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Search for James Delingpole

Comments matching the search James Delingpole:

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

MA Rodger at 21:26 PM on 23 June, 2021

Nick Palmer @88,
Delingpole? I don't see Delingpole as somebody who has any grip on anything that is worth my consideration. He is an absurd right-wing commentator, a wind-up merchant.

You are wrong to say the 2019 Katharine Hayhoe coverage"touches on the 'watermelon' aspect." It does not. It is saying some explain their denilaism by saying they see reds-under-the-AGW-bed, not that there are any there. All Hayhoe is saying is that the solutions to AGW have not been made as toxic as the science within the minds of those captured by denialism. That perhaps brings us back on-topic as the Mann book is saying that denialists are now laying claim to solutions such as CCS & nuclear to undermine the development of renewables. (I noted just yesterday on the BBC's Politics Live programme Steve Baker MP, one of the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy, happily arguing for CCS & nuclear and bad-mouthing solar.)
Your other two links both discuss the same paper - Campbell & Kay (2014) 'Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief'.
I would suggest these citations simply makes the case against your assertion that Mann is pushing some deep-green agenda insinuated into the world by the evil GreenPeace. Rather, it suggests Mann has spotted this denialist shift in tactic.

...

You then turn to addressing us pidgeons which doesn't last long before we get another dead cat lobbed at us. "I haven't finished trying to clarify things for you all but...."
You expend 1,700 words trying to convince us that Exxon are being unfairly stitched up by Greenpeace/Oreskes. (I would suggest this is now appearing as something you care rather too much about for you not to have a dog in the race.)

You insist GreenPeace cherrypick from ancient Exxon documents to create their case against Exxon. I would suggest that an accusation of fundamental cherrypicking by GreenPeace could be (indeed should be) backed up by some evidence (maybe show us some false allegstions of Rochefeller funding work to undermine Arrhenius). You tell us these cherrypicks are "relatively few in number" but it seem presenting them is too complicated for you even though you later tell us it "is actually very quick and easy to do"!!.

What we do see is within you ability is to present some of the cherrypicks from Climategate (something that tick Delingpole tries to lay claim to exposing). Perhaps you feel this has more need of exposure than the case you are trying to make against GreenPeace.

...

All in all, Nick Palmer, you do not present your argument or yourself well here. Rather than the cocktail of argument you attempt to present, we pidgeons get a pile of dead cats. Perhaps your arguments need presenting for you.

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

Nick Palmer at 09:33 AM on 23 June, 2021

Just in case you lot are still resisting the idea that the politics relating to climate science have become extremely polarised - in my view to the point where ideologues of both the left and right think it justified to exaggerate/minimise the scientific truths/uncertainties to sway the democratically voting public one way or the other - here's a video blog by alt-right hero and part of the original Climategate team who publicised the emails, James Delingpole basically saying that 'the left' have infiltrated and corrupted the science for the purpose of using political deception to seize power for themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=866yHuh1RYM

Deconstruct or follow up Delingpoles' rhetoric elsewhere and you will find a helluva lot of intelligent articulate people who believe that the public's environmental consciences are being exploited by closet socialist forces to deceive them, using 'fear porn', into voting for policies which they otherwise wouldn't consider voting for, in a dark strategy to bring in some form of latter day Marxism. They insinuate this has got its tentacles into climate science which they assert has led to the reality of the science, as presented to the public, being twisted by them for political ends. It's absolutely not just Greenpeace, as I already said, who've 'gone red' to the point where it has 'noble cause' corrupted their presentations of environmental matters and, crucially, the narrow choice of solutions they favour - those which would enable and bring on that 'great reset' of civilisation that they want to see. It's much, much bigger than that.

I think we are seeing a resurgence and a recrystallisation of those who got convinced by Utopianist politics of the left and free market thinkers of the right taught at University - Marxist-Leninism, Ayn Rand, Adam Smith etc. Most of those students eventually 'grew up' and mellowed in time, leaving only a small cadre of incorrigible extremists but who are now, as the situation is becoming increasingly polarised politically, revisiting their former ideologies. In essence 'woking' up. I submit that the real battle we are seeing played out in the arena of climate matters is not between science and denialism of science - those are only the proxies used to manipulate the public. The true battle is between the increasingly polarised and increasingly extreme and deceitful proponents of the various far left and right ideologies and their re-energised followers.

It is now almost an article of faith, so accepted has it become, amongst many top climate scientists and commentators, that 'denialism' is really NOT motivated by stupidity or a greedy desire to keep on making as much money as possible but is rather a strong resistance to the solutions that they fear are just 'chess moves' to bring about the great Red 'reset' they think the 'opposition' are secretly motivated by.

Here's an excellent article by famous climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe identifying those who are 'solutions averse' as being a major factor in denialism. It touches on the 'watermelon' aspect. You can turn a blind eye to what I am saying if you want, but in that case you should also attack Hayhoe too - but don't expect many to applaud you...

https://theecologist.org/2019/may/20/moving-past-climate-denial

Also try this: https://www.thecut.com/2014/11/solution-aversion-can-explain-climate-skeptics.html

https://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion

I think some people who fight climate science denialism still have the naive idea that just enlessly quoting the science to them, and Skepticalscience's F.L.I.C.C logical fallacies, will make denialists fall apart. I too used to think that if one would just keep hammering away, eventually they would give up. Anyone who tries this will find that it actually does not work well at all. Take on some of the smarter ones and you will rapidly find that you are, at least in the eyes of the watching/reading/listening public, who are the only audience it's worthwhile spending any time trying to correct, outgunned scientifically and rhetorically. That's why I don't these days much use the actual nitty-gritty science as a club with which to demolish them because the smarter ones will always have a superficially plausible, to the audience at least, comeback which looks convincing TO THE AUDIENCE. Arguing the science accurately can often lose the argument, as many scientists found when they attempted to debate such notorious, yet rhetorically brilliant sceptic/deniers such as Lord Monckton.

