Saturday, August 09, 2008

Nest of deniers exposed

Cameron Stewart, Associate Editor of The Australian describes the battle to confuse the public that is waged by the fossil-fuel industry (read ExxonMobil) and prosecuted though a network of think-tanks, their media hacks, and... bloggers.

Of course L. Ron Bolt is taking credit:

Blogs blamed

Andrew Bolt

You readers are starting to rock the Church of the Global Warming Apocalypse.

That Church of GWA link points to Marohasy, AGW denier-in-resident at the IPA , and blogger. Cameron Stewart mentions her in his article, Key degrees of difference.

It's a good piece. It opens dissecting the current sceptic argument that 'the earth hasn't cooled for 10 years'.

HAS global warming stopped? The question alone is enough to provoke scorn from the mainstream scientific community and from the Government, which says the earth has never been hotter. But tell that to a new army of sceptics who have mushroomed on internet blog sites and elsewhere in recent months to challenge some of the most basic assumptions and claims of climate change science.

Their claims are provocative and contentious but they are also attracting attention, so much so that mains

tream scientists are being forced to respond.

The bloggers and others make several key claims. They say the way of measuring the world's temperature

is frighteningly imprecise and open to manipulation. They argue that far from becoming hotter, the world's temperatures have cooled in the past decade, contrary to the overwhelming impression conveyed by scientists and politicians.

As such, they say there should be far greater scepticism towards the apocalyptic predictions about clima

te change. Even widely accepted claims, such as that made by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong that "the 12 hottest years in history have all been in the last 13 years", are being openly challenged.

"She is just plain wrong," says Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs. "It's not a question of debate. What about the medieval warming period? The historical record shows they were growing wine in England, for goodness sake; come on.

It is not disputed by anyone that the Vikings arrived in Greenland in AD900 and it was warmer than Greenland is now. What Penny Wong is doing is being selective and saying that is a long time ago."


Mmm, Jennifer, I wonder how many science bloggers are tapping away, as we speak, to pull that one apart? Will you retract if they wholesomely rebut you? We'll see.

Cameron Stewart makes this alarming point.

But selective use of facts and data is fast becoming an art form on both sides of the climate change debate now that real money is at stake as the West ponders concrete schemes to reduce carb on emissions. So what is the validity of some of the key claims being made by these new blogger sceptics?

Oh, what a dreadful prospect! A PR and counter PR blizzard as coal, oil, alt. energy, manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, government, opposition and the scientific community, etc, tries to win a share of the public mind. Click for the validity of key claims bit.

I believe the public has made up its mind in Australia. We want out politicians to act, act now, and act significantly to prevent run-away climate change.

Update: ABC Lateline story on AGW denial bloggers L. Ron Bolt and Marohasy getting exposure. The lovely (funny, witty, gorgeous) Annabel Crabb features from an Insiders section. She looks like Dian Fossey in Gorillas In The Mist attempting the placation of a chest-thumping attack by L. Ron Bolt, doing his intimidatory best to impersonate a charging silverback breaking out the jungle.





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