Denier weirdness: Ari Halperin thinks the IPCC's climate change definition is too broad

The Stupid It Burns Credit: Plognark

There could be an entire field of study devoted to how the brain of a climate science denier is wired, or miswired. There is a very strange article at WUWT (archived here) that shows up the deep flaws in thinking processes of deniers. The best explanation I can come up with is that Ari Halperin doesn't understand what climate is and the people commenting at WUWT are not able to process logic.

Logical fallacies and conspiracy theories from Rick Wallace at WUWT

As you probably know, five telltale techniques of science deniers have been documented. These are: fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry-picking and conspiracy theorising. This article is about an example of logical fallacies and conspiracy theories.

Red herrings and non sequiturs - logical fallacies

A guest at WUWT today (archived here) has decided that climate science is a hoax because:

1. there are differences of opinion among biologists about the definition of species, and
2. Lubos Motl's blog suggests there are still things being learnt about quantum physics.

Now you might wonder what this has to do with climate science. It doesn't. I'd say it's both a red herring and a non sequitur. Fake sceptics might not be much chop at science, but they excel at logical fallacies. This one, who goes by the name of Rick Wallace has decided that:

...in real science any state of agreement is labile at best – and establishing a consensus is about the last thing on peoples’ minds. I would go so far as to say that under these conditions, as often as not, a leading idea is a target to take aim at rather than a flag to rally ‘round.

What he has decided in his wisdom is that climate science is a hoax because scientists agree that greenhouse gases are what keeps the Earth warm.

Cooked Goose: Brandon Shollenberger has a severe case of logic fail (and cherry picking) at WUWT

Brandon Shollenberger wrote at WUWT:

Mandatory limits/restrictions on carbon emissions are known as cap and trade. 

Brandon's got that back to front.  Cap and trade is an incentives-based market mechanism to encourage carbon polluters to limit carbon emissions.  It is one form of "mandatory limits/restrictions".  However mandatory limits means a mandatory limit.  In the context of greenhouse gases, it means that a polluter can only emit so much pollution before being penalised.  There are a number of ways to achieve that.  One could give a polluter that exceeded those limits the option of shutting down or dropping below those limits.  There could be a straight tax on carbon emissions above a certain "mandatory limit" to encourage polluters to restrict emissions.  No cap and trade necessary.

Anthony Watts has posted an article by Brandon Shollenberger at WUWT (archived here).  Brandon Shollenberger has graced HotWhopper in the past - here and here, for example.  He's a loose cannon and misses the mark more often than he hits it, when it comes to climate discussions.

Today Brandon Shollenberger has decided, through faulty logic, that James Hansen can be called a "denier".  Why? Well, because Brandon has argued by a chain of logical fallacies, which as far as I can ascertain goes something like this.  The square brackets are what Brandon has implied rather than stated, but are necessary to follow Brandon's "logic" - I've written my comment in bold italics:

1. [Cap and trade is a form of mandatory limit/restriction] - arguably one form
2. Therefore all forms of mandatory limit/restriction are cap and trade - Does not follow
3. Therefore cap and trade is the only form of mandatory limit/restriction - Does not follow
4. [People who accept the need for restrictions accept climate science] - Not necessarily
5. [Anyone who opposes restrictions on carbon pollution is a climate science denier]  - Not necessarily plus does not follow
6. [Only mandatory restrictions on carbon pollution are restrictions] - Not true
7. [Therefore only cap and trade restrictions are restrictions]  - Does not follow and priors do not follow
8. [Therefore anyone who opposes cap and trade restrictions is a denier]  - Does not follow
9. [Therefore anyone who suggests cap and trade is not efficacious is a denier]  - Does not follow and priors do not follow
10. James Hansen once said that "cap and trade...does little to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels"
11. Therefore James Hansen is a "denier"  - Does not follow and multiple priors do not follow

Anyway, Brandon got all excited using words like "flabbergasted".