I haven't finished trying to clarify things for you all but right back at the beginning, in post#18, I fairly covered what I was trying to suggest is a more realistic interpretation of the truth than the activist's simplistic 'Evil Exxon Knew' propaganda one. In short, most of you seem to believe, and are arguing as if, the science was rock solid back then and that it said any global warming would certainly lead to bad things. This is utterly wrong, and to argue as if it was true is just deceitful. As I have said, and many significant figures in the field will confirm, I've been fighting denialism for a very long time so when denialists present some paper or piece of text extracted from a longer document as 'proof' of something, I always try and read the original, usually finding out that they have twisted the meaning, cherry picked inappropriate sentences or failed to understand it and thereby jumped to fallacious conclusions - similarly I read the letters and extracts that Greenpeace used and, frankly, either they were trying deliberately to mislead or they didn't understand the language properly and jumped to their prejudiced conclusions and then made all the insinuations that we are familiar with and that nobody else seems be questioning much, if at all. The idea that Exxon always knew that anthropogenic climate change was real (which they, of course, did) AND that they always knew that the results of that would be really bad and so they conspired to cover that bad future up is false and is the basis of the wilful misreading and deceitful interpretation of the cherry picked phrases, excerpts and documents that has created a vastly worse than deserved public perception of how the fossil fuel corporations acted. Always remember that, at least ideally, people (and corporations) should be presumed innocent until proven beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty. Greenpeace/Oreskes polemics are not such proof. Their insinuations of the guilt of Big Oil is just a mirror image of how the Climategate hackers insinuated guilt into the words of the top climate scientists.

Here's a clip from my post#18

NAP: "When activists try to bad mouth Exxon et al they speak from a 'post facto' appreciation of the science, as if today's relatively strong climate science existed back when the documents highlighted in 'Exxon knew' were created. Let me explain what I think is another interpretation other than Greenpeace/Oreskes'/Supran's narratives suggesting 'Exxon knew' that climate change was going to be bad because their scientists told them so as far back as the 70s and 80s. Let me first present Stephen Schneider's famous quote from 1988 (the whole quote, not the edited one used by denialists).

S.S. "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.""

Stephen Schneider, as a climate scientist, was about 'as good as it gets' and he said that in 1988. Bear in mind that a lot of the initial framing to prejudice readers that 'Exxon knew' used was based on documents from considerably longer ago, so what are the activists who eagerly allowed themselves to be swept up in it until no-one questioned it turning a blind eye to? It's that the computer models of the time were extremely crude because computer technology back then was just not powerful enough to divide Earth up into enough finite element 'blocks' of small enough size to make model projections of much validity, in particular projections of how much, how fast and how bad or how good... Our ideas of the feedback effects of clouds and aerosols back then was extremely rudimentary and there were widely differing scientific opinions as to the magnitude or even the direction of the feedback. The scientific voices we see in Exxon Knew tend to be those who were suggesting there was lot more certainty of outcome than there actually was. That their version has been eventually shown to be mostly correct by a further 40 years of science in no way means they were right to espouse such certainty back then - just lucky. As I pointed out before, even as late as the very recent CMIP6 models, we are still refining this aspect - and still finding surprises. To insinuate that the science has always been as fairly rock solid as it today is just a wilful rewriting of history. Try reading Spencer Weart's comprehensive history of the development of climate science for a more objective view of the way things developed...

ExxonMobil spokesperson Allan Jeffers told Scientific American in 2015. “The thing that shocks me the most is that we’ve been saying this for years, that we have been involved in climate research. These guys (Inside Climate News) go down and pull some documents that we made available publicly in the archives and portray them as some kind of bombshell whistle-blower exposé because of the loaded language and the selective use of materials.”

Look at the phrases and excerpts that were used in both Greenpeace's 'Exxon Knew' and 'Inside Climate News's' exposés. You will find they actually are very cherry picked and relatively few in number considering the huge volumes of company documents that were analysed. Does that remind you of anything else? Because it should. The Climategate hackers trawled through mountains of emails - over ten years worth - to cherry pick apparently juicy phrases and ended up with just a few headline phrases, a sample of which follow. Now, like most of us now know, there are almost certainly innocent and valid explanations of each of these phrases, and independent investigations in due course vindicated the scientists. Reading them, and some of the other somewhat less apparently salacious extracts that got less publicity, and comparing them with the 'presented as a smoking gun' extracts from Greenpeace/Oreskes/Supran etc I have to say, on the face of it, the Climategate cherry picks look more evidential of serious misdeeds than the 'Exxon Knew' excerpts. Except we are confident that the Climategate hackers badly misrepresented the emails by insinuating shady motives where none were. Why should we not consider that those nominally on the side of the science did not do the same? Surely readers here are not so naive aas to believe that everyone on 'our side' is pure as the driven snow and all those on the 'other side' are evil black hats?

Here's a 'top eight'

1) Phil Jones "“I’ve just completed Mike’s [Mann] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s [Briffa] to hide the decline.”

2) “Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming…. The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” [Kevin Trenberth, 2009]

3) “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple." Keth Briffa

4) Mike [Mann], can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Trenberth] re AR4? Keith will do likewise…. Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his e-mail address…. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” [Phil Jones, May 29, 2008]

5) “Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were….” [Tim Osborn, Climatic Research Unit, December 20, 2006]

6) “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” [Phil Jones, July 8, 2004]

7) “You might want to check with the IPCC Bureau. I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 [the upcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report] would be to delete all e-mails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember it.” [Phil Jones, May 12, 2009]

8) “If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s warming blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say 0.15 deg C, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip….” [Tom Wigley, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, to Phil Jones, September 28, 2008]

Please at least consider the possibility that Greenpeace, who have been deceiving the public about the toxicity and carcinogenicity of this, that and the other for decades (ask me how if you want to see how blatant their deceit or delusion is... showing this is actually very quick and easy to do) were, in a very similar way, and motivated by their underlying ideology, deliberately (or delusionally) misrepresenting innocent phrases to blacken names excessively too.

Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump

JWRebel at 09:45 AM on 18 July, 2017

I agree that fear is an underlying ground for much denialism — many scientists were also reluctant to accept the magnitude of the problem as it became clearer and clearer the past 50 years.

But there are other important aspects. One is international context. Vociferous denialism seems a peculiarly Ango-Saxon disease. Why would that be?

