Q: How many denialists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Light comes from the Sun. Duh.

A: We should wait until it gets dark to see whether the bulb is really broken.

A: The Great Light Bulb Swindle is a scam by Big Light Bulb to sell more light bulbs.

A: The Darkenists don’t even understand basic science. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, therefore darkness is impossible.

A: Nazi!

A: It’s OK – it has been much darker than this in the past. During the Medieval Dark Ages, there were Vikings in Greenland!

A: If the light bulb needed changing, the market would have changed it by now.

A: Fascist!

A: Darkness is beneficial — it will increase mushroom yields and make life better for owls.

A: There is a natural 24-hour cycle of light and dark which humans have a negligible impact on. Anyway, we are just about to enter a natural darkening period.

A: Genesis 1:3 tells us “Let there be light”. The power of prayer will fix the light bulb.

A: Ad Hominem!

Via Larvatus Prodeo

A Plimer footnote

Professor Ian Plimer has not been averse in the past to pontificating on areas in which he is not qualified, such as economics in 1985:

Inflation is not expected to disappear and hence gold will remain and important component of investment portfolios. Any rapid increase in price would cause gold to be dishoarded and adversely affect industrial demand. As a result, the price would stabilise. Therefore, gold mines look good business in the coming uncertain years.

He also predicted:

Some projections suggest by the period 1995 to 2000, the USSR will produce more gold than South Africa South Africa is the biggest world producer of gold, chromium, vanadium, diamonds and platinoids, with the USSR being the seconde biggest producer for each of these essential commodities.

How wrong can you be? In 2000 Russia (not the USSR) was a distant sixth in world production, producing only 5.5% of the world's gold. In 2010 China was the largest producer, a country not even mentioned by Professor Plimer.

WA Creationists Skeptics

C J O'Brien has an excellent post at Northstate Science discussing the pelvis of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) and how creationists attempt to use this to disprove paleontological arguments about it. The introductory discussion, however, could be applied verbatim to the WA Skeptics. Simply replace 'creationists' with 'climate deniers'.

Creationists go to great lengths to discredit the discovery and its implications, which is not a problem as far as it goes, but the total lack of any kind of intellectual honesty used in doing so just emphasizes how much of a scientific and philosophical corner these people are backed into. I mentioned in a previous post how infuriating it is to constantly correct the distortions, misinterpretation, quote mining and outright falsehoods regurgitated ad nausem by creationist proponents. It’s not that it’s difficult. Creationists rely on an audience that refuses to look critically at the information they are being presented and ask some simple questions: Is this true? Did the author really mean that? What evidence is not being presented? Most of us who have any claim to intellectual thought processes actually work at understanding an issue. We spend the (often considerable) time reading, reasearching and thinking about the issue. That includes reading creationist literature (we’re often accused of not reading the “other side” of the issue, but I can tell that’s one reason I don’t a lot of creationist argument in my Anthropology class – students learn really quickly I know the creationist literature much better they do!). I see no evidence that creationists actually make an honest effort to look at the information being presented. Instead, Creationist arguments have to be made by pimping the scientific data for the creationist cause: misquoting exports, cherry-picking information, ignoring information that doesn’t fit, using out-of-date information, and frequently just making stuff up!

Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has released its Annual Australian Climate Statement for 2010. It's certainly been a roller coaster year, with record breaking floods in the North and East, but with record breaking drought here in the Southwest.

Its been the coolest year since 2001, which is a rather unfortunate headline since it's still above the longterm average, and the decade has been the hottest on record. EoR expects the deniers to seize on that first point only, as they try to convince themselves that if they argue hard enough they can pull the planet into a new Ice Age. Alarmingly, sea surface temperatures also continue to rise.



Unlike the deniers, EoR urges readers to consider the full statement, all the facts and, if you care to, download the Bureau data yourself.

WA Skeptics Deniers (2)

Just a little more about the anti-skeptical WA Skeptics and their recent anti-science conversion. On their edited conspiracy diatribe (editted in the sense that when an error is pointed out the error is not corrected, but further errors are piled on top to confuse and obscure) the following claim is made:

Even more recently the total of dissenting international scientists exceeded 1000, among them 46 climate specialists who once worked for the IPCC but have now resigned or become dissenters. Here are six examples of their views:

[Out of context quotes snipped by EoR]

Remember these are not crackpot deniers but climate specialists who once worked for the IPCC. Nor are they the only group of informed scientists who are criticising the IPCC's findings, there are at least a dozen others such as The Heidelberg Appeal with 4000 signatures including 62 Nobel prizewinners

The Heidelberg Appeal? Well, EoR followed the WA Skeptics' own advice and used the two most important recommended resources to find Teh Truth About Global Warming: Google and Wikipedia.

The top two hits for "Heidelberg Appeal" are Wikipedia (clearly because it's a reputable source according to the WA Skeptics) and SourceWatch (clearly because Google is another trustworthy source).

Wikipedia says:

Parts of the Heidelberg Appeal endorse environmental concerns, such as a sentence that states, "We fully subscribe to the objectives of a scientific ecology for a universe whose resources must be taken stock of, monitored and preserved." Its 72 Nobel laureates include 49 who also signed the "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity", which was circulated that same year by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and attracted the majority of the world's living Nobel laureates in science along with some 1,700 other leading scientists. In contrast with the vagueness of the Heidelberg Appeal, the "World Scientists' Warning" is a very explicit environmental manifesto, stating that "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course" and citing ozone depletion, global climate change, air pollution, groundwater depletion, deforestation, overfishing, and species extinction among the trends that threaten to "so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know." Moreover the Heidelberg Appeal has been, if not specifically misrepresented, at least broadly interpreted out of context, for example, by The National Center for Public Policy which asserts "The appeal warns industrialized nations that no compelling scientific consensus exists to justify mandatory greenhouse gas emissions cuts." Although the Heidelberg Appeal may be open to such an interpretation, as the text below shows it is not what the document said.

So, not only does it not criticise the IPCC (it doesn't even mention it), but it doesn't even explicitly deny (or even implicitly) the reality of human caused global warming.