What he was writing about was Robert Brulle's recent paper that examined funding to oppose limits on carbon emissions.  As well as deciding that Dr Hansen is a "denier", Brandon got all hot and bothered because Dr Brulle apparently listed the Global Carbon Coalition as opposing restrictions on carbon pollution.  He found a sentence for which he doesn't cite a source, but it's probably Wikipedia or SourceWatch, that the now defunct Global Carbon Coalition declared:

the development of new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions [is] a concept strongly supported by the GCC

which is a cherry-picked segment of this, in Wikipedia:

"The industry voice on climate change has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming... The Bush administration will soon announce a climate policy that is expected to rely on the development of new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions, a concept strongly supported by the GCC.

Notice how Brandon has altered the meaning by omitting the words "to rely on"?  Not only that but Brandon omitted the fact that, according to Wikipedia sources, the Global Carbon Coalition was opposed to "immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions".

Not only that, but the bigger logic fail is his premise that opposition to action to restrict carbon emissions necessarily means rejection of climate science.  There are people who understand very well the seriousness of carbon pollution but who nevertheless argue against limiting fossil fuel burning and/or argue against government intervention.

Not only that, but Robert Brulle doesn't himself use the word "denier".  That word only appears in his paper once, in the list of references.  Dr Brulle's paper is an analysis of funding.  It's not an analysis of climate science denial.  Many if not most of the people financing opposition to mitigation of carbon emissions would probably accept the science.  It's just that their other "wants" (eg current personal wealth, no government intervention except for tax breaks and subsidies for their favourite investments etc) outweigh any latent desires they may have for future prosperity and the well-being of society.

This paper conducts an analysis of the financial resource mobilization of the organizations that make up the climate change counter-movement (CCCM) in the United States.

Now Brandon makes the claim that:

Brulle argues anyone who opposes cap and trade is a denier.

Not at all.  The Brulle study wasn't an examination of opinions on climate science.  It was an analysis of the  "financial resource mobilisation of the organisations that make up the climate change counter-movement".   Dr Brulle defines:

The first question is: What is the climate change counter-movement? Here I argue that an efficacious approach to defining this movement is to view it as a cultural contestation between a social movement advocating restrictions on carbon emissions and a countermovement opposed to such action. Using this perspective, the key organizations of the U.S. CCCM are identified.

There is no suggestion that those funding the countermovement reject the science.  It is clear that many of them foster doubt about the science as one of their tactics, but that does not mean the funders of the counter-movement reject science, nor that rejection of science is a necessary pre-requisite to opposing restrictions on carbon emissions.  After all, look at Anthony Watts himself.  He has said on many occasions that he knows that carbon emissions are causing the world to heat up.  Yet the whole reason for his blog is to get his readers to doubt the science and, more particularly, to oppose government action aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

The gift-wrapped goose,
ready for cooking at HotWhopper.

Brandon makes a habit of getting it all wrong and working up a lather over all the wrong things.  This time it's no different.  All wrapped up in a pretty bow and delivered by by Anthony Watts, ready to be cooked and served up here at HotWhopper.  What a delicious cooked goose.

Of course Anthony Watts wouldn't know a logical fallacy if he tripped over one - he who thinks airports can suddenly catch UHI disease, that global warming is caused by Russian steampipes and who promotes paranoid conspiracy theories of the OneWorldGovernment/NewWorldOrder/Agenda21 kind.

---

Brulle, Robert J. "Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of US climate change counter-movement organizations." Climatic Change (2013): 1-14.
You can also get the 120 page supplement here. Click here for the related article in Nature News.

---

From the WUWT comments

There are a lot of vacuous comments like this one from tango who says:

January 6, 2014 at 5:29 pm
don,t worry the gooses are digging them selves a bigger hole the quicker they complete we can all go back to being normal

And utter nutter comments drawing on religion like this one from Ju;lian in Wales who says:

January 6, 2014 at 5:02 pm
An Inquisition against those who question the authority of the self acclaimed high priests of Climate Change. But where is their power to hold the trials and punish the “deniers”? If we do not fear them why should we take any notice of their peculiar court?

This will backfire because having deliberated on who they hate and who they want to crucify to their Gods they will be seen to have no power or authority to carry their divine justice further. They will look like feeble fools who live in a irrelevant bubble world of unreality.