The concentration of news into the hands of the likes of Rupert Murdoch, always printing ammunition for "scepticism".
Corporate disinformation and ideological think tanks.
The strong anti-governmet anti-left narrative that has taken hold since Reagan was president. Don't forget that Reagan won by scuttling Carter's energy policy, telling Americans they were great, and everything would go back to how it was in the fifties — without all these perplexing modern problems.

These factors play much less of a role in most other countries of the world.

A further factor is group loyalties. Many people's views on many subjects are informed by loyalty to their tribe and how the tribe has decided to view the matter. Loyalty is a big part of conservative and religious denialism, but it is precisely this loyalty that can be used to change the narrative [loyalty also means not running down the family farm before handing it to your children].

As for people like James Delingpole, there have always been a small number of irredeemable miscreants who find their claim to fame in serving evil.

Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming

BaerbelW at 03:28 AM on 13 July, 2017

Climate Feedback published a scathing review of Delingpole's Breitbart article about this white paper.

Overall rating: -1.8 for Scientific credibility

Corals are resilient to bleaching

Cedders at 08:44 AM on 20 April, 2017

A note that even after another hot summer of coral bleaching, this time without an El Niño, Jim Steele doesn't seem to have learned much. He's written an article on the web entitled "Falling Sea Level: The Critical Factor in 2016 Great Barrier Reef Bleaching!" attacking Hughes et al (2017). Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals. Steele's article has been referred to by James Delingpole and others, presumably because it tries to blame anything other than sea temperatures for coral mortality despite their evident close relationship.

The article about coral mortality in Sulawesi he references would not explain bleaching and its authors support the overall picture of thermally-induced bleaching and mortality. One of his suggestions is that Hughes's demonstration of mass mortality of the northern GBR was based entirely on aerial surveys. That is false, as can be seen in reports for example in SciAm or New Scientist. Although this has been pointed out to him, Steele has as of 19 April yet to correct these errors.

Coordinator of UK Ocean Acidification Research Attacks The Spectator for 'Willfully Misleading' James Delingpole Column

Dennis Horne at 13:40 PM on 21 September, 2016

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/14/massive-cover-exposed-lying-alarmists-rebranded-70s-global-cooling-scare-myth/

JAMES DELINGPOLE14 Sep 2016

"Scientization is, of course, what climate alarmists do all the time in order to support their bankrupt (but highly lucrative) thesis. Such is their brazen shamelessness, indeed, that you can’t help wondering whether – along with a worthless degree in something like environmental sciences from somewhere like the University of East Anglia – the main requirement for thriving in the world of climate science is the personality of a psychopath."

Surface Temperature or Satellite Brightness?

Tom Curtis at 13:43 PM on 16 January, 2016

Some of you are undoubtedly already aware of the excellent video on satellite temperatures recently released by Peter Sinclair:

There is now some denier pushback against that video, led by the infamous James Delingpole, ;at Breitbart.

Some of the pushback (typically of Delingpole) is breathtaking in its dishonesty. For instance, he claims:

"This accuracy [of the satellite record] was acknowledged 25 years ago by NASA, which said that “satellite analysis of the upper atmosphere is more accurate, and should be adopted as the standard way to monitor temperature change.”

It turns out the basis of this claim, is not, however, a NASA report. Rather it was a report in the The Canberra Times on April 1st, 1990. Desite the date, it appears to be a serious account, but mistaken. That is because the only information published on the satellite record to that date was not a NASA report, but "Precise Monitoring of Global Temperature Trends" by Spencer and Christy, published, March 30th, 1990. That paper claims that:

"Our data suggest that high-precision atmospheric temperature monitoring is possible from satellite microwave radiometers. Because of their demonstrated stability and the global
coverage they provide, these radiometers should be made the standard for the monitoring of global atmospheric temperature anomalies since 1979."

A scientific paper is not a "NASA report", and two scientists bignoting their own research does not constitute an endorsement by NASA. Citing that erronious newspaper column does, however, effectively launder the fact that Delingpole is merely citing Spencer and Christy to endorse Spencer and Christy.

Given the history of found inaccurracies in the UAH record since 1990 (see below), even if the newspaper column had been accurate, the "endorsement" would be tragically out of date. Indeed, given that history, the original claim by Spencer and Christy is shown to be mere hubris, and wildly in error.

Delingpole goes on to speak of "the alarmists’ preference for the land- and sea-based temperature datasets which do show a warming trend – especially after the raw data has been adjusted in the right direction". What he carefully glosses over is that the combined land-ocean temperature adjustments reduce the trend relative to the raw data, and have minimal effect on the 1979 to current trend.

He then accuses the video of taking the line that "...the satellite records too have been subject to dishonest adjustments and that the satellites have given a misleading impression of global temperature because of the way their orbital position changes over time." That is odd given that the final, and longest say in the video is given to satellite temperature specialist Carl Mears, author of the RSS satellite temperature series, whose concluding point is that we should not ignore the satellite data, nor the surface data, but rather look at all the evidence (Not just at satellite data from 1998 onwards). With regard to Spencer and Christy, Andrew Dessler says (4:00):

"I don't want to bash them because everybody makes mistakes, and I presume everybody is being honest..."

Yet Delingpole finds contrary to this direct statement that the attempt is to portray the adjutments as dishonest.

Delingpoles claim is a bit like saying silent movies depict the keystone cops as being corrupt. The history of adjustments at UAH show Spencer and Christy to be often overconfident in their product, and to have made a series of errors in their calculations, but not to be dishonest.

The nest cannard is that satellites are confirmed by independent data, in balloons - a claim effectively punctured by Tamino:

Finally, Delingpole gives an extensive quote from John Christy:

"There are too many problems with the video on which to comment, but here are a few.
First, the satellite problems mentioned here were dealt with 10 to 20 years ago. Second, the main product we use now for greenhouse model validation is the temperature of the Mid-Troposphere (TMT) which was not erroneously impacted by these problems.
The vertical “fall” and east-west “drift” of the spacecraft are two aspects of the same phenomenon – orbital decay.
The real confirmation bias brought up by these folks to smear us is held by them. They are the ones ignoring information to suit their world view. Do they ever say that, unlike the surface data, the satellite datasets can be checked by a completely independent system – balloons? Do they ever say that one of the main corrections for time-of-day (east-west) drift is to remove spurious WARMING after 2000? Do they ever say that the important adjustment to address the variations caused by solar-shadowing effects on the spacecraft is to remove a spurious WARMING? Do they ever say that the adjustments were within the margin of error?"

