Cue Whining Stage Right

Inferno at Denial Depot opens a new front in Akermangategate

Take what John Houghton actually said in 1995:

"If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident."

This is quite boring. He's claiming humans won't act until it's too late. We could indeed paraphrase him as saying such. But that's not blog science. That's just telling people what John Houghton said, which would be alarmist. No we need to tidy up his words before we can discredit him and the science. Let me tidy up his words a bit so that it sounds like Houghton is advocating lying:

"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen"

There we go. Now it's blog post material

Of course, Booker and Akerman are hotter than the Inferno working down in the quote mine to justify their just making it up about Sir John Houghton.

And in Toronto, Steve got disinvited from World Dendro, probably because, as one of the tree borers who woke up, was heard to say

"What concerns me even more is the preliminary list of invited speakers. I believe that plenary and keynote talks should challenge and inspire the community. However, in at least one case it appears the organizers are giving the stage to someone who would just as soon destroy our work for their own petty agenda. I sincerely hope that the organizers will reconsider their choices before making the program final."

and horrors, the Globe and Mail got quotes from Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann

Clive Hamilton at the Australian Broadcasting Company has published part two of at least a three parter about how the denialists are cyber-bullying science. Part one featured the scatological best of our denialist friends. Not fit for a family blog. There are young bunnies here. Go over there. Part two details how the dog whisperers stir up the curs.

In Australia, a handful of denialist websites stand out. They include the blog of Herald-Sun commentator Andrew Bolt, Bolt's stable mate Tim Blair at the Daily Telegraph, the website operated by sceptic Joanne Nova (a pseudonym for Joanne Codling), and the community forum site operated by the Queensland farmers' organisation Agmates. Denialists also flock to the e-journal Online Opinion.

On these sites discussion of the "global warming conspiracy" seamlessly segues into a hodge-podge of right-wing populist grievances and causes, including defending rural property rights, the martyrdom of farming hunger-striker Peter Spencer, the errors of the Club of Rome, blood on the hands of Rachel Carson for causing DDT to be banned, the evils of Al Gore, the plan by the United Nations to dominate the world, and the need to defend freedom and democracy from these threats. Sceptics are explicitly or implicitly portrayed as freedom fighters battling attempts by scheming elites to shore up their power or impose a world government.

Recently, this stew of paranoia has been given a boost by the media exposure granted to Christopher Monckton in his recent Australian tour. Monckton propounded his extraordinary theory about climate change being a conspiracy by communists - assisted by the Hitler Youth and a craven scientific establishment - to seize power through a world government hidden in a climate treaty.

Part three threatens to be very amusing. As they say, it will follow the money.

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