SourceWatch describes the document as:

a scam perpetrated by the asbestos and tobacco industries in support of the GCC [Global Climate Coalition]. It was later funded and controlled by a coalition which included coal, oil and energy interests, so the two denial strands merged. The Appeal document and the conferences which gave it life were organized by S. Fred Singer and his Science and Environmental Policy Project

As such, the Appeal finds its rightful place at Tobacco Documents Online (documents which the tobacco industry were legally forced to make publicly available, detailing their efforts to subvert science and cover up the truth).

So it seems that the WA Skeptics (or their anonymous author who is using the Appeal to Authority of posting on their website) either:
a) Haven't read the document they support, or
b) Cite the document for propaganda purposes, knowing they're misrepresenting the truth.

But what does Wikipedia, that font of wisdom have to say about the bigger issue? The WA Skeptics' article isn't explicit about whether Wikipedia should be consulted for climate change or global warming but, in the former case it says:

In the context of climate variation, anthropogenic factors are human activities that change the environment. In some cases the chain of causality of human influence on the climate is direct and unambiguous (for example, the effects of irrigation on local humidity), while in other instances it is less clear. Various hypotheses for human-induced climate change have been argued for many years. Presently the scientific consensus on climate change is that human activity is very likely the cause for the rapid increase in global average temperatures over the past several decades. Consequently, the debate has largely shifted onto ways to reduce further human impact and to find ways to adapt to change that has already occurred.

and in the latter:

Most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century has been caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which result from human activity such as the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation.

EoR could go through all the other 'facts' offered but really, the group has consistently shown that they either don't read or understand their sources, or their sources are misquoted. They fail to correct false information, simply adding more errors to hide the original error. They make emotive, politically charged statements free of science. To deal with all their assertions would only cause them to offer more distractions (apparently sourced mainly from Watts Up With That — a blog the WA Skeptics consider "arguably the most informative climate website" — rather than the peer reviewed press) and would only give the group unwarranted attention and bore EoR's readers.

Elsewhere, to mark the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society the Guardian asks a number of people what scientific problems they'd like to see solved. Physicist Brian Cox ponders:

Can we make a scientific way of thinking all pervasive?

This would be the greatest achievement for science over the coming centuries. I say this because I do not believe that we currently run our world according to evidence-based principles. If we did, we would be investing in an energy Manhattan project to quickly develop and deploy clean energy technologies. We would be investing far larger amounts of our GDP in the eradication of diseases such as malaria, and we would be learning to live and work in space – not as an interesting and extravagant sideline, but as an essential part of our long-term survival strategy.

One only has to look at the so-called controversies in areas such as climate science or the vaccination of our children to see that the rationalist project is far from triumphant at the turn of the 21st century – indeed, it is possible to argue that it is under threat. I believe that we will only be able to build a safer, fairer, more prosperous and more peaceful world when a majority of the population understand the methods of science and accept the guidance offered by an evidence-based investigation of the challenges ahead. Scientific education must therefore be the foundation upon which our future rests.

Of course, it would be nice — for a start — if so-called skeptic groups engaged in a scientific way of thinking.

WA Skeptics Deniers

EoR has been trying to ignore the WA Skeptics' descent into climate denialism (and wondering why they are still listed on the Australian Skeptics website as a WA affiliate when they have clearly become an agenda driven organisation), but he feels it's time to have another look at their recent rant against the world of corrupt science.

The original web page has quietly been changed without noting the amendments.

Rather than correcting the record, it's just a Gish gallop of further irrelevancies (it's ironic that a once skeptical organisation is using a technique pioneered by creationists). A list of books damning science by various people has been added, including those by "scientists who really know the field". EoR isn't sure what criteria is used to determine that accolade, but if there's any doubt, he's urged to Google their names. Because Google is, you know, all sciency and true. The first really-knowing scientist is Ian Plimer. He of the numerous scientific errors. And who refuses to correct his errors when they're pointed out to him. Repeatedly. In fact, EoR is quite shocked that Plimer would even be mentioned. Especially since Wikipedia notes that Plimer's claim about volcanoes "has no factual basis". And Wikipedia is the Truth, according to the anonymous author of this page. Or is the author just cherry picking claims that suit his (apparently political) agenda?

Cherry picking, regardless of truth, seems to be the main argumentative method employed here. The citing of a Scientific American poll to prove the author's case has been slightly amended also. There's now a note that the poll was seriously biased by anti-science interests, "in which case why did Scientific American publish the results in the first place?" Oh, now we're down to cheap innuendo as well.

Well, Scientific American probably published it because they thought it would be interesting to see what their readers thought. Doing which, they clearly showed how ignorant they were of the applicability of internet poll data. Why did the anonymous WA Skeptic, on the other hand, think that an internet poll was in any sense at all scientific? Why is the corrupt data still there on his page? Is it simply to show how an interest group can skew the data to misrepresent the science? Is it, in fact, some subtle double play by the author to show the dissimulation employed by deniers? If it is, it's too subtle for EoR.

The author also goes on at some length about various petitions from real scientists who have proved climate science corrupt and wrong (the latest of which has been labelled elsewhere as a fraud). Sort of a slightly more official sounding internet poll form of evidence. Of course, if you doubt it, you can always go to that most scientific source of truth, Wikipedia (yes, Anonymous Author apparently uses this to form his scientific views). EoR almost hurt himself laughing.

Of course, you can also find petitions of scientists who don't believe in evolution. Real scientists. Who know evolution is a scientific fraud. And it's only a theory anyway.

EoR presumes Anonymous Author (and, by implication, the WA Skeptics) dismisses evolution, on the same evidentiary basis that he dismisses climate science. Or does he maintain the amazing ability to hold two contradictory views simultaneously? Either way, it must be terribly uncomfortable.

The WA Skeptics claim

we insist on accuracy and anti-sensationalism

Personally, EoR is skeptical of that claim (and won't believe it until it's on Wikipedia).


A skeptic.


Not a skeptic.

---

Australian Academy of Science: The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers

Only 0.73% of climate scientists think that humans are affecting the climate!!1!

Polymath Andrew Bolt helpfully points to an article by Dennis Ambler demolishing the belief that there's any consensus (how the deniers detest that word, even as they promote petitions to prove an anti-consensus) that the world is warming. In fact, only "0.73% of climate scientists think that humans are affecting the climate".

The article, published by the right wing SPPI, disputes the truth of Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (Doran, P.T., & Zimmerman, M.K. 2009. Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. EOS 90(3): 21-22.).