Here is the history of UAH satellite temperature adjustments to 2005:

Since then we have had additional corrections:

5.2: Eliminate NOAA 16 data, +0.01 C/decade; Dec 2006
5.2: Discovered previous correction eliminated NOAA 15 by mistake, unknown amount; Dec 2006
5.2 Switch from annual to monthly anomaly period baseline, +0.002 C/decade; July 2009
5.5 Eliminate AQUA data, + 0.001 C/decade

There were also changes from version 5.2 to 5.3, 5.3 to 5.4 and 5.5 to 5.6 which did not effect the trend. Finally we have the (currently provisional) change from 5.6 to 6.0:

6.0, Adjust channels used in determining TLT, -0.026 C/decade; April, 2015

Against that record we can check Christy's claims. First, he claims the problems were dealt with 10-20 years ago. That, of course, assumes the corrections made fixed the problem, ie, that the adjustments were accurate. As he vehemently denies the possibility that surface temperature records are accurate, he is hardly entitled to that assumption. Further, given that it took three tries to correct the diurnal drift problem, and a further diurnal drift adjustment was made in 2007 (not trend effect mentioned), that hardly inspires confidence. (The 2007 adjustment did not represent a change in method, but rather reflects a change in the behaviour of the satellites, so it does not falsify the claim about when the problem was dealt with.)

Second, while they may now do model validation against TMT, comparisons with the surface product are done with TLT - so that represents an evasion.

Third, satellite decay and diurnal drift may be closely related problems but that is how they are consistently portrayed in the video. Moreover, given that they are so closely related it begs the question as to why a correction for the first (Version D above) was not made until four years after the first correction for the second.

Moving into his Gish gallop we have balloons (see link to, and image from Tamino above). Next he mentions two adjustments that reduce the trend (remove spurious warming), with the suggestion that the failure to mention that the adjustments reduce the trend somehow invalidates the criticism. I'm not sure I follow his logic in making a point of adjustments in the direction that suites his biases. I do note the massive irony given the repeated portrayal of adjustments to the global land ocean temperture record as increasing the trend relative to raw data when in fact it does the reverse.

Finally, he mentions that the adjustments fall within the margin of error (0.05 C per decade). First, that is not true of all adjustments, with two adjustments (both implimented in version D) exceding the margin of error. Second, the accumulative adjustment to date, including version 6.0, results in a 0.056 C/decade increase in the trend. That is, accumulative adjustments to date exceed the margin of error. Excluding the version 6 adjustments (which really change the product by using a different profile of the atmosphere), they exceeded the margin of error by 38% for version 5.2 and by 64% for version 5.6 (as best as I can figure). If the suggestion is that adjustments have not significantly altered the estimated trend, it is simply wrong. Given that Christy is responsible (with Spencer) for this product, there is not excuse for such a mistatement.

To summarize, the pushback against the video consists of a smorgazbord of innacurate statements, strawman presentations of the contents of the video, and misdirection. Standard Delingpole (and unfortunately, Christy) fare.

2015 SkS Weekly Digest #9

Tom Curtis at 12:29 PM on 7 March, 2015

Barry Bickmore has a beautiful take down of the "argument from authority is a fallacy" cannard, which neatly punctures Delingpole into the bargain.

(And just to be clear, an argument from authority is a logical fallacy. That is, the premises can be true and the conclusion false - even if it is just once in every billion times the argument is used. The argument from induction is likewise a logical fallacy. Indeed, it is impossible to draw any conclusion except in maths and logic without invoking a logical fallacy. The key question is whether the "logical fallacy" you invoke is inductively sound, ie, whether, of the premises are true there is a very high probability that the conclusion is also true.)

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #13A

Poster at 02:51 AM on 29 March, 2014

Thanks for ypur criticism scaddenp. Perhaps you might also have suggested Gingerbaker could have looked for another thread. Incidentally have you seen the comments (admittedly from climate change deniers Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal and James Delingpole in Breitbart News) that the upcoming IPCC report from Working Group II will ( -snip-) estimates a rise of 2.5C in glbal temperature will cost the global economy between 0.2% and 2% of its GDP. Do you have any thoughts or comments why on Ridley and Delingpole suggest the Summary for Policymakers will be "much more alarmist" than the report from the Working Party? Are they telling lies?

Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable

Doug Hutcheson at 10:38 AM on 21 April, 2013

William @ 20, the Guy McPherson essay in turn links to a disgusting article by that doyen of the radical Right, James FishingDelingpole, which concludes;

"Our culture deserves better than to have the terms of debate dictated by malign, politically motivated, professional offence-takers.
Let's stop surrendering and start fighting back."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

After reading what Delingpole wrote (and subsequently disinfecting my monitor), I am amazed that he is given oxygen. Surely he is smart enough to know he is batting for the wrong side? Still, his rhetoric is so inflammatory, I'm glad he doesn't bat for us: stuff like that from this side would do untold damage to getting the message, about stopping AGW, out in a sane and rational way.

2013 SkS Weekly Digest #14

chriskoz at 08:59 AM on 10 April, 2013

A denial press release that Mike Mann shared on his FB.

Denier Delingpole Wishes For ‘Climate Nuremberg’

It's not worth reading the original (referred therein by Joe Romm) because it's indeed nauseating, if taken seriously. Waste of time to wrestle with pigs. But it's worth at least reading this commentary by Joe.

Climate Science Deniers have reached the new low. To date I thought Monckton was the bigest nutter among the deniers. Now he was overtaken by James Delingpole.
This James Delingpole fellow openly admits he has nothing but the "art of metaphor". Abusive and bullying metaphors, like a kindy child, or a nutter in a mental institution. And a UK Daily Telegraph has printed it. Unbelievable! Lower than I ever expected. I wonder if they can go any lower still...