Some of the denialati might have a smidgen of sense, like Steve from Rockwood who says:

January 6, 2014 at 4:52 pm
I need to smarten up because I just don’t get it. Read it twice too.

Someone with more than a smidgen of sense managed to sneak in a comment.  PJF says:

January 6, 2014 at 3:54 pm
This (Brandon Schollenberger’s) piece is a cheap strawman based upon his invention that “mandatory limits/restrictions on carbon emissions are known as cap and trade”. It will be burnt to shreds like all strawmen should. The author may feel it “bullish”, I would suggest a small addition would describe it down to a t.

A WUWT own goal.

Rob Dawg opts for nefarious intent and says:

January 6, 2014 at 3:42 pm
The word denier was specifically chosen to conjure up associations with the holocaust. The acronym CCCM was carefully crafted to harken back to the days of the CCCP soviet era.

Madman2001 doesn't understand the meaning of ad hominem and says:

January 6, 2014 at 2:55 pm
It seems more and more that the alarmists are talking less and less about the science — maybe they think they’ve lost that battles — and are instead choosing to directly attack skeptics in an ad hominem manner. It means that the skeptics are winning.

Followed shortly after by this comment from M Seward who illustrated the meaning of ad hominem by writing:

January 6, 2014 at 3:21 pm
From Brulle’s page at Drexel

Education
BS, Marine Biology, U.S. Coast Guard Academy *
MA, Sociology, New School for Social Research
MS, Natural Resources, University of Michigan
PhD, Sociology, George Washington University, 1995
(* although down the page it says a BS in Marine Engineering )
Research and Teaching Interests
Critical Theory
Social Movements
Social Change
Environmental Sociology

I think the “Research and Teaching Interests ” say it all. Sounds like a man who was not cut out for the real world and scuttled back underground. Must have been tough at the US CG Academy.

And WTF ! He isn’t even a climate scientist!!

LOL

That's probably enough to give you an idea of the size and scope of the pool of intellect at WUWT.

More WUWT denier weirdness:- Monckton's 8% Dismissives plus another glimpse into "mad, mad, mad" Steve Goreham's world

Today at Anthony Watts' denier blog, wattsupwiththat (WUWT), Anthony provides two more examples of denier weirdness.

Monckton highlights the 8% Dismissives

Christopher Monckton doesn't like the scientific consensus that humans are warming the world.  He's taken a particular dislike to Cook et al (2013), which is the most recent of several papers that demonstrate how great is the consensus. (97% of papers that attribute a cause to global warming attribute it to human activity.)

So he's decided to write a letter to the editor of the journal that published Cook13 - ERL.  Then he had another idea and has now decided to send a copy to every member of the editorial board of the journal. (See Christopher's original version archived here, and his later version archived here.)

Christopher's said he wants to "crowd-source" signatories so has asked for the help of the readers at Anthony Watts denier blog - wattsupwiththat.com (WUWT).  I was interested in seeing who put their names to the letter.  I reckon what he's done is highlight the difference between the denier commenters.  The couple of hundred people who want their names on Christopher's silly letter are the 8% Dismissives.  People like "shouty" Richardscourtney, "holy moly" crawler Janice Moore and sock-puppet dbstealey (AKA Smokey). There are a number of prolific WUWT  commenters who are conspicuous by their absence - so far at any rate (eg Greg Goodman, Pamela Gray and M Courtney). These are people who tend towards being "lukewarmer" deniers - plus of course the one or two real sceptics who Anthony Watts hasn't banned yet.

If anyone ever does any research on categorising the different types of deniers at wattsupwiththat, this thread of Christopher Monckton's is worth noting. (By the way, the article is just another rehash of Christopher's nonsensical arithmetical failures.)

Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham fazed by rising seas

Anthony Watts has posted another article by Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham at WUWT.  The last one was about the Not the IPCC report.  This one is about sea level (archived here).

Steve's article is a good example of the logical fallacy of personal incredulity.  He doesn't "believe" that there are scientific instruments and analytic techniques that can measure sea level with the accuracy and precision reported by scientists.  Because he doesn't "believe" it, he reckons it can't be true.

