National Review's Breathless (but unsurprising) International Climate Conference Booster
The Hudson Institute's Thomas Sowell has a piece on the National Review Online today touting the Heartland Institute's Denial-a-palooza being held next week in New York City.
Sowell takes no time heading down the misinformation highway with his opening sentence:
It has almost become something of a joke when some 'global warming' conference has to be canceled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather."
Lumping weather and climate is a nice little trick-of-the-denier trade - comparing weather (i.e. a single event like a snowstorm) to climate (a long term trend over time) is simply incorrect and misleading. It would be kind of like comparing, well, Thomas Sowell to a rational, reasonable commentator on the issue of global warming.
On the New York conference, Sowell reports:
It is called an 'International Conference on Climate Change' that will examine the question 'Global Warming: Crisis or Scam?' Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions."
I am assuming that the "people from other professions" Sowell is referring to would be the 36 "scholars" and "fellows" employed by industry-cozy freemarket think tanks that are scheduled to speak at the conference.
As far as "professors of climatology," I will assume those include:
Dr. Frederick Seitz who is scheduled to present at the conference on the field of climatology. Maybe conference organizers didn't see the memo that the 96-year old Seitz, former principal scientific advisor to tobacco-giant RJ Reynolds, was considered "quite elderly and not sufficient to offer advice" by his former employers in 1998.
Dr. Patrick Michaels, who is scheduled to do a keynote speech titled: Global Warming: Some Convenient Facts. Here's a few DeSmog posts we have done over the years on Michaels, with a few convenient facts of their own:
- Climate skeptic Pat Michaels refuses court request to disclose funding sources
- Pat Michaels Ousted as Virginia State Climatologist For Industry Funding
- More bad press for Viriginia's State Skeptic Michaels
- Double Dipping Pat Michaels Told to Choose Sides
- "Vampire Memo" Reveals Coal Industry Plan for Massive Propaganda Blitz
Christopher Monckton, who is listed to present on climatology. Oh wait, Monckton isn't a climate scientist at all - he's a puzzle-maker!
I could go on, but I'm sure you're getting the point. Here's a link to briefing notes that have been prepared on most of the presenters.
I hope these provides a little context for those inclined to take this conference seriously.
"Lumping weather and climate is a nice little trick-of-the-denier trade"
Will these denierificationalists never learn? Any good Global Warming enthusiast knows:
Bitterly cold day = "mere weather"
Mild day = "climate change apocalypse"
P.S. Kevin, I think you may have cornered the market in scare quotes.
No, it's like this:
Lots of sweltering days = "Global warming is sexy!"
One cold day = "Al Gore was totally wrong wrong wrong!"
Now you can feel (fact-)free to accuse `the other side' of doing the same thing. Oops, you already did.
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Frank Bi, http://globaldumbing.tk
I've just had an idea that might dovetail with the Heartland "conference" subject re: the campaign to confuse and obfuscate. How about an item on the Fine Art of Trolling? It's a real skill: coming up with venal insults for all occasions, managing to avoid the science at every turn, keeping track of all of the disinformation that's flying around the blog-o-sphere, and most important of all, never, EVER allowing the facts to get in the way.
The way I see it, the deniers have two lines of assault. The first is through "think" tanks like the Heartland Institute and others of their ilk, placing pseudo-science in receptive media outlets, sponsoring tours by Tim Ball and Fred Singer and so on. Then there are the trolls whose job it is to do nothing all day but look for places to lob irrelevant verbal diarrhea to sidetrack serious discussion.
It's time to examine the psychology, motivation and tactics of the troll. What are they really afraid of? Is there a maximum IQ level to qualify? Are they capable of following a logical or scientific line of reasoning? Did their fathers threaten them with the Commie bogeyman at bedtime? Is there a gene that prevents them from recognizing the difference between weather and climate?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Fern Mackenzie
Some preliminary research on "Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism":
http://tinyurl.com/39g3zm
Heh heh. Well, I did say it's preliminary, and besides we don't know(*) exactly how AGW denialism correlates with conservatism (or is it just conlibertarianism).
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(*) oh, how I love these magic words: "we don't know"
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Frank Bi, http://globaldumbing.tk
You people are sooooo predictable and amusing.
Attack the people and not the message.
Clearly the Psudo-science of AGW can't compete with reality.
This conference marks the begining of the end for the silly Goreicle cult. It will be all down hill from here as the Global cooling become clear even to the brainwahsed masses.
Soon the reality of the contrieved IPCC concensus will be exposed publically and real science will be allowed to be reported in the MSM.
In the interest of posterity (and humor) please note all the dumb things that the econutbars have tried to tie to GloBULL warming. LOL
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
"This site is devoted to the monitoring of the misleading numbers that rain down on us via the media." -- Number Watch
"and all on 0.006 deg C per year!" -- Number Watch
Now I'd love to know where that number came from. Any clues, Mr. troll?
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Frank Bi, http://globaldumbing.tk
"Attack the people and not the message."
The message of the AGW "deniers" has already been debunked. There's no sense sounding like a broken record and wasting time repeatedly debunking the "deniers" until eternity.