Real Science Journalism

(via fellow Vancouverites DesmogBlog)

Tony Jones does an excellent job of exposing the fraud that is Albert Einstein....er, I mean Martin Durkin (I always get those two mixed up!), the producer of The Great Global Warming Swindle. You can watch his entire interview on YouTube in two parts, embedded below.

Suffice it to say, you won't ever hear this kind of reality based journalism on US mainstream news programs.

Just in Case There was any Doubt....

Just in case you thought that E. G. Beck actually has any integrity...

Monbiot's Final Response to Alexander Cockburn

George Monbiot calls it quits with a final response in his ongoing debate with Alexander Cockburn. Cockburn finally produced his "references" and of course it is not scientific publication, it is the usual frequently debunked bunk. It is also completely devoid of logical argument and is instead a laudry list of opinion from the usual suspects.

The whole exchange is archived here.

Monbiot: Response to Alexander Cockburn's articles

George Monbiot has another article in response to Alexander Cockburn's recent articles attacking the theory of anthropogenic global warming on Counter Punch and The Nation. It is a good shredding of the usual "corruption" charges leveled at the entire field of working climatologists.

ZMag has a nice one-stop shop for all the relevant links.

More Bunk from Beck

(no, this is not about me!)

Over at Real Climate they have a debunking of another whooper from E. G. Beck. Just as he did with his ludicrous CO2 reconstruction, Beck tries to take science forward by putting the gears in reverse (is this really what a modern day Galileo would do?).

But even better than that, he apparently has to resort to good old fashioned fraud too. Read the details.

Reasic debunks Crichton's "Aliens Cause Global Warming" Speech

In case anyone out there actually thinks Michael Crichton has intelligent things to say about the Global Warming issue, I recommend reading Reasic's recent post that steps through Crichton's many assinine arguments presented in a speech from a few years ago.

It is pretty long, but such an effort should at least be skimmed through!

Thanks for the good work, Reasic.

Definately Not Galileo

A common theme among hardcore denialists, after slowly dragging them around to admit there is a consensus, is an appeal to the Galileo syndrome. "Galileo went against the consensus and he was right!" This is a flawed argument in the climate change debate for many reasons, and it is a Guide entry that is missing for the moment.

I am only bringing it up now, rather than do a proper entry, because of a discussion paper by Ernst-Georg Beck that was presented on Warwick Hughes' blog (no relation to me... to Glenn Beck? I don't know). It is basically a well dressed version of the "there is no anthropogenic CO2 rise" argument. Eli Rabett took the time to take it apart in a rather thorough and scientific manner, especially given the total lack of a credible conclusion Beck arrives at. You can see the featured graph at Deltoid and read Stoat's dismissive opinion of it here.

The irony I want to point out is that Galileo was a forward thinker, reaching into previously untrodden territory. His innovation and imagination helped him see past the prevailing state of human knowledge at the time and go into new ground. What are the denialists doing here? Digging up decades old research with results all over the place, results that lead to all sorts of impossible conclusions and then trying to claim that this is the reality and the new, consistent and refined results are the ones that are wrong. Never mind that this is what progress looks like, this is many minds working to overcome the challenges that caused prior confusion to finally achieve consistent, sensible and reliable data.

But what if you don't like what the new data are telling you? Just chuck it and go back to the old stuff!

Sorry, that is so not Galileo!