Media Watch downs the Bolt whole

Sorry about the headline, but after the seminal Bulled by a Gore article by global warming skeptic dinosaur, Andrew Bolt, I became obsessed with his headline style.

So my blogs refuting each of the ten points carried the following headlines.

Gulled by a Bore? One Bolt burger coming up

Gulled by the Bore? Bolt-burger #2 coming up

Bolt burger #3 is a FUD dud

Bolt burger #4a is meat substituted

Gristle detected in Bolt burger #4b

Bolt burger #5 - snow burger

Bolt burger # 6 is undercooked and raw

I got to six and let the rest slide. These skeptics operate like scientific guerillas, and the battleground is the mind of the public. They try to keep the public from understanding that a scientific consensus exists, with roughshod but effective techniques like wheeling out known scientific contrarians, like S. Fed Singer, or Richard Lindzen, top opine that there is no concensus. This is a smoke and mirror trick for the readers of the likes of Andrew Bolt. A scientist publishing a sceptical argument in the opinion pages of a newspaper does not debunk the scientific consensus arrived out of the darwinian struggle for scientific validity that happens when research is published in a peer-reviewable forum, like scientific journals.

But the public is not to know that, and people like Bolt predate upon the greater public's understandable ignorance of scientific method. It works for the oil and coal companies that fund the thinktanks that hacks like Bolt like to get their sources from. The outcome is that the public is confused about climate change, so inaction seems reasonable.

If you are a rabbit in a spotlight.

That's why it was good to see Bolt's global warming stance so publicly disembowled on the institution he hates for it's apparent lack of bias, on the ABC, and worse, Media Watch.

I expect global warming skeptics like Andrew Bolt are quickly on their way to becoming coal and oil in a million years time. He's a dinosaur. If, in the future we are still silly enough to dig him up, hopefully by then we will have mastered the sequester of his harmful carbon dioxide byproduct.

I vote leave him in the ground and concentrate on solar, and using conservation strategies so base-line power generation is not so much of a problem.

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A stitch in time in time saves 20: UK Govt. advises 1% GDP global warming budget

A British Government report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist, to be published on Monday, warns that countries will need to spend 1 per cent of their GDP over the next 15 to fight global warming to prevent having to spend twenty times that: :::[SMH]

The 700-page report proposes a global carbon trading scheme, increased regulation of carbon-emitting products and green taxes as part of national and international strategies to fight global warming.

Sir Nicholas, a former World Bank chief economist, seeks to overturn conventional thinking by arguing that fighting climate change will save, not cost, money.

Whitehall sources told The Independent that the report was hard-headed. "It didn't deal in sandals and brown rice. It stuck to the economics."

Insurance analysts said in evidence to Sir Nicholas that they feared insurance claims caused by storms, droughts and other natural disasters could exceed the world's GDP.

Sir Nicholas believes a window of 10 to 15 years exists to save the global economy from severe damage - but after that it will be too late, Mr Swan said.

Stay tuned for the report.

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Bolt struck by Media Watch

What do you do when a powerful opinion journalist with his own blog, like Andrew Bolt opines about something you really know about, but he won't let his commenters post links to the facts that, by any honest reading, renders the big journo's opinion wrong?

Well, if you have your own blog you can post your rebuttal complete with link. The little guy doesn't have to stay censored on the Net:

I can't believe the first 12 fawning commenter rallying around you Andrew. They're loyal but, like you, they don't read your research - even when it's your first link.

You say in you latest blog post linked above, "Let me summarise. Objection one: Benny Peiser, whom I cited, has allegedly confessed to some vague error in his survey disproving claims that scientists were unanimous that man was behind global warming. "

Andrew, you're spinning it when you characterise Peiser's 'confession' as vague. The following from Media Watch seems pretty stark and clear, and I note you didn't counter it: "Dr Peiser has advised Media Watch he did not study the same sample of articles as Professor Oreskes, in other words, he did not ?check again?."

Rather you complained, "You have given me just 10 minutes to respond to a claim about Peiser of which I knew nothing."

Well, I remember letting you know that I had posted a rebuttal to your claims about Peiser. I wish you had read it because it shows that the research - and truth is out there and easy to access if you ask the question - and you could have published that retraction.
Link {Note to reader: Only after removing the link can I submit my post for Andrew's moderation when commenting. He has purposefully censored himself from contradicting facts}

You write, "Unable to check for myself what you claim Peiser now says to you, given I am already late for my duties at the school fete, I must simply pass on to you the result of his own review of the scientific literature. See the abstracts he uncovered here."

I followed that link, and to my surprise I found your research source was exactly the same source I used for my rebuttal. Amazing hey? Amazing how you could have missed Meyrick's point that:

"Meyrick Says:
May 9th, 2005 at 3:56 am

So to summarize, Dr Peiser has made 4 errors in his research:

1. Dr Peiser failed to replicate Dr Oreskes search properly. Dr Oreskes used (as far as I can tell) the following criteria:"
{snip: both links above carry Meyrick's complete summary}

So I hope you can now agree that Peiser's research is rubbish. And as it was the pivotal premise for your next nine points, ie, that the scientific consensus does not exist, that they are same.

The scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming rides on - unchallenged by peers. Just the FUD Squad you run with. For what? If it's to pay your kids bills, then ask yourself how they are going to pay their kids bills? It's not for good science, nor good journalism.

If it's for ideology then you shouldn't accuse others of the same. It would only be fair minded and unbiased if you published a retraction. Lead by example and show the ABC how you expect them to behave.

Whether you do or not, you should really should come to grips with the notion of "peer-review".

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