Truth brought to bear on Bolt's hypocricy

In another Andrew Bolt signature piece of twisted green-hate tenuously stuck together with gnarled logic, Hypocrisy - Hard to Bear, we get this beauty:

And ssshhh. Don’t mention that the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre says the extent of Arctic ice is in fact “greater than this time last year”.

Tim Lambert picks him up: Andrew Bolt goes quote mining

That quote was brutally ripped from its context on this page, which says:

Arctic sea ice still on track for extreme melt ...

Although ice extent is slightly greater than this time last year, the average decline rate through the month of May was 8,000 square kilometers per day (3,000 square miles per day) faster than last May. Ice extent as the month closed approached last May's value.

And this month it's been running neck and neck with last year's melt.

A hand-full of Bolt's commentators point out the fault in his argument.

Hmmm, is the author’s point that environmentalists and journalists have an environmental impact, and therefore scientists are wrong if they think increased greenhouse gas concentrations won’t enhance the greenhouse effect? Or that polar bears can kill people, so therefore we shouldn’t care if they go extinct? Or that some people writesilly things on the internet, therefore it’s okay to quote the US National Snow and Ice Data Center out of context?

Link to Lambert's piece

Steve L of Canada (Reply)
Fri 20 Jun 08 (09:23am)

Andrew Bolt says: ‘Don’t mention that the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre says the extent of Arctic ice is in fact “greater than this time last year”.’ It does and the same report, published on its website http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ , also says the ice is thinner and more likely to melt. The NSIDC also states: ‘Although ice extent is slightly greater than this time last year, the average decline rate through the month of May was 8,000 square kilometers per day (3,000 square miles per day) faster than last May.’ The report adds: ‘Average Arctic Ocean surface air temperatures in May were generally higher than normal. While anomalies were modest (+1 to 3 degrees Celsius, +2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) over most of the region, temperatures over the Baffin Bay region were as much as 6 degrees C (11 degrees F) above normal.’ Oh such irony, when you point your accusing pen at others for selective reporting. Hypocrisy? Pretentious? Moi?

Stuart Nuttall of Exeter, England (Reply)

And ssshhh. Don’t mention that the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre says the extent of Arctic ice is in fact “greater than this time last year”.

Tim Lambert provides some balance for this cherry picked from context.

strange days indeed (Reply)

Arctic sea ice is on a long-term downward trend. There is a bit more this year because of an exceptionally warm 2007 which caused a decline even greater than the norm. This year the coverage has reverted to the normal downward trend, which means a temporary increase over 2007.

Exactly the same argument applies to 1998, which was abnormally hot because of the El Nino fluctuation. It’s only by picking 1998 that Andrew is able to make this “it hasn’t warmed” claim. It has warmed since 1997 and since 1999.

Polar bear populations are increasing because hunting them has been forbidden. This has nothing to do with the extent of the ice. Just as it is a mistake to focus on one year (2008 ice or 1998 temperature) it is a mistake to focus on one species. Most studies say that large numbers of species are headed for extinction if global warming cannot be mitigated.

James (Reply)

Arctic sea ice melt ‘even faster’

Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter.

Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7461707.stm

ANDREW of Melbourne (Reply)

The only sign of a possible response from Bolt was this.

Can someone please tell me why my comment from earlier today did not make it onot Andrew’s Blog??? Or was it censored when he was proven to be a liar.

Trebby of Sydney (Reply)

Not bearing up well under your own hypocrisy, AB,?

Also looks like you may have suffered a spate of White Hat Trolling! Good to see your argument being opened like a tin can, calmly, rationally, and indisputably. The only honourable thing left for you to do is retract.

But, I am not bullish about that. In fact, I'm positively...

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change, denialists, skeptics

Over my head, under my bridge

GWW loves serious questions from our resident troll, and will answer them the best we can.

BTW, please provide links to the Climate change computer models THAT WERE DEVELOPED IN THE 70's, 80'S AND 90'S THAT PREDICTED THE CURRENT GLOBAL COLLING TREND.

...or even ANY Climage change computer model built today that can be applied to historical temperature changes. You know, as a computer programmer, I verify that my program is working correctly by plugging in historical data that I know the results for and verifying that my program produces these results.... This is a concept called "Expected Results Analysis".

Where is the Expected Results Analysis for all the Computer AGW Models? Can't seem to find them anywhere!