Just like deniers often go to SkepticalScience.com's list of most common denier myths to decide what they'll try on today, it looks as if Steve went to U Colorado's FAQ on sea level to try on his "I don't believe it" rubbish.  Some examples of Steve's "personal incredulity" argument:

Steve: they claim to be able to measure ocean level to a high degree of accuracy. But a look at natural ocean variation shows that official sea level measurements are nonsense. 

From the FAQ:

The satellite altimeter estimate of interest is the distance between the sea surface illuminated by the radar altimeter and the center of the Earth (geocentric sea surface height or SSH). This distance is estimated by subtracting the measured distance between the satellite and sea surface (after correcting for many effects on the radar signal) from the very precise orbit of the satellite. At any location, the SSH changes over time due to many well understood factors (ocean tides, atmospheric pressure, glacial isostatic adjustment, etc.). By subtracting from the measured SSH an a priori mean sea surface (MSS), such as the CLS01 mean sea surface, and these known time-varying effects, we compute the sea surface height anomalies (SSHA). Each point in the global mean sea level (GMSL) time series plots is the area-weighted mean of all of the sea surface height anomalies measured by the altimeter in a single, 10-day satellite track repeat cycle (time for the satellite to begin repeating the same ground track). 

Another "I don't believe it" from Steve:

Steve: But three millimeters is about the thickness of two dimes. Can scientists really measure a change in sea level over the course of a year, averaged across the world, which is two dimes thick?

From the FAQ, - yes they can.  The FAQ states that the estimated error is just 0.4 mm/yr.  If you're a fanatical fact checker, you'll notice that Steve isn't very precise himself.  A dime is 1.35 mm thick.  Two dimes are 2.7 mm thick.  The current sea level trend is 3.2 mm +/- 0.4 mm a year.


Steve wonders how the accuracy can be as stated when a single measurement is only accurate to to the nearest centimetre.  What he is missing is that there are lots and lots (and lots!) of measurements taken so the error is hugely reduced.  The higher the number of measurements the lower the measurement error.  Overs and unders cancel out.  From the FAQ:

Each point in the global mean sea level (GMSL) time series plots is the area-weighted mean of all of the sea surface height anomalies measured by the altimeter in a single, 10-day satellite track repeat cycle (time for the satellite to begin repeating the same ground track).  

Steve concludes that the number that the scientists come up with isn't from scientific analysis and mathematics, it's from what he calls "group think".  Which is another way of saying that Steve "mad, mad, mad" Goreham doesn't understand scientific measurement.  (There are different sources of error other than measurement error, which the scientists attempt to address, and they touch on how they do this in the FAQ.)

Spot the fallacy and the error

Steve commits many logical fallacies in his article but this next one is a beauty:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007, “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 mm per year.” This translates to a 100-year rise of only 7 inches and 12 inches, far below the dire predictions of the climate alarmists.

He's saying that because the actual sea level rise to date isn't as big as projections to 2100 (as ice sheets melt more), the future projections are wrong!  That's like saying - it was cold in Chicago last December so it couldn't possibly be hot in Chicago in July.

Seas are rising about as fast as projected back in 1990

I will point out that Steve Goreham is not correct in regard to near term being "far below dire predictions", if you look at the chapter on sea level in the first IPCC report (1990) - in which there is a lot of discussion of uncertainty - it summarises the known science at the time making projections for the near term (see p 275 here):

In general, most of the studies in Table 9.9 foresee a sea level rise of somewhere between 10cm and 30cm over the next four decades.  

These projections from the 1990 IPCC report are within the ballpark of the observed trend since 1993 of 3.2 cm a decade which, if sustained, would mean 12.8 cm over four decades. There are still almost two decades to go though.

Source: U Colorado

Note: I've corrected this section from the original - where my own arithmetic was flawed!!

The illogical Anthony Watts and more spin from the Telegraph

Almost everyone who has ever visited WUWT (or HotWhopper) knows that logic is not a strong suit of Anthony Watts.  The exception might be people who are afflicted with a similar logic disability.  This time his logic fails (see here) when he reads an article by Bruno Waterfield in the Telegraph (archived here).