David Rose Hides the Rise in Global Warming

michaelbassey at 04:00 AM on 22 March, 2013

Last June I made a submission to the Leveson Inquiry which I entitled ‘The press should speak truth to the people so that the people can speak sense to power’.
This is an extract relevant to this discussion:
“PRESS REPORTS ON GLOBAL WARMING JANUARY TO JUNE 2012 Using an iPad to search for items on global warming in the eight major national daily newspapers published in England I have identified 76 items of news and comment over the period 1 January to 25 June 2012. …
“In summary, the Daily Telegraph (0.7 million readers), the Daily Express (0.7 million readers) and most of the time the Daily Mail (2.1 million readers) reject the scientific evidence that gives a high probability to the Earth warming up due to human activity in releasing greenhouse gases; the Sun (3 million readers) and the Daily Mirror (1.2 million readers) are not concerned; while the Times (0.5 million readers), the Independent (0.2 million readers), and the Guardian (0.3 million readers) are committed to giving their readers the latest evidence and pertinent comment on man-made global warming leading to climate change.
“That adds up to 3.5 million readers exposed to rejection of ‘human responsibility’, 4.2 million unaware from their newspaper reading, and 1.0 million given the scientific viewpoint. Or as percentages of the presumed daily readership: rejection 40%, unaware 48% and acceptance 12%.”
It shows why journalists like David Rose and James Delingpole, with potential audiences of 31/2 million readers endanger us all.

Michael Bassey

Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies

Albatross at 02:14 AM on 6 March, 2013

Eclectikus,

Could you please try and stay on topic? You seem to have forgotten the topic of this thread. Just one comment on something that you said, that is relevant to the OP.

"I have a great respect for Curry."

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, no matter how misguided. The fact is that several of her eminent colleagues and peers, you know people who are qualified to speak to the scientific integrity of her musings, no longer respect Curry. They are embarressed for her, and that inlcudes me, another of her peers. Our response to Curry's behaviour is not becasue she is painting herself as a heretic (an easy card to play), or a contrarian, it has very much to do with the fact that Curry is taking a machete to the science.

Have you already forgotten her saying "Wow" in repsonse to the pseudo science of Salby on the CO₂ cycle? Or Curry saying "If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science". The egregious problems with Salby's analysis are also addressed in Cawley's (2012) response to some similar musings by Essenhigh. That is but one of several examples of "skeptics" and contrarians endorsing and promoting pseudo science, while also attacking scientists.

It is for this, and other reasons, that owners of respected science sites, who take science seriously and who do their very best to get the science right are distancing themselves from the Bloggies. It does not help that charlatans like Delingpole are asking their readers to "Vote Delingpole! Vote often!" The Bloggies system has been gamed by none other than the "Interpreter of interpretations" . So someone who admits to not even bothering to read the science is in the running for "best" science blog!

End of story.

Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960

DSL at 13:56 PM on 29 January, 2013

jsmith, countering James Taylor with comment is folly. Taylor is not concerned with credibility. He is paid by Heartland to say whatever needs to be said to promote doubt in the target audience. This is not baseless accusation. I've tried discussion with him. It's a game of mumble mumble fade away, much like Joe Bastardi, though Bastardi has more at stake. Taylor knows he has an audience that just needs some sciencey looking stuff with a few links (that no one in the target audience will follow). He's a minor league James Delingpole. I go there now and then to try to goad him into engaging in conversation, but he's not interested in discussion.

A Brief Note on the Latest Release of Draft IPCC Documents

Mal Adapted at 05:57 AM on 14 January, 2013

Bernard J.:

It's a thermodynamic truth that many people, even on the side of the consensus, need to hear and understand.

Since CBDunkerson and I are both on the side of the consensus, I want to be sure I didn't misunderstand his(?) use of "business as usual" (BAU). CBDunkerson:

The claim that environmental problems can only be solved by giving up modern technology, individual freedom, et cetera is a lie that deniers have told themselves so often that they take it as inviolate truth even in the face of observed reality to the contrary.

If BAU means "no one has to freeze to death in the dark if fossil fuels are replaced by renewables", then that's defensible. If BAU means "the transition to a sustainable economy won't reduce average buying power (what's usually meant by 'standard of living')", then that's frank denial.

The professional AGW deniers don't care if a few 47%-ers freeze to death in the dark, and they don't worry about average buying power either. To them, BAU means "My own buying power will be reduced if fossil fuels are replace by renewables". Changing BAU will make winners and losers, and they'll be losers. Of course it's OK with me if the Koch brothers lose some income, but who really thinks the 1% will be the only losers? You and I might be willing to give up some of our own hard-earned buying power if it reduces the risk of climate catastrophe; we'll leave the hybrid in the garage and take the bus. We may even be willing to pay extra, to keep people now on the edge of poverty from sliding over it.

As for the rest of the middle class, not all of them are as sanguine as we are about loss of buying power. Some accept the scientific consensus but refuse to change the way they live, perhaps believing that the impacts of AGW will mostly affect other people far away. Others think arguments from consequences refute arguments from evidence. Some, with no worse than average understanding of science as an institution, are willing to believe that AGW is all a hoax, and that consensus supporters are conspiring to impose world socialism. We roll our eyes, but we should ask ourselves what it will really take to keep the impacts of AGW from getting worse -- never mind establishing a truly sustainable economy. This comment is already too long, so I'll let Naomi Klein answer:

The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their “free market” belief system. As British blogger and Heartland regular James Delingpole has pointed out, “Modern environmentalism successfully advances many of the causes dear to the left: redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, greater government intervention, regulation.” Heartland’s Bast puts it even more bluntly: For the left, “Climate change is the perfect thing…. It’s the reason why we should do everything [the left] wanted to do anyway.”

Here's my inconvenient truth: they aren't wrong.

Resolving Confusion Over the Met Office Statement and Continued Global Warming

bill at 09:54 AM on 11 January, 2013

I'd also like to suggest that the Met Office's latest fisking of the egregious Delingpole is worth re-posting.

Resolving Confusion Over the Met Office Statement and Continued Global Warming

Doug Bostrom at 07:21 AM on 11 January, 2013

Re Cornelius' pointer to the Met Office comprehensive correction of James Delingpole, would surely be nice to see that cross-posted here.

Resolving Confusion Over the Met Office Statement and Continued Global Warming

Cornelius Breadbasket at 06:01 AM on 11 January, 2013

The MET office have just issued a smackdown of James Dellingbole's very poor article about this in the Telegraph. It is well worth reading.