Doran and Zimmerman received 3146 responses to a survey asking Earth scientists various questions, including whether they thought temperatures had risen, fallen or stayed the same; and whether they thought humans were contributing to changing temperatures.

What they found was that the more active the scientists were in publishing, and the greater their specialisation in climate science, they more likely they were to consider that humans had caused temperatures to rise (EoR's emphasis):

Results show that overall, 90% of participants answered “risen” to question 1 and 82% answered yes to question 2. In general, as the level of active research and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement with the two primary questions (Figure 1). In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2.

After various marginal arguments, the contrarian article comes to its damning point (author's emphasis):

It is disingenuous to now use the “climate scientists” as a new population sample size. The response figure of 3,146 is the figure against which the 75 out of 77 should be compared and in this case we get not 97% but just 2.38%.

That's right: the responses of all the other scientists are magically reset by Ambler to a dissenting view, even though the Doran and Zimmerman paper clearly show that 82% believe humans are increasing temperatures. Now that's disingenuous!

Denialism: when the facts don't fit, make your own.

But it gets even better. Ambler's amazing statistical insight enables him to know that a sample doesn't extrapolate to a population. If someone didn't respond, then obviously they don't believe in human caused warming. Thus you can take the non-responders to the survey as well in order to twist your statistics (author's emphasis again).

The original number contacted was 10,157 and of those, 69% decided they didn’t want any part of it, but they were the original target population. When the figure of 75 believers is set against that number, we get a mere 0.73% of the scientists they contacted who agreed with their loaded questions.

Ambler concludes:

What a gross travesty of the truth, and such appalling reporting, but these are the messages fed to acquiescent politicians who do not bother to check the facts, and criticise those who do. How low has science sunk, that scientists will dispense this sort of disinformation to promote their own agenda?

He's directing his vitriol at climate scientists when, in reality, it describes his own article exactly.

Of course, he probably doesn't care how bad his mathematics is, he just wants to have that "Only 0.73% of climate scientists think that humans are affecting the climate" quote sent around the denialosphere as a meme, to be uncritically picked up by the numerically illiterate. Which Andrew Bolt dutifully has done (and why EoR keeps quoting it as well, in the hope that some people searching for it might actually find this post instead and realise how wrong the claim is).

It's snowing! It's snowing! The world's going to freeze!

On January 23rd 2010 Anthony Watts, fearless independent climatologist, posted this graph from the Danish Meteorological Institute, chortling over just how low and how rapidly Arctic temperatures were dropping. Clearly that's all deniers need to disprove the multiple lines of proof of climate science: three weeks worth of data. Note that Watts described the green line as 'normal' — a meaningless statement without some sort of context, and a strange term to use when the deniers claim that 'climate is always changing'.



Even as the gloating amongst his followers commenced, the data started moving back up again. Watts then posted this updated version:



What did his remarkable insight, his knowledge of climate, atmospherics, geology and politics suggest as a hypothesis that might explain this? What would follow? Watts didn't know, merely asking rather hopefully "will it oscillate back?" Comments on the post ceased on January 28th.

EoR decided to check to see whether it had 'oscillated' back or not. Here is the full graph for 2010 (the green line, rather than being 'normal' represents daily mean temperatures for the period 1958-2002).


Not only did it not 'oscillate' back, it was for most of the year above the averaged mean, and the greatest variations were also largely in the warmer rather than the colder range.

Arctic sea ice extent, as graphed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center is also low.



While the average monthly Arctic sea ice extent continues its inexorable decline.



But surely we're entering a new Ice Age? Isn't the world currently being blanketed by unprecedented amounts of snow? James Hansen at NASA notes

Back to the cold air in Europe: is it possible that reduced Arctic sea ice is affecting weather patterns? Because Hudson Bay (and Baffin Bay, west of Greenland) are at significantly lower latitudes than most of the Arctic Ocean, global warming may cause them to remain ice free into early winter after the Arctic Ocean has become frozen insulating the atmosphere from the ocean. The fixed location of the Hudson-Baffin heat source could plausibly affect weather patterns, in a deterministic way — Europe being half a Rossby wavelength downstream, thus producing a cold European anomaly in the trans-Atlantic seesaw. Several ideas about possible effects of the loss of Arctic sea ice on weather patterns are discussed in papers referenced by Overland, Wang and Walsh.

However, we note in our Reviews of Geophysics paper that the few years just prior to 2009-2010, with low Arctic sea ice, did not produce cold winters in Europe. The cold winter of 2009-2010 was associated with the most extreme Arctic Oscillation in the period of record. Figure 3, from our paper, shows that 7 of the last 10 European winters were warmer than the 1951-1980 average winter, and 10 of the past 10 summers were warmer than climatology. The average warming of European winters is at least as large as the average warming of summers, but it is less noticeable because of the much greater variability in winter.

In Canada, "the Hudson Bay region of Canada had monthly mean anomalies greater than +10°C." It's interesting that this isn't receiving the same amount of coverage that the snowstorms in Europe and the US are. Or the flooding in the Balkans, Central America and Australia (unless you happen to be in one of those areas). And the World Meterological Organisation reports:

The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top 3 warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2010 (January–October) is currently estimated at 0.55°C ± 0.11°C1 (0.99°F ± 0.20°F) above the 1961–1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F. At present, 2010’s nominal value is the highest on record, just ahead of 1998 (January-October anomaly +0.53°C) and 2005 (0.52°C)2. The ERA-Interim3 reanalysis data are also indicating that January-October 2010 temperatures are near record levels. The final ranking of 2010 will not become clear until November and December data are analysed in early 2011.

The adventures of Christopher Monckton in the real world (Episode two)

The Telegraph have replaced the blatantly warmist propaganda piece that was so horribly out of place on their website which insinuated that the Lord of the Dance Climate Skeptics agreed climate was warming due to anthropogenic causes, with a much cosier rant from the man himself, in which the Loony Lord, who so detests the vile ad hominens thrown at him by the alarmist brigade in lieu of any actual science, refers in the first line to a "bearded, staring enviro-zomb with the regrettable T-shirt". EoR doesn't know why the T-shirt was 'regrettable' since the Illogical Lord fails to give a reason.

Monckton laments the loss of:

Perspective, the Olympian capacity to see events as they affect not just us and our mates but everyone, and not just in the excitement of the present but sub specie aeternitatis, in the long, calm, kindly shadow of eternity: this has gone from what passes for education in the West.

