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

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

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

But that's not all.

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

Anthony Watts publishes another recklessly defamatory article about NOAA scientists, by Tim Ball

Anthony Watts has published another defamatory article on his blog (archived here). I use the term without it being proven in the courts, but if one of the retired scientists mentioned wanted to take him and Tim Ball to court, he'd surely be able to make a case to be heard. Tim Ball started his false claims in the very first sentence.

Some key points about the NOAA temperature reconstruction paper, Karl15

Before going into the despicable actions of Tim Ball and his publisher Anthony Watts, let me remind you about the NOAA work that they don't understand, but dislike so much they'll risk being sued (yet again, in the case of Tim Ball).

The work was built from two main pieces of research. One was an updating of a sea surface temperature record, which was in turn built from zillions of records from different sources, carefully analysed in great detail. The scientists re-aligned the data from different sources so that it provided a more accurate account of how the temperature of the sea surface has changed over time. As an example of this, the authors of Karl15 wrote:

David Rose doubles down on #climate disinformation about NOAA. Let's get some perspective

I've had a post in train for a week now, after last week's ridiculously wrong article from David Rose in the Mail on Sunday. He based it on another ridiculous article, that one from John Bates on Judith Curry's climate disinformation blog. David Rose has followed it up with another ridiculously wrong article, which says nothing new and in which he's just trying to justify all the mistakes and lies in his first article.

John Bates is a meteorologist turned computer data person whose nose was out of joint because he didn't always get his way when he used to work at NOAA. It was a sour grapes whine from someone who wanted attention. That's all. However his attention-seeking moan had major repercussions through the deniosphere.

Another court victory for Michael Mann and climate science

There's been another victory for science and climate scientists everywhere. In case you missed it, Michael Mann is suing for defamation, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has just now removed yet another obstacle some of the alleged defamers put in his way.

Acting with reckless disregard

The decision is worth reading. One of the key paragraphs is, as Professor Mann wrote on his Facebook page:

" [The defendants' statement that] Dr. Mann has engaged in misconduct has been so definitively discredited, a reasonable jury could, if it so chooses, doubt the veracity of appellants’ claimed honest belief in that very notion. A jury could find, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants “in fact entertained serious doubts” or had a “high degree of awareness” that the accusations that Dr. Mann engaged in scientific misconduct, fraud, and deception, were false, and, as a result, acted “with reckless disregard” for the statements’ truth when they were published." (p. 101)

Michael Mann is suing the following for defamation based on articles appearing on websites: Mark Steyn, The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Rand Simberg, and The National Review, Inc. All but Mark Steyn tried to get the case tossed under Anti-SLAPP Act. They tried this in a trial court and lost, so took it to the Appeals Court, where Michael Mann prevailed again.

The way is now cleared for Professor Mann to pursue his case for defamation.

Anthony Watts publicly accuses NOAA scientists of fraud (again) - plus his "people go to jail"!

If you mistakenly thought that deniers like Anthony Watts might have some ethics or even a tiny shred of decency hidden very deep, you're wrong. In a topsy turvy and ugly article at WUWT today, Anthony Watts has someone trying to defend his appalling email to Tom Peterson of NOAA, in which he accuses Dr Peterson of fraud. Kip Hansen (archived here) tries to twist this into it being Andy Revkin who committed "a public journalistic offense". (I did say "that's gotta hurt".)

Andy Revkin wrote this after learning about Anthony's defamatory email:

Any notion that Watts is interested in fostering an atmosphere of civility and constructive discourse evaporates pretty quickly in considering how he handled his questions about that paper. Alternating between happy talk about rooftop solar and slanderous accusations is not constructive or civil.

Anthony Watts alleges fraud by the NOAA

Anthony Watts is spreading his tattered wings, reaching beyond the Serengeti Strategy of isolating a single animal from the safety of its herd, to targeting an entire herd. Today, as if tempting a defamation suit, he boldly alleged that the NOAA is committing fraud (archived here). He wrote:

Grandma Learns About Data Adjustment: A little story about how data adjustment might work in everyday life.
Anthony Watts / 8 hours ago June 1, 2015
Note: On Thursday of this week, NOAA/NCDC will attempt to rewrite the surface temperature record yet again, making even more “adjustments” to the data to achieve a desired effect. This story by Mr. Core is worth noting in the context of data spin that we are about to be subjected to – Anthony Watts

Here is the global surface temperature anomaly as reported by NOAA:

Data Source: NOAA

"A serious case of defamation"

Good to see that Dr Andrew Weaver has won his court case against the National Post (h/t Anonymous). As Carol Linnett at DeSmogCanada writes:

The ruling names Terence Corcoran, editor of the Financial Post, Peter Foster, a columnist at the National Post, Kevin Libin, a journalist that contributes to the Financial Post and National Post publisher Gordon Fisher.

Sad to see that the National Post has not yet complied with the judgement (at the time of writing this article).

Surprisingly, given the attention the paper gave to Dr Weaver, the court did not find malice, so did not award punitive damages.  General damages were awarded against all parties. So far only (almost) mainstream media has been sued - by climate scientists -  for defamation (to my knowledge). Once the rest of these cases have run their course, there may be sufficient weight of findings (precedence) to take on bloggers who claim readership in the millions. In any case, it will give people something to chew on the next time they want to attack the integrity of a climate scientist.

Message to anti-scientist bloggers: don't make up stuff

The message from all this to bloggers is "don't make up stuff". The message to internet readers is "don't believe everything you read on the internet" (or anywhere). Check your facts.

