Sunday, October 07, 2007

Local climate denialist Russ Steele edits, censors, deletes comments?

Does he? The evidence points that way.

One comment I submitted Sept 30, in which I asked commenter "Anthony" (who appears to be "Surface Stations" Anthony Watts) for a disclosure statement, initially survived moderation but later was deleted. Russ said this deletion occurred inadvertently as he was editing my comment to remove Anthony's last name (which raises another question*...which also didn't survive moderation), but curiously, my resubmitted comment - in which I'd helpfully removed Anthony's last name - did not appear either.

Others appear to have been deep-sixed as well, including this response to Russ's post "Yes, the sun really is creating global warming" extolling a paper by Svensmark and Friis-Christensen. My comment (which quotes from Russ's post):

> [Russ Steele said:] "Physicist Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, Danish National Space Center, defending their position in a peer reviewed study. There most recent study: Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich (PDF)"...

The climatologists' blog today covers this paper, concluding that "...all the evidence goes against the notion that GCR[galactic cosmic rays] are the cause of the present global warming"

[...]

> "A paper by Ken Gregory, Friends of Science Society, Calgary, Alberta, Canada..."

Sourcewatch on the (oil industry backed) Friends of Science Society. Ought to be renamed - with friends like that...

> "Another look at the Lockwood/Frochlich paper by SPPI Staff here, who conclude:..."

Sourcewatch on the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) ("the content of the website draws heavily on papers written by Christopher Monckton. However, the SPPI website also lists a number of other prominent climate change skeptics...." [including D'Aleo])

Very entertaining and revealing recent email correspondence between Monckton and George Monbiot, Did Lord Monckton fabricate a claim on his Wikipedia page?

Credibility matters, except to the gullible.


Russ, please, wake up. Your children's house is burning.

And here's my saw-the-light-of-day-but-submerged-again comment responding to "Anthony" (presumably Anthony Watts) in these comments:
re weatherman Anthony Watts's
> "your lack of understanding of the scientific method is clear now"

Anthony, please review Science vs. Faith, and consider which investigative algorithm you employ.

Anthony, I'd really like to know - what's your position now on the recent (last 40 years) global warming - do you still think that it's caused by the sun, and if so, by what mechanism or correlation - solar rays? sunspot cycles? something else?
(and do you have peer-reviewed evidence for this belief, or is it faith-based?)

And Anthony, have you ever received compensation, whether monetary or nonmonetary, whether directly or indirectly, in exchange for engaging in PR(Public Relations) activities?


More to come, when I have time.

And, dear reader, if you have time, I spent considerable time over at Russ's denialist blog in September, investigating each claim he made and, typically, only needing a minute of Googling to find it was bogus. Please feel free to drop by there and browse through that month of posts and comments. Somewhat naively, I had thought that I might be able to get through to him...but I can't.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yours was a month well-spent. Day after day you shot down "insight" with science and reason. My favorite was when, invoking Hillary, he refused to deal in hypotheticals. Just beautiful.

Russ said...

All the comments and an explanation will appear in due time. I am on vacation and will address the Anna's comments when I can take time from my family responsibilities. I do not get to see my youngest daughter often and I am not taking time answer blog questions right now. Also, I am working on a policy statement for the blog as requested by Anna. We will no longer post attacks on the character of scientist who disagree with the AGW position. We will only post opposing scientific positions, not personal attacks or claims that the science is not credible if it was funded by an institution the AGW team does not like. Science is science. If it is bad science show the proof, do no waste time on personal attacks as they will not be posted....

Anna Haynes said...

Anon, thanks for your support. To do it for a month was a slog, but when I think of what it would have been like to try to do it in the days before Google...No wonder we were all so dumb back then.

(And THANK YOU climate science bloggers, whose posts Google so handily brought up!)

Re Russ's
> "We[Russ, who else besides yourself?] will [not approve comments asserting that potato print skeptic claims aren't credible if coming from an oil industry front group]...Science is science."

And advertising is advertising. Why do so many people on the right seem to have difficulty grasping that science is more credible than advertising, and that to rely on the latter makes you ill-informed?

> (Tangential thought -
Are there any free online tutorials, with quizzes etc, on media literacy? What an excellent investment that would be...charitable foundations, are you listening?)

(And Russ, I promise you, if you look at the month of debunkery, you will find science in there, though you'll have to read the comments and follow their links to do so.)