Science deniers are consistently inconsistent...

Take this article on WUWT today (archived here).  By my count Anthony Watts has now posted more than twenty articles about the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which means that to science deniers it's almost as significant as scientific papers - Marcott13, Cook13 and Lewandowsky12.

Paul Driessen is a science denier who works for CFACT, a science denying lobby group in the USA that sells itself as a committee for the destruction of tomorrow in deed if not in name.  In his first two sentences Paul implies that scientists don't look outside their windows and at the same time complains that they travel to dangerous places to see at first hand what is happening.  Typical science denier - can't make up his mind.  First he wrote this:

Will global warming alarmists ever set aside their hypotheses, hyperbole, models and ideologies long enough to acknowledge what is actually happening in the real world outside their windows? 

So he wants them to find out what's happening in the real world.  Then in his very next sentence he writes this:

Will they at least do so before setting off on another misguided adventure? 

Complaining that they do get out in the real world to see what  is happening.  Paul goes to great lengths about how people shouldn't take risks, but at the same time expects scientists to either know or find out about conditions in dangerous parts of the world.  And seems to think it was fine for people long ago to take risks. Science deniers are seriously illogical.

Paul also tells a few fibs along the way - like the one Anthony Watts told - how he claimed to give the Expedition a weather forecast - when Anthony did no such thing.

And writing that:

He and 51 co-believers set out on the (diesel-powered) Russian charter ship Akademik Shokalskiy to prove manmade global warming is destroying the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Not so.  The aims of the scientific expedition were to:

1. gain new insights into the circulation of the Southern Ocean and its impact on the global carbon cycle
2. explore changes in ocean circulation caused by the growth of extensive fast ice and its impact on life in Commonwealth Bay
3. use the subantarctic islands as thermometers of climatic change by using trees, peats and lakes to explore the past
4. investigate the impact of changing climate on the ecology of the subantarctic islands
5. discover the environmental influence on seabird populations across the Southern Ocean and in Commonwealth Bay
6. understand changes in seal populations and their feeding patterns in the Southern Ocean and Commonwealth Bay
7. produce the first underwater surveys of life in the subantarctic islands and Commonwealth Bay
8. determine the extent to which human activity and pollution has directly impacted on this remote region of Antarctica
9. provide baseline data to improve the next generation of atmospheric, oceanic and ice sheet models to improve predictions for the future.

People like Paul Driessen lie for a living.  Here are some more - posted at Anthony Watts disinformation blog:

Despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, average global temperatures have been stable or declining since 1997. 

Wrong! In fact, except for 1999 and 2000, every one of the sixteen years since 1997 has been hotter than 1997.  And the surface temperature is definitely not declining.

Data Source: NASA

You can see global warming more clearly on a decadal timeframe, which is getting closer to climatology timelines:

Source: Fig 2.19 IPCC AR5 WG1 

Paul would have you believe that in relatively recent times the Arctic sea ice was comparable to what little has been there in the past ten years, writing:

In 1903, during the first year of his three-year crossing of the Northwest Passage, Roald Amundsen noted that his party “had made headway with ease,” because ice conditions had been “unusually favorable.”

Sure - but it took Amundsen two years or more in a shallow bottomed boat hugging the shoreline to make it through the passage.  It's different these days.  Now there are large commercial ships that can get through the Arctic in a few days, because there is much, much less ice in summer.

Paul finishes with this complex question to which he provides a simplistic answer:

The fundamental issue is this: Are humans causing imminent, unprecedented, global climate change disasters? And can we prevent those alleged disasters, by drastically curtailing hydrocarbon use, slashing living standards, and imposing government control over industries and people’s lives? If you look at actual evidence – instead of computer model forecasts and “scenarios” – the answer is clearly: No.

Let me break it down into simple terms a typical WUWT denier might understand:

• Are humans causing imminent, unprecedented, global climate change?  Yes.
• Can we limit the extent of climate change? Yes, by cutting CO2 emissions.
• If we don't take action, will there be consequences? Yes - seas will rise a lot, large areas of earth will become uninhabitable because of periods of temperatures too hot to handle, food production will suffer, species will die out etc etc.

People like Paul Driessen who earn a living by rejecting science are too transparent.  They work for their paymasters not for society.  That's clear from the evidence of the lies that they tell.  Anthony Watts is quite happy to promote their disinformation.  He doesn't have the well-being of humanity in mind either.  Only his ideology, advertising revenue and blog hits, and whatever dollars he can beg from his loyal denier base.

On a clear sunny day in East Antarctica...

...passengers from MV Akademik Shokalskiy were airlifted off by helicopters from the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long and will eventually board the Aurora Australis.  From there they will travel to Tasmania, arriving in mid-January.

.
You can read more here on the live blog at the Guardian, and on Twitter.

H/t John Russell.