Shameless liar Andrew Bolt cherrypicks his way to climate failure

Racial vilification expert and leading anti-science fake sceptic Andrew Bolt, known for frightening children over their Sunday morning Rice Bubbles with his laughably wooden, smirk-laden performance on low rating (and recently demoted) Bolt Report, is so bored with global warming that he writes obsessively about it, getting everything wrong in the process. His latest is called “Signs that warming scare is all hot air“, in which Bolt lists ten reasons he believes the global warming “scare” is over.

Personally, I am perfectly comfortable calling Bolt a shameless liar. Bolt has the facts at his disposal, but chooses to deliberately mislead his audience for ideological reasons as I will demonstrate.

Let’s run through them, shall we?

Introduction

Firstly, the lies start off even before Bolt starts listing his scares. That’s an impressive attitude towards lying.

….the British Climatic Research Unit’s prediction that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is”

A lie. The CRU said no such thing. A scientist did, but the CRU themselves made no such official prediction. To pretend otherwise is to deliberately mislead.

1. “1st sign: The world isn’t warming”

Bolt starts off by repeating the latest poorly thought out right-wing meme.

Yes, the planet warmed about 0.7 degrees last century, but then halted.

Professor Richard Lindzen, arguably the world’s most famous climate scientist, has argued for two years that “there has been no warming since 1997″. Others date the pause as late as 2000.

Sure, I could point out that “global warming” refers to an energy imbalance, not just surface temperature. I could point out that the oceans have continued to accumulate heat, that there has been a long-term loss of Arctic ice (Bolt has dropped this topic since embarrassingly claiming that 2008 was a rebound in the long term trend) or any of the 21,000 biological indicators that show continued warming. I could point out the abject dishonesty in pretending that short term temperature trends are statistically meaningless as they are warped by natural short term forcings like the 1998 El Nino.

Instead I’ll just show you this graph. A graph Bolt will never show you.

It has warmed since 1997. Funny that.

Why is Andrew Bolt lying to you? If you trust him on climate, look at this graph and ask yourself “why am I being lied to?”

Alarmists at The Australian herald new ice age, forget they promoted ice age five years ago

The anti-science trolls of The Australian have done it again – forget about this global warming malarkey because we’re heading into an ice age!

In Russia, one of the world’s leading solar physicists, Habibullo Abdussamatov, says the planet is well on the way to another deep freeze. Abdussamatov is the head of space research at the Russian Academy of Sciences Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St Petersburg, and director of the Russian segment of the International Space Station.

In an interview with Principia Scientific International, Abdussamatov said results of research from the ISS had indicated a decline in total solar irradiance, which was having a dramatic effect on the global climate.

‘Data indicated the onset of a mini ice age.

If the name “Habibullo Abdussamatov” sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the same nutter on whom the Climate Sceptics Party are basing their hysterical (yet unpolicied) claims of imminent ice ages.

“The Australian newspaper and Climate Sceptics Party – together at last!”

As Graham Readfearn has noted, the quotes used for this dubious claim are over five years old:

Here’s the real news. The quotes which Lloyd uses from Abdussamatov are actually more than five years old and come originally from this interview given to the National Post in Canada in January 2007.

Lloyd quotes Abdussamatov as “the head of space research at the Russian Academy of Sciences Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St Petersburg, and director of the Russian segment of the International Space Station”.

This wasn’t accurate either. Principia Scientific International has already issued a correction saying that in fact “Dr Abdussamatov is actually head of space research of the Sun Sector at the Polkovo Observatory and head of the Selenometria project on the Russian segment of the International Space Station.”

Not much needs to be said about “Principia Scientific International” except that they are too extreme for right-wing fringe extremist Christopher Monckton, who foolishly accepts such hocus-pocus as the “greenhouse effect” as real.

Not much needs to be said either about why environment “editor” Graham Lloyd would be reporting on the five year old opinion of a lone nutcase, except that he’s either pushing an extremist anti-science agenda at behest of his awful editors or trying to get fired.

What needs to be said is that The Australian had previously hyped a coming ice age back in 2008 using the incredible cherry pick of a single year, a fact which seemed to slip Mr Lloyd’s Google: 

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, said pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory showed there were currently no spots on the sun.

He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Dr Chapman writes in The Australian today.

Yes, Chapman, who is retired and doesn’t believe humans can effect the level of Co2 in the atmosphere, is actually comparing an extremely cold year in the 2000s to an extremely hot year in the 1930′s and pretending we are “back to where we were in 1930″. We weren’t, and 2010 would go on to be the hottest year on record. Why The Australian would be quoting a retired non-expert with a blog in 2008 boggles my mind. Apparently they’ve learned nothing from this cock up because here we are again.

Also worth reading: Watching The Deniers.

Monckton lies about peer review again

Deep in the comments of a tedious post about a pointless film named 50 To 1 based on absurd calculations by a man who was last seen applying mathematics to the question of whether Obama’s birth certificicate is fake comes this curious statement from one “Monckton of Brenchley”:

Those who suggest that the argument is unsound or originates elsewhere will be relieved to know that this is indeed not only an original result (which is in line with, but more detailed than, other results in the reviewed economic literature) but also a reviewed result. I have just corrected the page-proofs and the underlying paper will appear in the 45th Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists, to which I presented the calculations last August. 

Impressive! A World Federation Of Scientists! Sounds important!

Except a quick search for the “45th Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists” returns nothing but Monckton making the same boast elsewhere on the internet. Not to worry! Let’s just search for “Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists”. 

Still nothing.