Just not now. Just give me some time, dude. I'll ping some hackers I know and see if we can get the Expected Results Analysis you're looking for.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Tackle a climate change troll

The most effective thing you can do to fight climate change is not to buy efficient-energy appliances, convert to green energy, or walk to the shops, etc. Though don't let me dissuade you. Nor is glaring at that poor 17 year old checkout chick for offering you non biodegradable plastic bags, angry as they make you.

Nah, the best thing you can do to expedite the revolution, and bring on the carbon economy is to go and take on a AGW denial propagandist, on their own turf.

It's these people that have been at the forefront of the well-documented, fossil-fuel industry campaign to create doubt in the publics mind about the link between co2 emissions. And they have been successful, the extent to which they have can be shown by the late ratification of Kyoto by Australia,and the non-ratification by the US. And more recently, by the 0.5% increase in carbon dioxide levels between 2006 to 2007 over the 30 year trend of 1.65 ppm.

So how do you take on a Denier, and to what end?
If you are a normal person with a good work-life balance, the following is not for you. But the secret suburban subversive, or debating champion, or reformed hacker, might like to break out at an AGW denial blog, like (in Australia) Jennifer Marohasy, Andrew Bolt Blog, or Tim Blair, and expose their fossil-fuel propaganda for what it is. How?

Seize their myths. Squeeze hard
Check out their latest global warming posts, and you will quickly identify which recycled myth the author is peddling. Read a few post to get a sense of their style, before deconstructing their myth. You can do this with the aid of the diagnostics from specialised AGW denial myth-busting bloggers, some who are listed below:

Flex that Deltoid
Coby Beck had great success with his original blog, A Few Things Ill Considered, which had a great series on How to Talk to a Sceptic on a myth by myth basis. He was then was invited to blog at Science Blogs. His new home: A Few Things Ill Considered.

John Cook, an ex-physicist (majoring in solar physics at the University of Queensland) has a neat list of every skeptic argument encountered online as well as how often each argument is used in his excellent Skeptical Science blog.

These two bloggers can help you easily identify the basic argument, and simply explain how to busted the myth. Desmog blog, by Kevin Grandia, a PR industry insider, breaks the denialist spin down, simply. Or as they say, the are Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science.

Once you have busted a few myths and have a repertoire you can confidently (but politely) bust, you may be ready to read the more scientific blogs.

Andrew Lambert Of the University of Technology, Sydney, runs Deltoid, where he occasionally eviscerates the denialist meme du jour for a bit of fun. Eli Rabbit has more fun doing this more often with his Rabett Run. Real Climate is a blog providing commentary on climate science news by working climate scientists for the interested public. They recently debunked a favourite of the deniers: that the majority of scientist in the 70s predicted a coming ice age. Tamino is the alias of a working, formidable climate scientist who runs Open Mind.

Yea, but Why?
Because they did it first. And, they are still doing it. This denial is funded by big fossil-fuel, manufactured by thinktanks like the Heartland Institute, CEI, (see Exxon-Secrets.org) and the myths are disseminated by their shills, usually opinion journalists or professional deniers like our own Professor Robert (Bob) Carter.

If you can't stop them at the source, and the Royal Society couldn't stop them, you can bust the myth at its endpoint. Expose it where you see it, politely but firmly. Stop the misinformation in its track. Let me know if you do, and I'll post your efforts up. I'm want an army of well-informed bloggers prepared to spend 5 minutes every other day identifying genuine AGW denialist propaganda, and 10 minutes politely debunking any inaccuracies. The object is to neutralise the impressions created by the fossil-fuel indsutry's 20 year campaign that may help delay tackling the problem with all haste.

Hook-up for White Hat Trolling
Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide, Professor Barry W Brook, has pinged these climate change 'sceptics, denialists, contrarians, delayers or delusionists' as Internet trolls. It's not original, The Ergosphere argues that the collective noun is an irritation of trolls. These climate trolls slink into science sites with a public interface, and loudly pretend there still is a scientific debate about what causes global warming, intending to mislead.

White Hat Trolling is the reverse: It is fronting up at junk-science blogs and news groups, in this case those campaigning to confuse the public about climate change, to rebut and debunk their unsound arguments, in this way exposing their campaigns.

Expose the Deniers' Tactics
Remember: The purpose is to expose the tactics of the deniers by attacking their logic not their persons. A White Hat Troll never gets personal. The desired impression to leave, is that the 'debate', that deniers say still rages, is really an astroturfing campaign funded by the fossil-fuel industry to give the impression the scientific jury is still out on the causes on global warming.

Where to next? Well, put you hand up and leave a comment or a question before you take on a denier, and I'll keep posting more on the subject, and hopefully some of your efforts.