The ruling makes interesting reading. The punch lines are the findings of the Supreme Court:

[289] As in Leenen, the defamation in this case was serious. It offended Dr. Weaver’s character and the defendants refused to publish a retraction. The libel was widely published by at least one high profile journalist and two others. In addition, the libel effectively ran through a serious of articles in a national newspaper published over a short and continuous time period. Re-publication of the libel occurred as established by the plaintiff.

[290] I am of the view a significant award is appropriate. The inferential meaning of the words implies a serious defect in character that impacts Dr. Weaver’s academic and professional world. The evidence establishes Dr. Weaver was deeply affected by what he perceived as a barrage of articles impugning his integrity and academic reputation. These gave rise to the “Wall of Hate” that he maintained outside his office; comments, he noted, which arose after the publication of those articles.

[291] I consider an award of $50,000 in general damages against all defendants jointly and severally to be appropriate in this case. I decline to award aggravated or punitive damages. I have not found malice to be present in this case.

[292] Dr. Weaver sought an injunction and assignment of copyright. I direct the defendants to remove the offending articles from any electronic database, where they are accessible under the control of the National Post Internet sites and electronic databases. In addition, the defendants are required to expressly withdraw any consent given to third parties to re-publish the defamatory expression and to require these third parties to cease re-publication.

[293] Further, the defendants will publish a complete retraction of the defamatory expression in the hardcopy National Post Internet sites and electronic databases in a form agreed to by the plaintiff. Failing agreement, the parties are at liberty to apply to this Court for directions concerning the form and content of such retraction. As to the Weaver v. Corcoran Page 82 question of ordering an assignment of copyright, without more foundation, I am unable to accede to that as requested by the plaintiff in this matter.

Readers' comments on the internet

This part of the ruling may be of interest to bloggers. It refers to readers' comments and the responsibilities of publishers of those comments:

Once the offensive comments were brought to the attention of the defendants, however, if immediate action is not taken to deal with these comments, the defendants would be considered publishers as at that date. 

So - if you find comments on blogs to be defamatory or otherwise offensive and want them removed, then it appears it may be up to you to request they be removed.  That is, if in Canada. A request to remove and retract false claims made in an article, is generally a precursor to legal action for defamation. So a request to remove comments is something you'd probably be doing in any case.

You can do your bit to help

Taking a defamer to court comes at great personal sacrifice, even if the person wins. Cases will be more likely to succeed if the best advice and help is provided. Donate to the climate science legal defense fund - or maybe donate again, if you've already done so :)

Click here to donate.

Taunting the World: Anthony Watts brazenly boasts about climate disinformers getting away with theft and lies

Anthony Watts at WUWT has decided to go back five years (archived here), and boast about how he and other deniers escaped the wrath of the law and got away with the crime of receiving stolen property, protecting thieves and worse. They've not got much else to boast about these days. But it's in character for him and his band of deniers to be proud of the fact that deniers managed to defeat the British constabulary, steal thousands of emails from a university, and then misrepresent the contents to the world at large.  How they hounded the world's leading climate scientists and tried to destroy their professional reputations, in their effort to put the entire world at risk.

What science disinformers like Anthony Watts won't admit to his dismal audience is that there was nothing, nothing at all in the emails. Zero. Zilch. Not one teeny tiny little bit of an email, that put the smallest dent in the vast body of climate science knowledge.  All the incident showed was how low science disinformers will sink to try to preserve the interests of those they are shielding. The crooked politicians. The greedy fossil fuel company owners.

That was a dark episode, and is probably the best example of the lengths to which these climate vandals will go in their ongoing efforts to make the next several generations suffer misery, drought, hunger, thirst, floods, dislocation, social upheaval and war. They will break the law. They will steal, lie and defame - and continue to do so. Some of them will get away with it. Others won't - or that's my climate prediction. Many of them will pay for their crimes eventually - either by being brought before a court of law, or by suffering the effects of climate change first hand themselves.

Some of these people are sociopaths who get a kick out of damaging humanity. Some are just petty criminals, lowlife scoundrels who are in it for the money. Their target audience is the wilfully ignorant. The dumb deniers. The uneducated ultra-conservative voter who is afraid of anything and everything outside their immediate tiny bigoted social circle.  The disenfranchised and fearful, who think they are powerless. It's the dumb deniers who make up the chorus and help spread the lies of the professional disinformers. It doesn't take much to play on the fears of the fearful. All it takes is to pretend to be anti-authority. To be against learning and knowledge and all the good things that humanity represents.

These people think they are above the law. They will libel, steal and lie and do whatever it takes to make sure the world gets hotter as quickly as possible. Oh, those same people will call on the law when it suits them. If someone stole from them they'd be the first to call the local police force. However they think they themselves are immune. Well, they are getting away with their criminal acts for a while, but it will backfire on them.

Look at Anthony Watts. His own home state has been burning up, suffering one of the worst droughts in recorded history. It's improved only a smidgen since the worst of three months ago. How is he coping? He doesn't say. Anthony Watts, supposed weather person, has barely mentioned what's happening in his own backyard. He doesn't have the courage to admit to his readers that he and they are part of the problem. That they are bringing this on themselves.

Source: US Drought Monitor

Yes, this is a bit different to the mild ridicule I normally heap on the denialati. Ridicule is good, but not all these people are simple buffoons and well-meaning idiots. Some of them are quite simply immoral and have shown they are willing to break the law to protect their own personal interests. Calling disinformers out for their crimes from time to time, is also good.