Bruno Waterfield fails ethics 101

Bruno Waterfield of the Telegraph in the UK, as part of a series of disinformation articles, has spun something said by the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Ms Connie Hedegaard to suit his own purposes.  (Archived here.) Instead of representing her views accurately and in context, Bruno Waterfield took some of her comments right out of context and spun them to suit his own anti-science agenda.

Connie Hedegaard
Credit: Magnus Fröderberg

Ms Hedegaard as the European Commissioner for Climate Action is in a better position than most to understand what we are doing to our planet, and knows that humans are causing global warming.  As part of an interview with Bruno Waterfield she apparently said the following:

"Say that 30 years from now, science came back and said, 'wow, we were mistaken then now we have some new information so we think it is something else'. In a world with nine billion people, even 10 billion at the middle of this century, where literally billions of global citizens will still have to get out of poverty and enter the consuming middle classes, don't you think that anyway it makes a lot of sense to get more energy and resource efficient," she said.

Ms Hedegaard is basically arguing that there is more than one reason for the world and the EU to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.  Global warming is a very big reason, but even if that weren't happening, the world will need to move to renewable resources in the medium to longer term in order that it can keep functioning.

Credit: Joel Pett

Anthony Watts fails logic 101

Logic-deficient Anthony Watts writes (archived here):

Every once in awhile a window opens and shows us the dark, illogical souls of the bureaucrats in the climate cabal. This is one of those times.

Anthony believes efforts to shift to clean, renewable energy are "illogical", giving this quote from the EU Commissioner as an example of what he regards as failed logic:

Regardless of whether or not scientists are wrong on global warming, the European Union is pursuing the correct energy policies even if they lead to higher prices, Europe’s climate commissioner has said.

Exposing Bruno Waterfield and the Telegraph (it's not hard)

Bruno Waterfield is a foot soldier for The Telegraph, which is waging a war on facts as part of its war on human civilisation.  He writes the following lies which are too easy to check (my bold italics):

In the process of defending controversial policies, the EU has often linked extreme weather events to global warming after the IPCC said six years ago that it was more than 50 per cent sure that hurricanes, flooding and droughts were being caused by manmade global warming. That figure is expected to be revised down to less than a 21 per cent certainty that natural disasters are caused by climate change.

The Telegraph is getting very cheeky mixing facts with such bald lies. What makes Bruno Waterfield misrepresent people and make up stuff? These events have been happening since time immemorial. What global warming does is affect climate and therefore weather. Some things will happen more often, some less often.  Some will be more intense.

It will be interesting to see if Bruno Waterfield backtracks on his "less than 21 per cent certainty" when the IPCC report is released.  Want to take bets?  Going by his record he'll probably just tell more lies and write more spin.  I would be very surprised if the IPCC report suggests that flooding and droughts were "less than 21 per cent certain".  Hurricane frequency maybe.  That is still the subject of much research.

Contrast what the Telegraph wrote above with what was written six years ago in the 2007 IPCC report.  The 2007 report says less in regard to what has happened in regard to the above, but it does write about what can be expected.  For example: (my bold italics):

On hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events and floods- they will all become more frequent.  So yes, more flooding is expected - like we're already seeing in some parts of the world:

(In Europe) Negative impacts will include increased risk of inland flash floods and more frequent coastal flooding and increased erosion (due to storminess and sea level rise). {WGII 12.4, SPM} (see here with similar statements for some other regions)

There is now higher confidence in the projected increases in droughts, heat waves and floods, as well as their adverse impacts. (see here)

It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will become more frequent. {SYR Table 3.2; WGI 10.3, SPM} (see here)

On drought - the areas will increase in extent and have likely already done so (where I live we had the longest hottest drought on record recently.  Parts of the USA are also drying out, despite the record flash floods in Colorado in the last few days (while other parts are getting wetter):

 Globally, the area affected by drought has likely[2] increased since the 1970s. {WGI 3.3, 3.9, SPM} (see here)

Drought-affected areas are projected to increase in extent, with the potential for adverse impacts on multiple sectors, e.g. agriculture, water supply, energy production and health. (see here)

