is short.  Anthony Watts posted a link to a climate disinformation group who've misnamed themselves as the "International Climate Science Coalition". (See this article about them from the Sydney Morning Herald.)  Having a PhD is not a guarantee that you know stuff!  Or probably more accurately, it's no guarantee of scientific honesty.

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor (isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology), Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada:

“In fact, much of the rise in CO2 is attributed to increased respiration of the biosphere. Our carbon emissions are minor compared to this natural cycling of carbon. There is absolutely no empirical scientific evidence for the increase in CO2 having affected climate.”

Puffing and panting

I was surprised to find that Ian D Clark is actually entrusted with teaching students at the University of Ottawa. Strange! Academic freedom is one thing, but teaching nonsense?  Does anyone keep an eye on what topics he covers?

The above and other crazy quotes from the anti-science coalition is archived here.

Anthony Watts and his pseudo-science from the Heartland Institute

I've already commented on the ridiculous "Not the IPCC" report with it's "CO2 is plant food" and other tired denier memes.  Anthony Watts is pushing it again today in an article on his denier blog, WUWT, written by four of the more vocal science rejectors: Fred Singer, Bob Carter, Willie Soon and Craig Idso.

Remember those names if you've never heard them before and triple check anything they say before accepting it.  They are all science disinformers.  It's what they do.

I don't have time to go through all their long article and it's too long for HotWhopper in any case.  Suffice to say that despite the title Anthony Watts gave it, it's neither scientific nor a logical critique.  If you put on your critical thinking cap you can see for yourself just how dumb this foursome thinks WUWT readers are. (Archived here.)

Here are a couple of examples under their heading of "IPCC retreats".  The IPCC extracts are in italics, the science deniers' words are not.  Bolding and italics is mine.

The Medieval Climate Anomaly was regional not global

2. “Continental-scale surface temperature reconstructions show, with high confidence, multi-decadal intervals during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950-1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the late 20th century” (SPM-4).

What the Heartland Institute science deniers wrote: IPCC-related scientists have previously argued that the magnitude of the late twentieth century global warming exceeded that of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). The notorious “hockey stick” featured in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, and still visible in the Fourth Assessment Report, appeared to erase the MWP from the historical temperature record by showing little temperature change for thousands of years followed by a sharp rise in the twentieth century.

Climate scientists know that the Medieval Climate Anomaly was regional in nature.  The IPCC statement is not in any way a contradiction of previous work.  Science rejectors are assuming that their readers will miss the words "in some regions".  Since the only people who take any notice of these ratbags are other people who reject science, they are probably correct in their assumption.   BTW I've discussed the Medieval Climate Anomaly a few times, for example here.

"It's the sun" is wrong, but the sun can affect climate

6. “The reduced trend in radiative forcing (between 1998 and 2012) is primarily due to volcanic eruptions and the timing of the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle” (SPM-10).

What the Heartland Institute science deniers wrote: This statement marks the first time the IPCC has acknowledged that solar factors may play a determinative role in short-term climate variability.

This is a critically important concession to the views of the many independent scientists who have concluded that solar effects play a bigger role in controlling climate than does CO2 (NIPCC, Chapter 3).

The claim of the disinformers that the IPCC hasn't discussed solar radiation before is ridiculously wrong and so easy to check.  Just do a word search for the word "solar" in any of the past reports and you'll see that these disinformers are telling a bald-faced lie when they write:  This statement marks the first time the IPCC has acknowledged that solar factors may play a determinative role in short-term climate variability.

There is no "concession".  These disinformers are making up stuff.  All IPCC reports discuss the role of solar radiation on climate.  How do these so-called scientists think the greenhouse effect works? Magic?

There's a good article on realclimate.org about attribution, which includes charts from previous reports so you can see for yourself about what is attributed to solar radiation.  Here's an animation of charts from the 1995 SAR and the 2001 TAR reports:

Source: RealClimate.org / IPCC

Below is just one example of what these pseudo-science quacks have described as "misleading or untrue" statements from the IPCC.

Many observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented in decades to millenia

2. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented” (SPM-3).

What the Heartland Institute science deniers wrote: This statement is doubly untrue. The post-1950 warming shown by the Hadley record is of about the same magnitude and rate as the known natural warming between 1910 and 1940, and is therefore not unprecedented.

Here's the full statement in the Summary for Policy Makers (page SPM-3).

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased (see Figures SPM.1, SPM.2, SPM.3 and SPM.4). {2.2, 2.4, 3.2, 3.7, 4.2–4.7, 5.2, 5.3, 5.5–5.6, 6.2, 13.2}

The IPCC report states that many of the observed changes are unprecedented - and note what the Heartland Institute employees left out.  The lying foursome say that's a lie because they reckon that they've found one thing that isn't unprecedented.  A prime example of a logical fallacy, which I'm sure HotWhopper readers, even some of the science deniers among you, will recognise.

The IPCC listed some specific observed changes that are unprecedented over decades to millenia.  And they've provided some figures to illustrate this as well as referred readers to the relevant sections of the reports. Here's just one example: it's hotter than ever in the modern record:

Data source: NASA

The denier foursome have cherry picked some changes that they argue are not unprecedented as if that negates the observed changes that are unprecedented.  They reckon there were some parts of the world that didn't warm as much as others.  Well, whoopy doo.  That doesn't mean that GLOBAL warming isn't happening.  I wouldn't mind betting they got a lot wrong even with their examples, but I can't be bothered checking because it's irrelevant.

Enough is enough

I've wasted enough time on these nincompoops.  If you want to see how much more idiotic twaddle they write, check out my take down of their ridiculous Executive Summary of their latest effort for the Heartland Institute's Not the IPCC report, or read this archived WUWT article and check their silly claims for yourself.

Denier weirdness: Joe Bast of Heartland denies MWP at WUWT!

Anthony Watts has put in a plug for the Heartland's Not the IPCC report (archived here).  I've already summarised the silliness in its executive summary here.

Speaking of anomalies (which I wasn't, but there you go!), Joe Bast of the infamous Heartland Institute made some anomalous comments in the article Anthony reposted.  Joe writes:

They quote Dr. Carter, a paelaeontologist and marine geologist and former head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University (Australia), as saying “Currently the planet is cooling.” “Wrong,” they say. “The last decade (2000-2009) was the hottest on record; 2010 was the hottest year recorded.” Their claim is trivially true based on a heavily revised and controversial database that goes back only to about 1850. More reliable satellite data show no warming trend for nearly 17 years and a cooling trend in the last decade. Proxy data show the planet has been cooling since 2,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago.

So the scientists' claim is "trivially based" on the actual instrumental record that "only goes back only to about 1850" but Joe is putting forward the "nearly 17 years" as "reliable"!! WTF.

Here are a couple of charts for poor old Joe, since he can't figure out for himself what's what.

Data source: NASA

Joe talked about a "heavily revised and controversial database" - meaning thousands of modern thermometers located all around the world - while he puts forward proxy data based on proxies at several dozen locations at best, and at a much coarser resolution than modern instruments,  as incontrovertible fact.  Good to know he accepts Marcott et al and maybe even Shakun et al.  Most deniers object to them.

You'll notice Joe's denying the denier's favourite Medieval Warm Anomaly and Roman Warming Period, too, writing: "Proxy data show the planet has been cooling since 2,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago"!  I guess he can't make up his mind.  Here's what the Marcott reconstruction shows, together with the Shakun reconstruction, the modern HadCRUT4 record and where we're heading over the next several decades:

Adapted from Jos Hagelaars

Deniers have been very scatty since the latest IPCC report.  Thought you might be amused by this latest example :)