Are we, then, to assume that Monckton considers himself one of the Olympians, possessing, as he does, a transcendent vision of humanity, the world and existence that far outstrips the average mortal schmuck? Monckton has always evidenced a grandiosity complex, but it grows worse every day.

The global warming scam has been so successful, he claims, for three reasons.

The climate bugaboo, the strangest intellectual aberration of our age, rampages because in the me and now we have cast aside three once-universal [sic] forms of learning that gave us perspective: a Classical education, to remind us that in reason and logic there is a difference between true and false; a scientific education, to show us which is which; and a religious education, to teach us why the distinction matters.

Which does rather expose the real agenda of the deniers: godlessness and atheism are the heathen evils to be fought. If we were only more godly (presumably, worshipping Olympians like Monckton himself) then we wouldn't be so stupid. And the Flying Spaghetti Monster could just magic away global warming.

Monckton also neglects to mention that part of a Classical education was the art of rhetoric. EoR does agree that a classical education would be helpful, since it would make more people knowledgeable about the Sophists, those who would argue a cause whether it was true or false, or whether they believed in it or not. Indeed, the description of Sophists could be applied directly to Monckton without any difficulty at all:

[The Sophists] wandered about Greece from place to place, gave lectures, took pupils, and entered into disputations. For these services they exacted large fees, and were, in fact, the first in Greece to take fees for teaching wisdom.

[,,,]

The most popular career of a Greek of ability at the time was politics; hence the sophists largely concentrated on teaching rhetoric. The aims of the young politicians whom they trained were to persuade the multitude of whatever they wished them to believed. The search for truth was not top priority. Consequently the sophists undertook to provide a stock of arguments on any subject, or to prove any position. They boasted of their ability to make the worse appear the better reason, to prove that black is white. Some, like Gorgias, asserted that it was not necessary to have any knowledge of a subject to give satisfactory replies as regards it. Thus, Gorgias ostentatiously answered any question on any subject instantly and without consideration. To attain these ends mere quibbling, and the scoring of verbal points were employed. In this way, the sophists tried to entangle, entrap, and confuse their opponents, and even, if this were not possible, to beat them down by mere violence and noise. They sought also to dazzle by means of strange or flowery metaphors, by unusual figures of speech, by epigrams and paradoxes, and in general by being clever and smart, rather than earnest and truthful. Hence our word “sophistry”: the use of fallacious arguments knowing them to be such.

Monckton's education in grammar and debate also seem to be failing. At times, he refers to himself in the article in the third person, and at others in the first person. It seems he is dissociated from himself in an almost Freudian way.

Monckton attacks "another headline last week [that] shrieked" he had admitted global warming was real and human caused. Monckton (in whatever person) doesn't mention it was in the same paper. His argument that the claim is wrong? He admitted four years ago that global warming was real and it was human caused. So much for your "Classical" logic and reason.

Would someone please tuck the good Lord into bed, give him a warm drink, turn the lights out, and gently steal away.

Meanwhile, for those with an interest in the actual science, rather than schoolboy rhetorical exercises, Miloslav Nic has created a wonderful online searchable database for the IPCC Fourth Assessement Report.

The adventures of Christopher Monckton in the real world

EoR is a little disappointed with the rather poor efforts of climate change deniers of late. Andrew Bolt used to post monthly temperature graphs to 'prove' there was no global warming. Then he posted monthly temperature graphs to 'prove' there was no global warming because there was only a slight increase. Now he doesn't bother at all. There's only the occasional post claiming sea levels aren't rising quite as fast as some people claim. Though they are still rising.

The Lord Clown of Deniers, Christopher Monckton, also seems to have been quiet lately, but maybe that's just because the media have become bored with his repetitive schtick. And the fact that you can't really be a Lord High Denier and All Round Genius to the conspiracy set when you admit that global warming is happening, and it's caused by humans (the Telegraph, for whatever ulterior reason, has deleted the relevant article — it is, however, still available on the internet). Oh dear. EoR bets all the cardigan-wearing set have torn his posters from the wall in a fit of right wing pique.

Lord Monckton admitted the world is warming as a result of mankind’s activities.

“Some warming is to be accepted as a result of our activities but on balance not very much,” he said.

In a bizarre press conference attended by a handful of journalists and a ‘climate sceptic activist’ dressed in a polar bear suit with a sign reading ‘I am fine’, Lord Monckton spoke out about his theories on climate change.

His theories? How many does he have?

Monckton was introduced as the 'Lord of the climate skeptics'. It reminds EoR of when tours of insane asylums were undertaken, and people would be introduced as 'Napoleon'.

John Vidal at the Guardian reports how the man who was incensed at 'Hitler youth' at Copenhagen is now employing the same tactics.

But it seems that the man who in Copenhagen last year compared young protesters to Hitler Youth because they gatecrashed a meeting of climate sceptics, had not actually been invited to the largest business conference of the summit that featured Lord Stern, Richard Branson and several Mexican billionaires.

After an hour of tolerating Monckton, the patience of the organisers wore thin. "Who is this man?" asked one American green venture capitalist. "These are weird views," said another. A few minutes later he was asked to leave.

You can listen to a 7 minute interview with Monckton at the conference. Monckton argues that modelling is wrong, and when he was taught science "measurement and observation were the appropriate processes". This is a line taken by Ian Plimer in Climate changing: How global warming lost its science and support (IPA Review, March 2010). EoR wonders who's copying their argument from whom?

My scientific critics are decades younger, had a postmodernist education, are scientifically narrow, play with computer models and lack the ability to argue logically. This is probably why ad hominem attacks had spelling errors and poor English.

Of course, the irony of Plimer calling his opponents 'illogical', 'scientifically narrow', 'bad spellers' and users of 'poor English' and then crying about ad hominen attacks against him is hilarious.

In the audio interview, Monckton also refers to a question in the House of Lords, which he had to get a sitting member to put. But isn't Monckton a member of the House of Lords? If that particular lie was true, he could have asked the question himself.

Monckton is not a climatologist (nor any sort of scientist, in fact) but a rhetorician, as a post by Gideon Rachman demonstrates. Rachman, who was about to take part in a (non climate related) Oxford debate with Monckton, spoke to him. Or was spoken at.