On hurricanes - more intense but less frequent and moving toward the poles:

Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea-surface temperatures. There is less confidence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of tropical cyclones. The apparent increase in the proportion of very intense storms since 1970 in some regions is much larger than simulated by current models for that period. {WGI 3.8, 9.5, 10.3, SPM}

Extra-tropical storm tracks are projected to move poleward, with consequent changes in wind, precipitation and temperature patterns, continuing the broad pattern of observed trends over the last half-century. {WGI 3.6, 10.3, SPM}

Bruno Waterfield quotes Bjorn Lomborg (see this article on Lomborg's spin) and ends up with a quote from the arch-conservative Nigel Farage, leader of the crank Ukip party who, like Bruno, wants to send the world hurtling faster into the sixth major extinction event.  These people have no shame and no morals.

From the WUWT comments

Here are some comments from WUWT (archived here).


Flydlbee possibly can't conceive of a mere woman being in charge of anything and says:

September 17, 2013 at 12:10 am
The man contradicts himself within the same sentence, and expects people to agree with him. Why is it “good” to have been utterly and hugely wrong?

Brian H says:

September 17, 2013 at 1:56 am
If the renewables were what they claim, there might be some excuse for the “better world” delusions. As they are not, and cannot be, the sacrifices and deadly economic disruptions required to build them out are the more destructive the more they “succeed” in displacing conventional energy.

Ceetee says - "what a rotter for wanting a better world":

September 17, 2013 at 1:37 am
So she’s all for killing grannies and grandads then?!. What a nasty piece of work.

Alexander Feht wanders off into a surreal flight of fancy and says:

September 17, 2013 at 12:11 am
Dark, yes. Illogical? I doubt it.
You see, when Ms. Hedegaard is talking about “many good things,” she means things that are good for her and her subspecies. The fact that the same things may be deadly for me or for some other variety of human being is just the point. They are instinctively afraid of more intelligent life forms, and they want to exterminate us.

Swiss Bob blames "everything" on those "commies" (despite the fact that Ms Hedegaard is a member of the Conservative People's Party) and says:

September 17, 2013 at 12:56 am
Most of these apparatchiks are communists, which should tell you everything you need to know. Can’t quite understand why the US Govt loves the EU so much…..

grumpyoldmanuk says that you don't have to be a "Leftie" to be an "ecoloon":

September 17, 2013 at 12:22 am
Ms. Hedegaard is a Danish Conservative and a former minister. In Europe and the U.K. you don’t have to be a Leftie to be an ecoloon, pace John Gummer, Frau Merkel and David Cameron.

Some WUWT commenters are not as logically-challenged as Anthony Watts and others:

SideShowBob passes logic but fails geography (Ms Hedegaard is from Denmark and the EU is more than just Germany):

September 17, 2013 at 1:25 am
Nothing wrong with Europeans moving away from Russian oil and gas, putting global warming and climate change aside, this is a clever long term German policy to insulate their country from future oil and gas price shortages… and if global warming turns out to be true well that’s just a bonus as the Germans will have already done the heavy lifting in eliminating CO2 emissions

jimmi_the_dalek isn't logic deficient either and says:

September 17, 2013 at 12:32 am
Surely what she means is that securing energy supplies, preferably from renewable sources, is a good idea independently of any consideration of climate change?

harrywr2 demonstrates some logic and says:

September 17, 2013 at 12:30 am
There is nothing odd about the statement.  The EU is heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies. Russia has been known to use energy supplies as a ‘weapon’.  So to the extent that the EU moves away from Russian Oil,Coal and Natural gas for whatever reason leads to EU energy security.

Take away the issue of ‘Climate Change’ in Europe and all the politicians will simply switch to talking about ‘energy security’.

Have the windmll and solar industry’s been successful in tilting the emphasis away from ‘energy security’? Sure…but that is always going to happen when you use 1/2 a reason rather then the whole reason when making political arguments.

Anthony Watts promotes more nuttery. Has he lost all his senses?

More fruitcake anyone?

Nutty fruitcake

Anthony Watts is serving up nutters again.  The lunacy keeps coming.  Do you reckon Anthony is really after this after all?