2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1

shoyemore at 09:18 AM on 6 January, 2013

The UK's Channel 4 showed a documentary tonight asking the question Is Our Weather Getting Worse?"

The answer was an uncompromising Yes, with AGW as the culprit, and not a Lord Lawson, Viscount Monckton, or a James Delingpole in sight to argue about it. Since the year 2000, the UK has had the warmest, wettest, coldest and driest periods in its history.

The documentary emphasised weird weather in previous centuries, like an actual Medieval tornado, but showed that frequencies of extreme weather, even of tornados, were rising. And it pointed out this was true not only in the UK.

Channel 4 "Is Our Weather Getting Worse"

What is refreshing is that Channel 4 has taken many fringe positions in the past, like screening the downright dishonest The Great Global Warming Swindle

IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun

julesdingle at 22:47 PM on 14 December, 2012

The Human Factor- the trend, if there is one, tends towards publicity. A few months ago I did a little online research about bottom feeding denialists including Omnologos - who joined the big boys with his 28gate BBC research and had 1000 hits on his profile [denierlist.wordpress.com]. Rawls is a failed rightwing economist desperate for attention so it would surprise me if he set out to do the leak from the start. Setting up a denial website is easy and requires little actual work or writing skills so I think some have seen the success and kudos of WUWT and try and duplicate it.

This attention seeking and desire to pick up any kind of loyal following is illustrated by James Delingpole: despite recycling the same stories [agw conpiracy-green fascist conspiracy- and wind turbines are evil- UN conspiracy] each and every week he sells his blog, books and gets fairly regular t.v. appearances and even bookings. For a struggling writer or economist [for instance] such a lifestyle is attractive.

Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)

Albatross at 02:50 AM on 17 October, 2012

Talking above of internal inconsistencies with arguments used by fake skeptics. As I alluded to earlier, last year when the BEST project not-surprisingly corroborated the research of climate scientists. Scrambling, fake skeptics then declared:

"Global Warming is Real"

Delingpole went on to say,

"It has been a truth long acknowledged by climate sceptics, deniers and realists of every conceivable hue that since the mid-19th century, the planet has been on a warming trend..."

There you have it from the mouth of a prominent fake skeptic. Yet, only 10 days later (!), Delingpole penned a diatribe titled,

"Global warming, yeah right".

Fast forward to present and now the fake skeptics have reverted to recycling another old favourite myth of "no warming in X years", with suggestions that the UK Met. Office is trying to hide something thrown in for good measure.

This is beyond a joke. Do they really think that people are so obtuse as to not keep track of such things? It is insulting and the public should be outraged that some "skeptic" scientists and media outlets are so intent on continually misleading and confusing them on this issue that is of utmost importance.

This sad saga yet again demonstrates the inability of fake skeptics to mount a coherent, internally consistent and credible argument against the theory of AGW. What is especially egregious though is that a "skeptic" scientist is enabling them.

Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)

bill at 09:15 AM on 29 March, 2012

I think there's a good case for 'Lord Mitty', but perhaps I'm showing my age and my fondness for Thurber!

Stephen M, I found a similar example, from an interview of his on the dreadful Infowars.com the other day, where he refers to himself as an economist -

what is happening is that Economists the world over, from President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic to Bjorn Lomborg to me in the United Kingdom, to Nigel Lawson…

(These 'economists' all know, of course, that any attempt at pricing Carbon will bring about Calamity, Anarchy, Penury, Usury, and Tears Before Bedtime. You have to wait 'til 2 hours 16 mins for this gem, and there were many others - those curious about what His Lordship said to Prince Charles at his birthday soirée can find further material here.)

Wow, Dana, if you publish at Watts that means you get to be in the in-crowd, and can even call the delightful James Delingpole 'Dellers' as the rest of them do!

I believe this makes His Lordship 'Monckers', and with the change of only one letter...

Lindzen's Junk Science

Martin Lack at 07:06 AM on 12 March, 2012

#1 Composer99 As I have said elsewhere, Lindzen's talk was given to an audience comprised mainly of Repealtheact rentamob (i.e. members of the supposedly "sceptical" public) and scientifically-illiterate journalists. Apart from Lord Monckton and Sammy Wilson, the only other MP present (in the audience) was former Trade and Industry secretary Peter Lilley. The closest one could possibly get to celebrity status would be James Delingpole.

When I last checked, the Repeal the Act ePetition had just over 1000 signatures so they are never going to change policy that way (100k required to trigger Debate) but what is more concerning is Monckton's claim that Lindzen was whisked away afterward to brief a Cabinet Minister. This is clear interference in UK politcs and I would love to know what MIT think about it.

Lindzen's London Illusions

John Russell at 00:50 AM on 8 March, 2012

It's interesting to read the publicity for the meeting.

I see that the meeting room was booked by Sammy Wilson(DUP), quote, "man-made climate change is a "myth based on dodgy science ..and ...an hysterical pseudo-religion."

Note the recommended reading list at the end, which includes such seminal reference works as Donna Laframboise's 'The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert: IPCC Expose'; and, James Delingpole's, 'Watermelons: How the Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children's Future'.

The general slant of the recommended reading suggests that the audience was very much drawn from those with an anti-windpower, pro fossil-fuel agenda.

2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8

JMurphy at 03:12 AM on 28 February, 2012

David Kirtley, fortunately, your American Thinker link has it wrong when it claims : "British Parliament heard devastating testimony overturning the global warming hoax".

It was actually a seminar in a Committee Room and I doubt whether many MPs (apart from Sammy Wilson, who arranged it) were there. I believe Monckton may have been - enough said !

However, the list of those associated with it makes it even clearer what its agenda was :

It was chaired by Philip Stott (another Emeritus Professor).

Included Reverend Philip Foster.

Repeal the Climate Change Act (which includes such luminaries as David Bellamy, Johnny Ball and Bob Carter)

The Association of British Drivers (who claim on their website to "reveal the scientific truth behind the scare stories about climate change, and the impact cars have on health and the environment").