I began to think that Viscount Monckton might be a formidable opponent during the debate. Then he told me that he has discovered a new drug that is a complete cure for two-thirds of known diseases - and that he expects it to go into clinical trials soon. I asked him whether his miracle cure was chiefly effective against viruses or bacterial diseases? “Both”, he said, “and prions”. At this point I felt a little more relaxed about the forthcoming debate.

Monckton disputes this account, and has written a rebuttal which Rachman has published:

Lord Monckton has pointed out an inadvertent inaccuracy and unfairness in my account of the medical invention on which he is working. Though there is a substantial body of theoretical and empirical evidence that his invention may prove efficacious against multiple infectious and auto-immune diseases, he did not and does not make any claim that the invention will prove efficacious. That is precisely why, as he told me when we met at Oxford, a series of appropriately sceptical clinical trials will commence shortly in the United States.

Personally, EoR thinks Monckton is just hiding the decline in his intellectual abilities, which has been occurring since at least 1998.

Online poll proves global warming just a giant hoax

In June EoR looked at the sorry state of the WA Skeptics and its seemingly relentless parade of climate change denialists as guests. Things almost seemed to improve for a while, with the last couple of meetings being devoted to a discussion of miracles, and whether magnets can improve the taste of wine, but Dr John Happs's views are more than persistent.

Dr Happs yet again pushes the line that 'the science is not settled', that global warming is "a possibly imaginary threat" (those are classic weasel words, implying much, saying nothing) and

The [Royal] Society duly appointed a panel to rewrite its official position on global warming, and in October 2010 the panel published a new guide that indicates the areas where the science is well established, and the many areas where there are still major uncertainties. In short, the debate is nowhere near over. To claim otherwise is to ignore science in favour of ulterior political objectives.

Dr Happs seems strangely reluctant to cite his sources directly, the only source he provides being a denialist blog report about a Scientific American survey. The link from that page to Scientific American is broken, but this page explains the matter:

Ignore for the moment that this poll was not scientific (nor was it meant to be) and that it was open to all who have access to the Internet, not just to our subscribers, as Gilder implied.

Rather, the big problem was that the poll was skewed by visitors who clicked over from the well-known climate denier site, Watts Up With That? Run by Anthony Watts, the site created a web page urging users to take the poll.

It sure worked. Our traffic statistics from October 25, when the poll went live, to November 1 (the latest for which we have data on referrals) indicate that 30.5 percent of page views (about 4,000) of the poll came from Watts Up. The next highest referrer at 16 percent was a Canadian blog site smalldeadanimals.com; it consists of an eclectic mix of posts and comments, and if I had to guess, I would say its users leaned toward the climate denier side based on a few comments I saw. Meanwhile, on the other side of the climate debate, Joe Romm's Climate Progress drove just 2.9 percent and was the third highest referrer.

So we were horrified alright---by the co-opting of the poll by Watts Up users, who probably voted along the denier plank. In fact, having just two sites drive nearly half the traffic to the poll assuredly means that the numbers do not reflect the attitudes of Scientific American readers.

This does rather prompt EoR to ask Dr Happs: "what are the ulterior political motives in skewing an online poll?". It would also be interesting to know in what way Dr Happs thinks an online poll is trustworthy in any sense whatsoever. Furthermore, "what are the ulterior political motives in citing a skewed online poll as evidence against global warming?"

The line Dr Happs takes on the Royal Society statement (see how easy it is to link to the source document? Dr Happs could have so easily done the same if he wanted people to assess the evidence directly) is remarkably similar to that espoused in the Coalition propaganda rag, The Australian. A line that prompted Professor John Pethica, Vice-President of the Royal Society to write to The Australian correcting their errors (EoR's emphasis):

IN your coverage of our newly published Climate change: a summary of the science ("Top science body cools on global warming", 2/10) your correspondents suggest that the society has changed its position on climate change. This is simply not true.

There is no greater uncertainty about future temperature increases now than the Royal Society had previously indicated.

The science remains the same, as do the uncertainties.

Indeed, the purpose of the new guide is to help people understand what is well established and what is still uncertain.

There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the main cause of the global warming that has taken place over the past half century.

The warming trend is expected to continue but the sizes of future temperature increases are still subject to uncertainty.

To their credit, at least The Australian published the letter. Dr Happs appears uninterested in views that differ from his own.

Dr Happs, as a scientist, should understand that science is never settled and that there is always uncertainty. This is, as Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway point out in Merchants of Doubt, precisely the point deniers latch on to in order to unculcate doubt in the media. Evolution is not settled (it might interest Dr Happs to know that there are actually scientists out there still studying evolution and its mechanisms). Gravity has hardly any evidence base at all. And don't even start on Dark Matter. Medicine has many things that it doesn't understand, and many things still to learn. Again, there are actually real scientists who are studying medicine in order to discover what causes diseases and how to cure them. So much still unknown. So many uncertainties.

EoR imagines that Dr Happs is just as convinced that evolution, gravity and medicine are huge hoaxes perpetrated in order to assemble massive grants funding and to make scientists famous. He also presumes Dr Happs takes the line that creationism, a gravity-free world, and homeopathy are valid (non-political) truths that have been suppressed by the World Communist Government Conspiracy. Or that the Bible really does reveal the terrible truth that Osama bin Laden has nuclear weapons.

Like the denial movements that attacked smoking, acid rain, and CFCs the scientists have beeen saying the same thing for a long time: the evidence tells us that the globe is warming. As The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism puts it:

Scientific skepticism is healthy. In fact, science by its very nature is skeptical. Genuine skepticism means considering the full body of evidence before coming to a conclusion. However, when you take a close look at arguments expressing climate ‘skepticism’, what you often observe is cherry picking of pieces of evidence while rejecting any data that don’t fit the desired picture. This isn’t skepticism. It is ignoring facts and the science.

Dr Happs has been president of the WA Skeptics for 25 years. Perhaps it's time for some fresh blood.

Global warming science demolished. Again.

What is it with geologists being an apparent majority of the scientifically literate who deny global warming? Bob Carter is one such example, now with his new book which he is spruiking. Hopefully titled Climate: The Counter-Consensus the book is lauded as

The counter-consensus to quasi-scientific hype and induced panic on climate change is at last assembling. Climate: the Counter Consensus examines, with thoroughness and impartial expertise, the so-called facts of global warming that are churned out and unquestioningly accepted, while the scientific and media establishments stifle or deride any legitimate expression of an opposing view.