A search for “World Federation Of Scientists” brings us to a website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1997, and there we find a link to a page listing “Contributions to the 45th Session of the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies”. Sure enough, Monckton lectured the assembled about his whimsical interpretation of economics of adaptation.

A further search returns to us the name of last year’s journal – “International Seminar on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies: 44th Session“. So Monckton got the name of the publication wrong. Maybe because he gets a lot of things wrong, but maybe because he didn’t want anyone to find it.

But is it peer-reviewed?

No! 

It is not peer reviewed!

Christopher Monckton is lying yet again. It’s merely a collection of speeches made in that forum which have been edited by someone. Editing is not peer review, and this isn’t the first time Monckton has pretended that basic editing is peer review either. 

Other things that aren’t peer review – anecdotal stories about “meeting [being] unable to find fault with the calculations” does not equal peer review!

Monckton is lying again and he’s dragging down a filmmaker who’s too blind or thick to realise he’s being lied to by a fraud who’s claimed to be a member of the House Of Lords (nope), a Nobel Prize winner (nope) and that he can cure HIV (no no no!).

Monckton concludes his comment with this statement:

Those who say no rational argument will ever move the true-believers should not despair. If we gently but firmly persist in arguing rationally, the fact will become evident and the truth of what we say will be recognized. Have courage!

Here is Monckton arguing rationally.

Son of Monckton and the litany of lies

The Idiot Tracker asks “Has Monckton Ever Won A Court Case?“

Really this story gets to the heart of why Monckton is such a memorable liar. It’s full of specific details — about the club, and the judge, and the director-general’s personal assistant. Yet nothing that can be easily checked, nothing that can be readily verified. It’s full of numbers — two dozen errors, 90 minutes to an hour, two barristers and three solicitors, etc. And it has a simple story of Monckton prevailing against odds. Really the only weakness of the story, as is typical of Monckton, is that he cannot control his own narcissism long enough to sell the story. Monckton is always the least believable part of a Monckton anecdote. He demands! He sues! He belongs to a fancy club! He takes on an army of lawyers and wins!

It could be titled more accurately as “Has Monckton ever told the truth”?

Spoiler alert: No, he has not.

Cowardly Mr. Christopher Monckton hates free speech, threatens to call police on people who challenge him

The following sign has been posted outside Mr. Christopher Monckton’s New Zealand science-fiction readings:

It turns out that Christopher Monckton, who got thrown out of the Doha Climate Conference for impersonating other country, isn’t so keen on interjections or questions where he doesn’t have the upper hand. Yes Christopher Monckton, who squealed “conspiracy” when thrown out of the conference, now believes that people who interrupt him should be referred to the police.

It’s a disgrace Monckton is so afraid of humilation that questioners are now denied the ability to ask follow up questions or interrogate him on his invented HIV cure, ficticious Nobel Peace Prize or whereabouts of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Presumably interjections are now banned due to the excellent work of the Flat Earth Society, a satirical (or are they?) group of New Zealanders who travel from performance to performance cheering Monckton’s most egregious anti-science statements.

Monckton has described the erstwhile group as “people in silly costumes” and he would know, because although Monckton has no experience in climate science, he does have plenty of experience in dressing like a dick.

Ugh, no.

Yippee-kay-ay

(Via CindyBax)

Monckton and the litany of lies

Gareth at Hot Topic has sensationally taken apart Mr. Christopher “not invited to Thatcher’s funeral” Monckton’s astoundingly dishonest Radio NZ interview.

Monckton now laughing stock of New Zealand

Rejected Guess Who character and scientific jester Mr. Christopher Monckton is still bumbling around New Zealand, delighting locals with his vaudevillian antics.

Fans of Christopher Monckton, who accuses others of fraud while displaying a logo that promotes his non-existent membership of the House Of Lords, were hoping for a greatest hits tour and Monckton has delivered, recently demanding that three professors be disciplined for disputing him and for insinuating that he has no training in climate science, when in fact, Monckton boasts, he has studied classical architecture (yes, Monckton makes this argument).

Prominent climate change sceptic Viscount Christopher Monckton has demanded Victoria University rein in three professors who dismissed his views as rubbish. The formal complaint was met with hilarity by the accused academics yesterday, none of whom appeared concerned about disciplinary action. In a letter to Victoria University vice-chancellor Pat Walsh, the British aristocrat claimed the professors had been dishonest and brought the university into disrepute. He claimed professors James Renwick and David Frame, both accomplished climate scientists, had insulted him in the media by calling his views harmful with no scientific basis. “In saying I have ‘no training’ he [Professor Renwick] has lied. I have a Cambridge degree in classical architecture.”

When asked to explain why they weren’t taking Monckton seriously, they answered:

 ”I understand he has threatened to contact the British authorities and have degrees from Victoria University deregistered. It is an empty threat. He threatens people all over the place.”

This much is true. Monckton has threatened to bring legal action upon not only Al Gore and the IPCC, but while in Australia threatened to have the entire climate scientist community imprisoned for not bowing down to his classical architecture degree. Monckton has also tried to bring disciplinary action upon Dr. Tony Press of the University Of Tasmania and Dr. John Abraham of the University Of St Thomas, both of whom remain free men.

These days only the sad, deluded Jo Nova takes Monckton’s threats seriously as his previous supporters, including Andrew Bolt and Anthony Watts, slowly back away from the crazy.

Frankly, it is astonishing that scientists and professors don’t take Monckton more seriously. Don’t they realise he is a Nobel Prize winning House Of Lords member who can cure HIV and proved Obama’s birth certificate is fake with mathematics?