Spurred on by a speech that Jim Hoggan gave to the Canadian Empire Club in Toronto (talking about our new book, Climate Cover-up), Canada's national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, started asking questions today about who is paying for the big Friends of Science radio ad campaign that has been annoying Canadians from coast to coast for the last week or so.

The Globe's Martin Mittelstaedt had no success finding a live representative from the Friends of Science to deny their oily connections, but Marty Ball told Mittelstaedt this about her infamous husband, the truth-challenged Tim Ball: “He's not paid by the oil companies. He's never had anything from them and neither [have] the Friends of Science."

Alas for the Balls' self-delusion, Mittelstaedt's own paper has reported quite the opposite in the past, quoting a Friends official, Albert Jacobs, as saying that the oil and gas industry is exactly where they got their money.

Pity poor Tim Ball.

Despite having a short (eight years as a professor) and undistinguished (five peer-reviewed publications in his lifetime) career as a geography professor at the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Ball was able in the last 10 years to elevate himself to the level of self-appointed climate change expert. By working with energy industry lobby firms, he was able to insinuate himself as a would-be advisor to committees of the Canadian House of Commons and the the U.S. Senate. At one point, he presumed to send a letter directly to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, introducing himself as "one of the first climatology PhDs in the world," - a claim so far from accurate as to be laughable.

By his activism, his constant and so-often ill-informed criticism of scientists who were actually working in the field of climate change, Ball had, by 2006, established himself as Canada's pre-eminent global warming denier. The Globe and Mail called him "Mr. Cool," although the accompanying feature was anything but complimentary.

Still, at least he was getting attention.

The latest list of "650 International Scientists (who) Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming" seems to be more of the same: dead guys (Fred Seitz, Marcel Leroux, Reid Bryson ...), paid deniers (Fred Singer, Tim Ball, Sallie Baliunas ...), and a much larger group of weather forecasters and "experts" from unrelated fields, many of whom (eg., Edward Wegman) don't even disagree with the scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change.

The apparent author of this list, Swiftboater Marc Morano, even included the names of Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, an historian and an anthropologist who have made themselves famous by advocating for renewed and more vigorous policy action against the threat of climate change.

A COMPAS poll (attached) sponsored by the neo-con Frontier Centre for Public Policy offers an embarrassing example of a survey that sacrifices the discovery of new information in favour of eliciting specific answers for later use in building a political case.

This story is legitimately tragic, but it's far from the first case of climate change delusion. Have they never heard of Benny Peiser? Larry Solomon? Tim Ball? The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley? Bob Carter?

Of course, these guys may not be delusional. They may just be lying. But that would involve a judgment rather than a diagnosis .... Either way, a certain sort of sickness abounds.