Bob Carter is anything but impartial, as Sourcewatch notes, being a member of various right wing organisations. It's also laughable that dissent against the accepted view is somehow being 'stifled' by huge interest groups. If that were so, how could this book be published? How is it possible for this public launch? Why is it available on Amazon.com? Why is the massive global cover-up so damn inefficient? Those organising the Global World Communist Government demand answers!

EoR has also previously noted how global warming deniers manage to maintain contradictory viewpoints (rather like alties). Such as the fact that there is no consensus and, even if there were, because some people (including some scientists — of which some are even climate scientists) disagree, then the whole edifice of global warming science is destroyed.

Ah, but a 'counter-consensus' (which is a strange term in itself — are its proponents arguing for a consensus for something else, or simply saying there is a consensus and they are 'counter' to it — so their sole purpose is to be against something?) is a good thing, and the fact that the majority of climate scientists don't support that 'counter-consensus' doesn't destroy the whole edifice of global warming denial.

It's a strange, contradictory world in the mind of the denier.

Edit: More about Bob Carter's egregiousness on today's Science Show.

Various degrees of misinformation

EoR imagines that the hosts of Radio National's contrarian show Counterpoint turn the airconditioning temperature down every time they enter the studio, just to prove the falsity of global warming. This week they featured Aynsley Kellow (Professor, School of Government, University of Tasmania), who has previously appeared on their show, to discuss the great scam that is the IPCC's faking of science.

EoR will leave it to his readers to spot all the ad hominens in this short segment (clue: look for the usual suspects such as Greenpeace, Michael Mann, Rajendra Pachauri, and every lead author for the IPCC except one), but there are a few highlights worthy of note.

There is this tendency to dismiss any critic as being a denier which has politicised and made difficult the conduct of decent critical scientific discussion, critical policy discussion that you either accept the prevailing view of things or you get labelled a denier.

Professor Kellow provides a false dichotomy here. Scientists can disagree with the prevailing view of things and publish findings in the relevant literature. Those labelled deniers tend to be believers in a number of contradictory viewpoints at the same time (global warming isn't happening and it's the sun that's causing it anyway), or who have a distinct preference for cherry picking select data. In fact, it's the deniers that have politicised the 'decent critical scientific discussion'.

I've now got a rule of thumb that anyone who uses the word 'denier' should immediately not be listened to because they're not talking about science.

Well, that's certainly maintaining an open mind, avoiding all ad hominens, and carefully avoiding any prejudicial conclusions, unlike those evil scientists who are so closed minded about debate.

You should institutionalise dissent and have a kind of B Team — empanel a group of people who are sceptically minded, who want to take issue with this science and from that process of course policy makers would end up with a less clear message but probably a more accurate message.

This seems a loopy idea, and is even more politicising since it's effectively a call to include deniers on any panel. EoR fails to see how the message could then become 'less clear' (which is precisely what the right wing funders of this disinformation want) and 'more accurate' at the same time. And does Professor Kellow also support the inclusion of creationists to clarify the contentious issue of evolution? Anti-vaccinionsts to clarify and make 'more accurate' the contentious issue of vaccines? Homeopaths on any medical funding issue?

Professor Kellow also berates previous IPCC chair Bob Watson for informing the media after the third IPCC report in a blatantly alarmist manner that future warming over a hundred years would be 6.1 degrees,

all based on the assumption that if we frighten the children the horses will, you know, take better action somehow than if we have a more mature assessment.

EoR has no idea what that phrase means, and suspects Professor Kellow was making it up as he went along (and it's also another ad hominen failing to address the actual claim).

Professor Kellow states MIT reported that the 6.1 degree warming had only a 1% likelihood, and claims that Bob Watson was therefore misrepresenting the science for political ends (something deniers understand very well). Now, for such an apparently widely spread lie, EoR was unable to find much evidence of it, and certainly none that Dr Robert Watson cherry picked a single figure to promote a political case (oh, how the deniers must be laughing at the irony of their arguments by this point).

In 2000 he stated:

Climate models, using the latest emissions projections from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, project an increase in global mean surface temperature of 1.5 to 6 degrees Centigrade between 1990 and 2100, with land areas warming more than the global average, especially at mid-and high northern latitudes.

So there's a range of possibilities (as modelled in 2000) rather than an absolute.

Dr Robert Watson is also on record as saying (in 2004):

So, over the last 100 years, we had seen the Earth warm about 0.6 degrees Celsius, 1 degree Fahrenheit.

Could Professor Kellow be confusing these figures and timescales?

In 2008 Dr Robert Watson was reported as stating:

Unfortunately, Professor Bob Watson is not speaking out of turn in telling the world to prepare for four degrees of global warming. "Mitigate for two degrees; adapt for four" has long been the catchphrase among climate negotiators and campaigners.

That's still not the strangely specific 6.1 degrees that Kellow mentions.

Save The Monckton

Please help Christopher Monckton. His arguments against global warming have, yet again, been claimed to be unscientific political arguments by people whose sole claim to do so is that they are climate scientists (as if that mattered), the UK House of Lords have taken the unusual step of actually ordering him not to call himself a member of their institution, and his political party (the Ukip — something like the UK equivalent of our own dear Citizens Electoral Council) made no impact in the recent UK elections.

Please don't leave it to the valiant and committed few, like Senator Cory Bernardi (who is fighting against the coming World Communist Government and to maintain our sovereign right to spend more on defence than children's welfare). Stop the unending river of grants that are flowing to lying climate scientists who are only in it for the money.

What with the CEO of the world's largest miner calling for a carbon tax as well as the OECD, the lunacy that is Christopher Monckton is endangered. Help preserve this gentle harmless creature, so that future generations can also revel in his wonderful confabulatory lies as he rolls his eyes in that inimitable way. How can we deny the world the subtle beauty of his considered, literate arguments?

One of the lead authors is currently under criminal investigation for alleged fabrication of results: another has been caught out in repeated lies: a third admits to suffering a mental disability: and many of the scientists whom these lead authors invited to contribute are among the long-discredited clique of Climategate emailers.

