As the world heats up, Anthony Watts promotes Patrick Moore's conspiratorial ice age fear

Willis Eschenbach once wrote of his good friend and conspiracy blogger Anthony Watts that he can't tell good science from bad. He said:

... it is not Anthony’s job to determine whether or not the work of the guest authors will stand the harsh light of public exposure. That’s the job of the peer reviewers, who are you and I and everyone making defensible supported scientific comments. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece, he couldn’t do that job. ...

Anthony illustrates this inability today, promoting an article by someone called Patrick Moore (archived here, latest here). He's usually touted as being a "co-founder of Greenpeace", which is meant to indicate that he's seen the error of his past and has now become a born-again science denier.

Anthony Watts favours this "Climate Hoax" conspiracy theory from Patrick Moore

The conspiracy theory that Anthony posted from Patrick goes like this:

A powerful convergence of interests among key elites supports and drives the climate catastrophe narrative. Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; scientists and science institutions raise billions in public grants, create whole new institutions, and engage in a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; businesses want to look green and receive huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as large wind farms and solar arrays. Even the Pope of the Catholic Church has weighed in with a religious angle.

Yep, it's got all the ingredients of a good conspiracy worthy of the envy of any right wing authoritarian follower - money, key elites, environmentalists, politicians, the media, scientists and even the Pope of the Catholic Church. They are all part of the climate hoax.

Climate disinformer Patrick Moore talks to deniers at the GWPF

Semi-professional climate disinformer Patrick Moore gave a talk to UK climate science deniers the other day. Anthony Watts posted it under a headline: "Greenpeace founder delivers powerful annual lecture, praises carbon dioxide – full text" (archived here). Powerful? No. Pseudo-scientific rubbish? Yes. I don't know what the audience in general thought of his nonsense. It probably didn't register with many of them. All they wanted was to hear someone they felt was on "their side". The people who invited him most likely knew he would spout a load of nonsense, and couldn't get anyone more credible to talk. Well, who is left these days?

Patrick spent the first part of his talk on himself. He's a hero in his own mind. A born-again denier. I cannot imagine that he believes the words that come out of his mouth, but they help him earn a crust in his chosen field. Science denial.

The basis of his claim was that without CO2 the planet would be dead, therefore the more we have the better. That's like saying to a drowning woman - without water we'd all be dead so suck it up.

Warning: this is a long article, but it covers a lot of ground

Another con job: the Galileo Movement put their hand out for Patrick Moore in Australia

Is Australia becoming a breeding ground for science-denying con men?

You may have heard (or not) of the "Galileo Movement" in Australia. It's a very small "organisation" of two rather nutty Queenslanders, Case Smit and John Smeed, who can't even understand what their own people are arguing. I think it probably still only numbers those two people plus a few hangers on.

As an example of how dumb they are, they couldn't accept that one of their mob were spouting a lot of anti-semitic conspiracy theories as part of a very garbled (to the point of incomprehensible) nonsense a year or so ago. I'm talking about the screed from Malcolm Roberts which Graham Readfearn wrote about, and which prompted journalist Ben Cubby to ask:

how does one critically analyse a pile of horse shit?

Australia's home grown deniers aren't up to the job?

You'd have thought this pair would be happy enough with seeing the opinions of Australia's resident supposed business leader turned fruitcake, Maurice Newman, occasionally plastered all over The Australian newspaper. Or the various efforts of people like Ian "iron sun" Plimer and Bob "agnostic" Carter. This mob have sponsored Christopher Monckton to tour Australia in the past. Christopher's latest visit was notable only for the absence of its coverage in the media.

Setting their sights low

This time the Galileo duo are angling for another small fish, Patrick "not a founder of Greenpeace" Moore. He's some Canadian who spends much of his time promoting golden rice. When he's not doing that he spends time rejecting climate science, if the fee is right, apparently.

The "value" of science denial - $100,000

I doubt too many people in Australia have ever heard of the chap. He seems to be a pseudo-environmentalist for hire. His fees are big. He's charging the Galileo Movement $100,000 for a short trip to Australia. (It rivals the ten minute video that went absolutely nowhere, by which some chap in Perth fleeced a bunch of deniers from all around the world of their hard earned dollars.)

Anthony Watts is lending a hand by putting the latest scam on his blog (archived here), which invites his readers to send their big fat cheques to Australia.

What are they paying for? Well, the article is short on detail. Apart from telling everyone that they need $100,000, the only details about what people will get for their investment are:

Rather than lecturing to the “converted”, the principal purpose of this visit is for him to meet with opinion leaders in the media, politics and business to convey a rational environmentalist’s views on why policies instituted because of the “catastrophic climate change” scare need to be realistically addressed.

Cheques can be deposited in the National Australia Bank account of the Galileo Movement Pty Ltd.

Sounds like a right lark. No details. No indication of who he'll be meeting with or why. No objectives other than to "convey" views. As if deniers' views aren't already well known. All zillions of them :)

I can't imagine who they'll manage to line up to meet with Patrick Moore. Maybe he'll find a couple of politicians willing to put up with his company in exchange for wine and pasta. You never know, Patrick might sell them some of his golden rice.

Anyway, I wonder how peeved Christopher Monckton is right now. He had to traipse across the country from one mediocre gathering of doddering old deniers to another, staying in who knows what lodgings along the way.  I don't know what he earned from his trip, but it wouldn't have been the most pleasant journey. More like a hard slog for any entertainer and especially so for someone who's no longer a spring chicken.