The Country Guardian.
The Campaign Against Wind Farms.
(Both connected to the same issue)

And the recommended reading on climate and energy policy from the organisers included the letter from the 'concerned' 16 'scientists' to the Wall Street Journal, and references to Ross McKitrick, James Delingpole and Tim Ball. Hmmm.

As for what transpired, there is this transcript from Lindzen, which begins :

I wish to thank the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act for the opportunity to present my views on the issue of climate change – or as it was once referred to: global warming. Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.
(And just look at some of the dates on those graphs he uses)

Monckton Misrepresents Specific Situations (Part 2)

Martin Lack at 04:58 AM on 24 February, 2012

Hi folks, Lord Monckton chaired the meeting I attended in the UK's Palace of Westminster (22 Feb) at which Professor Lindzen regurgitated his ICCC4 keynote address from May 2010. Unfortunately, there were so many misrepresentations of fact in this, I was foolish to try and address one of them before asking a question (and so was not allowed to ask it). However, it would seem that my 1800 word email to Professor Lindzen is getting noticed, because none other than Lord Monckton joined a discussion on the website of the UK's Independent newspaper a couple of hours ago in order to mock me then disappear again (in typical style).

You may be amused to see the ongoing (mostly insane) discussion. I must say I am disappointed by the piece by Simon Carr and the insanity of many contributors to the discussion (I always thought the Independent was a sensible paper); but at least they sent someone to report on the meeting.

I will publish my 1800 word email (critique of Lindzen's talk) on 28 Feb. (24 and 27 Feb are already taken up with 'James Delingpole - and ideological sceptic' and 'Climategate 2.0 - the first nail in the coffin of climate change denial' respectively.

Fritz Vahrenholt - Duped on Climate Change

bill at 20:17 PM on 14 February, 2012

Delingpole called him Germany's George Monbiot*! And 'a well-known green activist'.

I suppose we must allow that, even with the delightful James' claiming it, there is still an outside possiblity that there might be some truth in it? Any of our Deutsche freunde know more of Vahrenholt's pedigree?

*given the opinions he's expressed of Monbiot this is rather an odd compliment...

Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays

les at 21:31 PM on 26 December, 2011

9 Brian - (again, apologies for off topic) SkS is famed for backing up opinion with references;
Dlingpole posts under "BLOGS HOME » NEWS » JAMES DELINGPOLE" which, is >Blogs then news, not the other way round.
As for his strap-line, as I said, it's designed to wind people up to sell advertising. I've no doubt he started as a journalist... births/weddings/deaths/lost dogs etc... which has stood him in good stead to provide very few column inches he manages from time-to-time.

Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays

Brian Purdue at 11:32 AM on 26 December, 2011

That may be so les but the article I referred to is from online UK Telegraph under “News” and it states:

“James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster --------“.

Modern journalism is becoming opinion where the facts are not necessarily important.

This is no way to communicate climate science (or anything else) to the public.

Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays

Brian Purdue at 09:46 AM on 26 December, 2011

I remember very well Australian broadcaster Tony Jones’s demolishment of Martin Durkin and his film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.

But only last week British denier journalist James Delingpole, who states he is “right about everything”, started one of his tirades with the words:

“Martin Durkin is a hero of mine, not just for his courage in making the first mainstream British TV programme seriously to challenge the idea of Man Made Global Warming – The Great Global Warming Swindle -----“.

Not only do you have to be right about everything Mr. Delingpole, but you also require some credibility.

He typifies the standard of journalism coming from the denier side.

Climategate 2.0: Denialists Serve Up Two-Year-Old Turkey

garythompson at 12:03 PM on 27 November, 2011

Does anyone else find it odd that Phil Jones doesn't know how to plot data in Excel? Or more importantly, how he makes claimes about trends without doing the plotting and while knowingly stating that the data is statistically insignificant? Sounds odd. It's in email #1885 and here is a link.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100119495/climategate-2-0-the-not-nice-and-clueless-phil-jones/#disqus_thread

Yes, It's Still Us, and It's Still Bad

garythompson at 12:30 PM on 31 October, 2011

It appears there are a few news reports about this being the next climate gate. Hide the decline part two. This article seems to capture it. I assume there will be an update from Skeptical Science?

The BEST Kind of Skepticism

Hyperactive Hydrologist at 05:02 AM on 25 October, 2011

James Delingpole with his view on the BEST research. No pretty, usual collection of misinformation and not surprisingly the line; we knew the planet was warming.

Interestingly he did a blog post last year referencing D'Aleo and Watts claiming the opposite.
Global Warming: is it even happening?

Understanding climate denial

Albatross at 15:38 PM on 29 September, 2011

Pete @75,

"I don't think all deniers are fueled by anger but quite a few online deniers seem angry."

That is my observation too. Not here at SkS so much, but certainly at WUWT, ClimateAudit and news forums...it seems that the anger is oftentimes inversely proportional to the person's knowledge on climate science, and science in general. For example, consider James Delingpole's (the self-professed interpreter of interpretations on the science) latest efforts that is featured at prominently at WUWT.

On another note, the denial (and perhaps even the aggression) also seems to arise from people faced with cognitive dissonance, and denial is one way of dismissing inconvenient or conflicting concepts/ideas/thoughts. The psychology of all this is quite fascinating and something that I am having to learn as best as I can in order to try and understand where those in denial about AGW are coming from. But some here are likely much better qualified to speak to this aspect of denial than I am.

Climate Communication: Making Science Heard and Understood

Clippo UK at 01:53 AM on 17 September, 2011

As usual, because I read around blogs so much, I tend to come into discussions late. However, the subject of science communication to ‘non-scientists’ has interested me for many years – indeed I was a qualified trainer in industrial science matters for several years.

I applaud your efforts immensely but I fear they will fail to largely counteract the AGW skeptic spin.

In my opinion, most ‘ordinary’ people, (now out of Education), learn about diverse subjects from either printed media, (magazines, newspapers etc.) and Television / Film. Of these two main groups I think Television / Film is the more persuasive since the audience is more ‘captive’ than those casually reading – altho’ I accept they can switch the telly off.

The evidence I claim that supports my view is, for example, Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth on the one hand, and for example, the UK TV program “The Great Global warming Swindle “by (“You’re a big daft c**k”) Martin Durkin which was found by independent enquiry to have been partial.