Soon, atmospheric physicists will be too scared to publish their Nobel-quality demolitions of evolution (since evilution is also part of the Global Scientific Conspiracy — affiliated with the Church of Global Warming). Those without the undaunted bravery and manliness of Lord-of-the-Universe and Curer-of-All-Known-Diseases Monckton are being forced into hiding in such squalid locations as a villa opposite Cap Ferrat.

Act now, before it's too late.

Remember, the more we promote this shining exemplar's visionary and singular opinions, the sooner we can get the rest of the world to believe it:

A tendency to be swayed by biases in the external samples of information can also affect memory and judgment processes. For example, if the public read, or hear opinions from climate change skeptics about 50% of the time then this could lead to a bias in the perception of the balance of evidence in the minds of the public - that the science is only about 50% certain.

Once the Monckton is gone, there will be no one left to award Nobel prizes to.

Climate Scientists Respond

Mr Rabbit Dissembles

Last Monday's episode of Four Corners looked at the current political contest in Australia. At one point, Tony Abbott, the presumptive heir to the throne of Canberra, was questioned about climate change, in the context of leading a party that refused to pass the Labor Party's Emmissions Trading Scheme legislation, and as a man who has previously described climate change as 'crap'.

TONY ABBOTT: I accept that climate change is real. I think government needs to do, ah to take meaningful measures ah, to combat it and that's...

MARIAN WILKINSON: You're dispute is the role of man's intervention is that correct?

TONY ABBOTT: Sure, but, but that's not really relevant at the moment. Ah, we have agreed ah to get a 5 per cent emissions reduction target. That's, that's a bipartisan position. Ah, I think we can get it, ah, by the direct action measures that I've outlined and the interesting thing is that the only major political party with a credible policy in this area is the Coalition. Um, the government says that climate change is ah, the greatest moral challenge of our time, but they don't have serious policy to deal with it.

The human causes of climate change are not really relevant at the moment even though Mr Abbott now has performed a volte face and considers climate change 'real'? Why does he then go on to say his party will reduce emmissions? Isn't that pointless if there's no relevant human causal factor?

MARIAN WILKINSON: Do you still believe that the views of the IPCC scientists are alarmist?

TONY ABBOTT: Um, I, I certainly think that there is a credible scientific counterpoint, but in the end, um, I'm not going to win ah, ah, an argument over the science, I'll leave that to the scientists.

That would be the scientists who are clamouring for your attention? Is that why Mr Abbott considers a scientific argument unwinnable (unlike the political one)?

MARIAN WILKINSON: One last question on that because ah, you have said very publicly ah, before this that you believe the earth is cooling not warming and you have cited the work of ah, Professor Ian Plimer on this. Do you still think there is a credible case for that?

TONY ABBOTT: Um, I, I have pointed out in the past, ah that ah, there was that high year um, a few years ago, ah, and the warming ah, if you believe the various measuring ah, organisations, ah, hasn't increased, but again ah, the the point is not um, um, the science, ah the point is how should government respond and we have a a credible response that will achieve a 5 per cent reduction by 2020 and the government doesn't.

If EoR can interpret this rambling embarassment as Mr Abbott attempts to placate climate deniers and those calling for action on climate change, he seems to be arguing that the earth is cooling, human caused climate change is mistaken, ignore the science (for whatever reason; presumably, because it directly contradicts what he just said), and trust him (and Ian Plimer). This is the sound of a politician trying hard not to get caught up in his own lying disbeliefs.

For the record, the Labor Party's way of dealing with climate change (also included in the Four Corners report) is just as useless.

Christopher Monckton Is A Fraud

The Grand Loony of Climate Science, Christopher Monckton — who likes to call environmentalists Hitler Youth — is, as is his scientific wont, pursuing that most powerful of scientific methods and abusing all and sundry and threatening the fake climate science world with a plethora of law suits.

Christopher Monckton is a fraud.
Christopher Monckton lies and misrepresents science.
Christopher Monckton is full of it.
Christopher Monckton misrepresents the science.
Christopher Monckton is a fraud.
Christopher Monckton seeks to censor his critics.

Ken vs Reality

Both Jo Nova and Andrew Bolt chortle over the latest Global Warming Conspiracy evidence, produced by the indefatigable Ken ("retired school principal"). Ken compares Bureau of Meteorology raw data against the High Quality Adjusted Data, and finds a difference (as you'd expect):

That’s 0.6 degrees C / 100 years for the raw data. The adjusted trend is 0.85.

Which becomes Jo Nova's headline of "Australian warming trend adjusted UP by 40%". Here's the graph Ken has produced to show his results:



Now EoR is not a climate scientist, and he finds these number things hard to get his head around, but surely one set of data shows an increasing trend, while the other set of data shows a slightly less increasing trend? Which would indicate, no matter how you twist the data, that climate is warming? Strangely, none of these fiercely independent investigators seems to mention that fact. Indeed, they seem to be conceptually blind to that particular elephant as they pursue their rigidly ideological paths.

This the same day that the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration in the US has released its 2009 State of the Climate report. They've even produced a cute graphic which shows how many predictors of global warming are confirmed by the data:

"When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world."

Download the full report (6.6 MB).

The IPCC conclusion (Alley et al. 2007) that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” does not rest solely upon LSAT [Land Surface Air Temperature] records. These constitute only one line of evidence among many, for example: uptake of heat by the oceans, melting of land ice such as glaciers, the associated rise in sea level, and increased atmospheric surface humidity (fig. 2.5). If the land surface records were systematically flawed and the globe had not really warmed, then it would be almost impossible to explain the concurrent changes in this wide range of indicators produced by many independent groups. The observed changes in a broad range of indicators provide a self-consistent story of a warming world.
State of the Climate in 2009, p. S26

Time To Move On Andrew

Thanks to Andrew Bolt, we now know that even New Scientist has admitted the Climategate reviews were a whitewash. We know this because he links to a New Scientist editorial.

In Bolt's dog whistle world, if the science isn't addressed by the reviews, then the science is disproven. Strangely, he fails to link to other New Scientist articles of recent time, such as:

Climate scientists respond to 'climategate' report (Bolt actually removed this link from the editorial he reposted - if he'd turned the page of the issue in which the editorial appears he would have found this article).