And along comes Patrick Moore. He manages to get someone willing to pay $100,000 and gets the high life. He can probably spend most of his time feasting in sumptuous surrounds. All he has to do is entertain a few bored politicians and anyone else who's willing to be taken out to dinner.

From the WUWT comments

It took a little while before any comments surfaced. Are they struck dumb? Are they a bit shy after the video fiasco? I've popped back in to see if they've hooked any suckers. (Archive here, latest archive here.)

davidmhoffer is the first to comment and says:

August 17, 2014 at 12:41 pm
$100K?
Seems a bit steep?

Johna Till Johnson says:

August 17, 2014 at 12:52 pm
Anthony,
You might let him have a share of your big oil money. :-) That plus $5 could get him a cup of coffee at Starbucks…

John piccirilli says:

August 17, 2014 at 12:56 pm
100k is a bargain if it can help stop the not so green machine which
Spent a 100k of taxpayers money as I wrote this. Goon luck MM

outtheback says:

August 17, 2014 at 12:59 pm
Sadly “believers” are not likely to come as their mind is made up and Dr. Moore is viewed as a heretic. No conversions will take place.

A few fence sitters and the rest are going to be people who like/need confirmation of their thoughts and findings.

I venture to guess that not too many politicians want to be seen with Dr Moore. 

WUWT Sticky: Patrick Moore yearns for the "good old days" 500 million years ago

"When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago..."

Affirmation from a born again denier

"When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago..." So a bloke by the name of Patrick Moore said to his patron, Senator James Inhofe.  Anthony Watts thinks so highly of Patrick Moore's dumb, boring, tired repetition of out-dated denier talking points that he made it a sticky (archived here).  (Patrick Moore for those who've never heard of him, is apparently a "born-again denier" who says he was associated with Greenpeace in its early days, back when he was a hot-headed youth.  He left Greenpeace a couple of years later when he decided to become ideologically conservative and forsake environmental activism for the scientific illiterati.  Since then he's been trading on his "born again denier" status.  Update: I've put some related links in a comment below.)

What's happened in the last 500 million years...

Young earth creationists think modern life was created out of nothing 4,000 years ago or whenever.  Patrick Moore says modern life evolved over 500 million years ago therefore rising CO2 is not a problem.

How does Patrick Moore know what little he knows?  My guess is that it's because he read something that someone wrote about something that someone wrote about something that someone wrote about something that scientists discovered.  It's pretty obvious that Patrick Moore himself doesn't read science.  He reads hearsay of hearsay of hearsay from science deniers.

I don't know what archaic peat bog the Republican denialati dug him up from, but I wonder if Patrick Moore knows that quite a lot has changed in the past 500 million years.  For example, does Patrick Moore know it took another 150 million years before the first vertebrates appeared on land?  Does Patrick Moore know that around 250 million years after his 500 million years ago, 95% of life on earth became extinct?

Does Patrick Moore know that the very first "modern" mammals didn't appear until around 450 million years after his "500 million years ago"?

Does Patrick Moore know that it took around 480 million years after his 500 million years ago for our first ape-like ancestors to appear?

Does Patrick Moore know that it took around 498 million years after his 500 million years ago for our first Hominidae ancestors to appear?

Does Patrick Moore know that modern humans first appeared around 499.8 million years after his 500 million years ago?

Does Patrick Moore know that if CO2 were to reach the levels today that it was when the sun was much fainter and the earth was much younger, we'd all become extinct? Does he care? Or is he more interested in selling his science denial book?

Patrick Moore has told some US committee that he's written a science denying book.  Well, woopy doo.  Science denying books are plentiful but you won't learn anything about the natural world from them.  All you will learn is how some humans delude themselves.  How they'll rattle off a series of denier memes like CO2 is plant food, a warmer world is a better world, we're heading for an ice age, CO2 doesn't warm the world, warming is good for you etc etc.

What I can't understand is why Anthony Watts would make such a silly, empty denier speech a "sticky".  It's not even ground-breaking denial.  It's old, tired and worn out denial.

The equivalent of a Young Earth Creationist

Nor can I understand what makes a US government committee interested in denier rants from someone just because he got on a boat with some Greenpeace activists thirty years ago and decided that life wasn't for him.  He's not a climate scientist, that's obvious.  He's not even the sort of science denier the WUWT claim to be.  (WUWT-ers have been scrambling this week claiming they accept the greenhouse effect and AGW, they just reckon it's all stopped happening all of a sudden for no reason.)  Patrick Moore isn't one of those deniers, he's a greenhouse effect denier. The equivalent of the young earth creationists.

Pygmalion fail

If you want to read what Patrick Moore said, the WUWT archive is here.  It's not interesting. It's not eloquent. It's not got anything new.  It's not sophisticated.

It made me think of My Fair Lady.  As if Fred Singer spent a few weeks with Patrick Moore and tried to teach him some basic denier memes.  But Patrick Moore wasn't as astute as Eliza.  He couldn't be mistaken for anything but another ignorant puppet who's been trained in denial, and not very well trained at that.

When it came to his big occasion, all Patrick Moore could remember was that CO2 has been higher in the past and CO2 is plant food therefore we can keep burning coal.

Anthony Watts is worshipping a caricature, a statue of a denier and not even one of his creation.