He's promoting a third abomination from Ronald D Voisin.  This retired engineer boasts he got a BSEE degree from the Univ. of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 1978 and has held various management positions at both established equipment companies and start-ups, helped initiate and has authored/co-authored 55 patent applications, 24 of which have issued.

Just kill off all the insects, microbes and mammals!

You can see why he apparently had such a hard time holding down a job.  This very same Ronald D Voisin maintains all of these notions apparently at the same time:

• burning hydrocarbon doesn't produce carbon dioxide
• humans are not mammals
• there is no greenhouse effect, the earth stays warm by magic
• there is a greenhouse effect and it's caused by insects
• it is trivially within our means to reduce the world's microbes and insects by six per cent
• if there is a greenhouse effect, it's easier to control it by killing off other mammals, insects and microbes than by shifting to clean energy
• people who accept science will be 'embarrassed' if global warming doesn't result in catastrophe.

Here is one of Ronald D Voisin's tables, setting out his hit list in order of preference:

At least one WUWT-er is having trouble believing this one.  TomB says:

June 20, 2013 at 6:48 am  I was assuming by the “trivially within our means to further control microbes and insects” quote to just be poorly worded. I’ve worked with engineers throughout my career and I have great respect for them. But the overwhelming majority can’t write very well. What I’m assuming he meant was that we have no ability whatsoever to control microbes or insects. But I’ll wait for clarification from the author.

Nope, Tom.  Going by Ronald D Voisin's previous articles he meant exactly what he wrote.

It's taken three posts from Ronald D Voisin before the deniers object or even notice his crazy insect theory.

Ian H says:
June 20, 2013 at 6:53 am  Where did the microbe and insect thing come from? This is the first time I’ve ever heard this mentioned. I’m actually extremely sceptical :-) that you could cut the population of microbes and insects by six percent in a controlled way without causing immense disruption to the entire ecology.

johnmarshall says:
June 20, 2013 at 6:58 am  The BBC interviewed a microbiologist from Edinburgh who ststed that she had identified hundreds of bacteria living in soil and absolutely no idea what 95% of them actually did. So a good idea to leave them alone since they might even be, odds on, beneficial.
Man should learn more about his planet and not try to change things he little understands. The law of Unintended Consequences looms large and wide.

WasteYourOwnMoney says:
June 20, 2013 at 7:07 am
Engineers are wired to solve problems. However this proposed solution has “law of unintended consequences” written all over it. It is in fact, just the type of solution we are accustomed to expect from our green friends.

Is it a Poe?  Margaret Hardiman suggests it might be.  I don't believe it is.

Margaret Hardman says:
June 20, 2013 at 9:34 am  I know all too well the mentality of most commenters on this site. Perhaps this series of post are an elaborate Poe since even some of the faithful think this idea is rubbish. But why did it take three incoherent episodes to do so?

Clean energy is a killer?

Talk about alarmist, this from cba who seems to think that a shift to clean energy would "cause the extermination of 90% of the human race"! (excerpt):

June 20, 2013 at 9:47 am  ...It is interesting how so many Malthusians have come out about how impossible and potentially catastrophic eliminating 6% of the bugs would be yet advocate positions that would cause the extermination of 90% of the human race evidently without ever having a single thought as to the consequences of their position.

How many more?

How many more utter nutteries is Anthony Watts going to promote?  What with making a whole heap of the potty peer Monckton's posts "sticky", embracing David Archibald's funny sunny prediction that before seven years is out the earth will get colder than the coldest period in the entire Holecene, and a whole host more like these crackpot ideas, just in the past six months.  Plus all his conspiracy ideation, his straight up bald faced lies, I'm thinking Anthony Watts has either given up because he realises he's lost too many rounds and has decided to specialise in the 8% only, or he's gone around the bend.

And there are people alive that take WUWT seriously?  Seriously?

PS Just in case Anthony Watts finds his marbles, I've saved this one for posterity.

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Right wing authoritarians, among other attributes, are characterised by their:

• Illogical thinking
• Compartmentalised brains - are able to hold contradictory thoughts at the same time as if they are all true at once.