IT'S time to abandon the black-and-white fiction that human-induced climate change is fact or conspiracy. Instead, accept that the climate is changing and that there are shades of grey about how fast, how severe the impact will be and what we can do about it.

That's the message from leading scientists digesting the UK's official report into the "climategate" affair, in which private emails from the nation's Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich were made public in November 2009.

Muir Russell, a former civil servant who spent seven months investigating the affair, concluded in his official report, released on 7 July, that "the rigour and honesty of the scientists involved are not in doubt". But he exhorted them to show more openness, to shed their "unhelpful and defensive" attitude when responding to requests to share their data and to make more effort to engage with climate sceptics who dispute their data and conclusions.

(...)

Questioning climate science is what good scientists do, (Brian) Hoskins (of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change) adds. "As for people with a political agenda, will the report silence them? No."

It's almost as if Brian Hoskins could psychically foresee the reaction of Andrew Bolt!

Climategate inquiry: no deceit, too little cooperation

Climate change report is 'reliable but flawed'


As always, Bolt enjoys cutting and pasting and then watching his commenters rant on. The first comment, from Andrew of Ipswich, is so wonderful that, thankfully, it saved EoR from having to read through the rest of them.

this is particularly surprising as New Scientist has been a bastion of warming for a few years now. To the point that I didn’t bother buying it as the articles just annoyed me

Because when you don't like science, you should just ignore it.

The Global Warming Denier 'Suicide Bomber' Mindset?

Andrew Bolt's readers detest refugees arriving by boats. They detest Muslims. They detest suicide bombers. A brief perusal of his blog will show that those three groups are pretty much identical. But EoR wonders just how dissimilar his core audience is from suicide bombers.

Ariel Merari has spoken to suicide bombers who failed at their mission in order to investigate their motivation and psychology (and, yes, this is a particularly self-selecting group since we can't investigate successful bombers, and the findings may only apply to Palestinians). He found a number of characteristics:

None of the 15 would-be suicide bombers we interviewed suffered from a psychosis, but they had one of two personality types. Two-thirds were dependent-avoidant: such people find it hard to say no to authority figures and are more likely to cooperate to carry out tasks against their own judgement. They are also greatly influenced by public opinion. The rest were impulsive and emotionally unstable. (...) Some of them apparently enter a psychological state known as a dissociation, in which they shut themselves off to disturbing thoughts.

The overwhelming majority of Bolt's commenters are climate change deniers. Far in excess of even increasing public opinion on the subject, and astronomically above the support for such contrarian views amongst climate scientists. There is no acceptance of possible catastrophic outcomes of global warming, or even of less catastrophic but nonetheless significant issues (such as more powerful hurricanes, flooding, decreased rainfall). Views which contradict their own (and which are in the majority) are typecast as conspiracy, whitewash or, ultimately, they are simply ignored because the cognitive dissonance between belief and reality is too difficult to reconcile. Christopher Monckton, as an example, would seem to fall in the "impulsive and emotionally unstable" group, and possibly narcissistic.

The organisers of suicide bombers, on the other hand, are different types:

They are not dependent - they are manipulative. They are much more intelligent than the bombers (...). Some had university education. They were not psychopathic. They were very pragmatic, they believed they were doing it for their nation and that it was the right thing to do. They did not express any moral doubts about it.

Who are the leaders of climate change denial? The Lavoisier Group. Exxon Mobil. Koch Industries. And more. All organisations with a clear commercial agenda (just like the tobacco companies before them).

EoR is not, of course, suggesting that climate change deniers are potential suicide bombers, but the psychological similarities in opposing an unacceptable worldview are fascinating for understanding just why people promote these views, or believe them.

More Warmist Alarmism

While Russia is suffering an unprecedented heatwave, the rest of the world is warming as well:

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded worldwide and the fourth consecutive month that the combined global land and sea temperature records have been broken, according to the US government's climate data centre.

The figures released last night by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggest that 2010 is now on course to be the warmest year since records began in 1880.

EoR waits to see this reported by Andrew Bolt.

Russia Enjoys the Benefits of Higher Temperatures

Here in the antipodes EoR doesn't hear much news from Russia, but the BBC reports that western Russia is suffering a heatwave:

For the past two weeks temperatures across much of western Russia have soared past 35C, in the hottest and longest heatwave in decades.

Russia is also suffering what is thought to be the worst drought in more than 100 years.

There has been virtually no rain since winter and crops are shrivelling.

"We've had 10mm of rain, scorching hot temperatures over 35C, which have just burnt all the crops up," says Colin Hinchley, a Briton who now farms in Penza near the Volga river, in southern Russia.

"Winter wheat crops are 50% of the yield, and spring crops, in some cases, are going to be virtually none."

(...)

The heatwave is expected to last another week. By then Moscow may well have broken through its highest ever temperature of 36.6C.

Now, EoR is not going to claim that this has anything to do with global warming (though a 100 year drought is obviously climate related) but it does show what effect global warming might have and the catastrophic effects an abnormal increase in temperature can have: crops are affected by a small heatwave and people are dying (admittedly drunk Russians, where alcoholism is a national pasttime). The Moscow Times, in its idiosyncratic way, advises:

Russia's top public health official, Gennady Onishchenko, has advised Muscovites to stay away from the sun, subsist on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and not go overboard fighting the weather.

Of course, if global warming was real (it's not, we all know it's a World Green Communist Illuminati Conspiracy) then that would actually be a good thing. CO₂ is good for plants, and the more the stuff the more plants will grow. Never mind less water, or changing climates and ecosystems. Or even that more phytoplankton means more gets eaten. Just so in Russia, a heatwave is good. Air conditioner sales have soared. Except this has now led to stock shortages. Ice cream sales have also soared. Except freezers are breaking down in the sun and prices have had to be lowered. EoR can't quite see the positive aspect of melting asphalt and dangerous pollution from peat bog fires, but he's sure there's a rightwing think tank website with a header image of flowers somewhere masquerading as the Truth About Climate Change that will assure him these are also good things to have.

So, just one small weather event (note again: EoR isn't claiming here this is or isn't related to climate change) has had devastating consequences, some of which related to crops are obviously going to have longterm impacts in the future.

If weather gets colder for any reason then that, of course, means climate is also cooling. Is that clear? Hotter temperatures=weather; colder temperatures=climate. So simple any fool could understand it. Even a trolling journalist.