Further support comes from Sir Paul Nurse’s expose of AGW denier James Delingpole and the three part UK TV series by the BBC, The Climate Wars by Dr Ian Stewart. In this latter series of 3 programmes, Spencer, particularly, is exposed as the fraudulent scientist he is – and even Patrick Michaels admitted on camera that GW was real! I find it strange that the BBC hasn’t released this series on DVD.

I’m sure any of you readers will recall similar ‘visual’ presentations affecting public learning.

So what has this to do with climate change communication and http://climatecommunication.org/. ?

Well, I simple believe the only way to convince large masses of ‘ordinary’ people of the gravity and causes of Climate Change is by film or television documentary by recognised non-political scientists.

That is not to say printed media should be ignored but it is generally recognised that in the USA, much of the media is literally in the pockets of fossil fuel interests and they will never admit to any publishing any real facts that will diminish the profits of those interests, or ‘hurt’ the US economy as they define it. Newspapers also deliberately try to generate debate – to improve sales.

So I urge http://climatecommunication.org/ to really consider a series of scientifically based TV documentaries, by appropriate independent scientists and/or effective questioning media presenters, to be sold around the world.

Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant

snapple at 23:54 PM on 14 June, 2011

Until the "Climategate" scandal, I chuckled like a middle-schooler when witty, sarcastic global warming denialists on the blogs mocked "Al Bore" for being a fat, hypocritical moneybags. I didn't want to believe in the "inconvenient truth" of global warming. I was in denial. Still, I was kind of worried in the back of my mind that global warming might be true.

"Climategate" forced me to face my denialism. I read those e-mails and the nasty and mocking commentary about them, and then I read what the scientists actually were saying in their own words.

I think Phil Jones's infamous BBC interview shows how consciously dishonest these few denialist scientists and loud-mouthed journalists are. They knew that ordinary people wouldn't understand what statistical significance means.

The denialists are the cherry-pickers. Once I saw that the Republican Party was spreading these (-Snip-), I became a Democrat.

When the Republican politicians come to my door or call on the phone for my vote, I tell them that the Republicans deny climate change so I won't be voting for them any more.

I tell them that I believe the National Academy, the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the CIA, the EPA, NASA, NOAA, OSHA, the Pentagon, and Al Gore.

If I can read both sides and figure it out, the Republican politicians can too. They are just paid (-Snip-) who don't care about the truth at all.

Climategate made me pay attention to climate change, and I learned that it's not the climate scientists who are trying to trick us.

Al Gore is probably not a bore. He can't possibly be as boring as some of those conspiracists on Faux News like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. I don't believe them at all any more. Every day they repeat the same conspiracy theories over and over and over and over! It is so boring! They are so self-righteous! And there is never any news!

Al Gore is trying to learn about climate change and share what he is learning with the rest of us. That's what leaders do. I'm sure he makes some mistakes when he tries to translate what the scientists say into layman's terms; but I don't think he is lying to me like Senator Inhofe, Joe Barton, Attorney General Cuccinelli, James Delingpole, Anthony Watts, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck.

Weather vs Climate

Bruce Frykman at 09:00 AM on 14 April, 2011

Climate vs weather.

A group of activists headed up to the arctic circle in May 2009 to "raise awareness" that the "warmer climate" was creating mild snow, ice, and temperature conditions there, thus driving polar bears to extinction.

They were driven back by ferocious snow, ice, and temperature conditions that nearly killed them; they needed to be rescued lest they die under the horrific cold conditions they found on the way. The number of polar bears they encountered was posing yet more deadly risk to the party.

It incident was all due to colder "weather" and not the warmer "climate"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/9802307/Global_warming_explorers_in_Arctic_get_nasty_shock_polar_ice_caps_blooming_freezing/

A retrospective of the Climategate retrospectives

JMurphy at 10:46 AM on 25 January, 2011

Just in case anyone is interested (and sees this !), there was another good BBC programme on today, to do with Climate Change, the difference between what the public may believe and what the science says, and the role of 'Climategate'.

It was a HORIZON programme called 'Science under attack' and is available on iPlayer until Sunday 30 Jan 11.
(Don't know if it will work for those outside the UK but hopefully you'll be able to find it on YouTube or something. Definitely worth watching, for what could be the start of the scientific fightback...and for seeing James Delingpole make a fool of himself. As usual)

Abraham reply to Monckton

lord_sidcup at 02:07 AM on 8 June, 2010

#47

Whilst that is always possible the comment is from an impostor and not Monckton, I have to disagree with you that the comment is "too over the top" to be Monckton. Monckton is quite prepared to use intimidation to silence his critics. Tom Chivers of the UK Telegraph did a blog posting reporting Abraham’s criticisms of Monckton. The posting was subsequently and mysteriously taken down, but not before Chivers posted this update:

"Update: Lord Monckton has phoned up and, in a rather charming fashion, expressed disappointment at the contents of this post. He was very polite about it and made me feel a bit small about the "popinjay" and "jester" comments, and he pointed out that that I hadn’t phoned him for comment. He says he is going to get in touch with me after he has prepared a response to Prof Abraham, and I have said that I am happy to revisit this topic when he does so. I have, however, refused at least for now to take the blog down, until I have spoken to my editor."

I can only assume the editor had the post removed, although a copy can be found here:

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/06/telegraph-steps-outside-its-alternate.html

A blog posting by James Delingpole that repeats a lot of Mockton’s name-calling and ad hominem attacks on Prof Abraham has been allowed to remain online at the Telegraph.

The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism

tobyjoyce at 06:26 AM on 18 March, 2010

Geo Guy,

It would be long and boring to cover everything in your screed, however I was struck by the "Moscow Institute of Economic Analysis" one. What has they to do with Global Warming? The trail led to this Daily Telegraph article:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/

Unfortunately, the particular journalist, James Delingpole, is notorious for being a rampant denier, and for being (to use a roundabout way of saying it) "economical with the truth". It turns out there is no disagreement between Russian data and Hadley data.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th.php

To the best of my knowledge, the claims that the CRU, NASA and NOAA had picked stations specifically to highlight warming has been shown to be totally without foundation.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/message-to-anthony-watts/

Please investigate your claim further and get back to us.

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