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Monckton Debunked By Monckton – What, MORE Errors, My Lord?

Potholer54 has released another excellent video researching the claims made by Monckton and why they are wrong. Although this time with an added twist. As Potholer54 is getting tired of correcting these mistakes, and correcting them all would take at least another 3 videos, he issued a challenge to Monckton fans: Find something he [Monckton] actually managed to get right. It…

Monckton Debunked By Monckton – Quotes And Misquotes

The fourth video debunking Christopher Monckton has been released by Potholer54, and it’s a doozy. Monckton actually has a diploma in journalism and in the current video it’s shown that he actually misrepresents, or outright fabricates, quotes. With the mistakes he makes on the science you could argue it’s because he’s not a scientist, but with his training he should…

Monckton Debunked By Monckton – Correlations And Himalayan Glaciers

Potholer54 posted his third video on Lord Monckton this time dealing with the assertion that CO2 has no influence on global temperature. And some of his Glaciation/Glaciers claims. With the previous two releases on climate sensitivity and his shenanigans with citations I wish there were no more people out there that trusted his opinion. This is sadly not yet true.…

Monckton Debunked By Monckton – Climate Sensitivity

Potholer54 posted his second video on Lord Monckton and reasons why people tend to believe him. Although Monckton is a good debater, it’s again shown that Monckton gets the science horrendously wrong. And not only gets it wrong, he keeps repeating the same flaw. For example he misrepresented a paper written by Pinker. For which he was corrected in a…

Monckton Debunked By Monckton

A reasonably large portion of the global warming sceptics regard Lord Monckton quite highly. And his arguments are often used as definite proof that CO2 caused global warming is one big hoax. Because of this he’s often given a soap box at the blog Watts Up With That to make his case. Even Alex Jones is quite fond of him, and…

Science Deniers Again Try To Discredit John Cook And Skeptical Science

conspiracy_theoryScience deniers never cease to amaze me with the tactics they use to discredit research and people. So they cannot win the debate on the science as it’s not on their side. This causes al kinds of interesting mental processes and conspiratorial thinking to deal with this disconnect from reality. Research by Smith and Leiserowitz shows that conspiratorial thinking is the number one response from climate science deniers towards global warming.

This is also why you see the assumption among science deniers that people have at best “questionable motives” or at worst “nefarious intent.” Which largely explains the defamation you see on science denier blogs and websites. It doesn’t take much for science deniers to jump from assuming nefarious intent to assigning nefarious intent and screeching “fraud” and “fakery” (see ‘climategate‘ for the perfect example).

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Watts Up With Nitrogen Science Denial

Anthony WattsThose that are familiar with the website Watts Up With That know that some very strange content has shown up on it. A lot of it focusses on trying to discredit valid research on climate change and global warming, but in general it is also very dismissive about environmental concerns. Basically anything that can be used to cast doubt will get published, no matter how wrong or far-fetched it is.

This time Watts went after nitrogen pollution, something that is a real concern and can have serious consequences. Fertilizers contain nitrogen as it is a nutrient plants need to grow properly. But this isn’t the same nitrogen as we breathe, plants can’t absorb nitrogen gas. That’s why the nitrogen in fertilizers often is part of a compound, most commonly as NH3 or NO3. This what distinguishes nitrogen in fertilizers from the nitrogen in the air (which has the chemical formula of N2).

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Climate Science Is Based On Evidence, But Science Denial Is Based On Faith

Webcomic xkcd - Wikipedian protester

Wikipedian Protester” by XKCD

Anyone who wants to debate a science denier often needs a thick skin, especially concerning topics like global warming. They often hurl words like leftist, socialist, communist, fascist, sheeple, useful idiot, and worse at you. Though why a political ideology is used as an insult still is something that I don’t understand. At most you’ll get a slightly annoyed roll of the eyes from me when you label me as something that I’m not.

But the one that truly puzzles me is when I’m accused of having a religious like faith in science. Science isn’t a religion, certainly not when you accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW). To me it’s climate science denial that looks more like a faith position.

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Roy Spencer, In Denial About What Science Denial Means

Dr. Roy SpencerClimate science deniers tend to be quite touchy when you call them a climate science denier, or denier for short. In my case this has even led to someone threatening to sue me for libel because I used the term climate science denier in a private email. Which wasn’t even aimed at them, I just used the term to describe the type of arguments that were being used.

The term also is quite simple in its origin, it means that you deny something. I use the term to state that climate science deniers dismiss or even flat-out deny the evidence climate scientists have found. You have similar versions of the term denier for those that reject the science behind vaccinations, AIDS, Evolution, etc.

I expect climate science deniers to not respond well when you use the term, that’s why I only use it when it’s truly earned. What I didn’t expect was that the usage of this term would lead to Dr. Roy Spencer writing the blog post ‘Time to push back against the global warming Nazis‘ (archived here):

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The Genuine Sceptic View

I get the occasional email asking me to help out with something. This time it was an email from Mike Haseler who is the chairman of the Scottish Climate and Energy Forum. The name of this organisation sounded interesting to me considering the subjects I tackle. I got even more interested when it was mentioned that this was to gather some information about the public debate about climate change.

But I always do a background check on the party that’s asking me to help out with something, no matter how small the request is or the amount of effort required on my side. Who you affiliate yourself with does matter if you want to be taken seriously. When I did a cursory check of the contents on their website any good feelings I might have had about this organisation evaporated.

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