Potholer on the Newest Climate Denialist’s Crock

December 15, 2010

Potholer54 is over on the other side of the pond doing basically what I’m trying to do on YouTube, offer sane, balanced, well documented, reasonable, and hopefully entertaining antidotes to the horrific tide of denialist ignorance and garbage on the internet.

I’m glad Potholer had the time to take this one on- it’s a recent variant of the “CO2 is Plant Food Crock”.

Knocking down denialist myths is like shooting fish in a barrel, but there are so many barrels, and so little time. Potholer’s description and sources after the jump.

SOURCES:

Original myth published in:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/…

“‘Greener’ Climate Prediction Shows Plants Slow Warming”
NASA press release
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/feat…

Original paper:
“Quantifying the negative feedback of vegetation to greenhouse warming: A modeling approach”
L. Bounoua et al, Geophysical Research Letters, Dec 2010

Bio of Lewis Page:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lew…

Mauna Loa CO2 growth data:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/tre…

Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth
from economic activity, carbon intensity, and
efficiency of natural sinks
— J. Canadell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2007

“Probabilistic Forecast for 21st Century Climate Based on Uncertainties in Emissions (without Policy) and Climate Parameters”
— A.P. Sokolov et al, MIT 2009

Myth from the Register repeated:
http://www.openyoureyesnews.com/2010/…

…and again…
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/219…

…and again…
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9045/Ne…

…and again…
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/…

…and again…
NASA Peer-Reviewed Study Finds Low Sensitivity To CO2 Doubling: The UN’s IPCC Global Warming Science Is Imploding
http://www.c3headlines.com/are-leftis…

…and again…
New NASA model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64°C warming
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/…

…and again…
NASA Peer-Reviewed Study Finds Low Sensitivity To CO2 Doubling: The UN’s IPCC Global Warming Science Is Imploding
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/12/na…

…and again…
Greenhouse Gasses Aren’t Going To Be A Problem For Centuries Say Scientists From NASA
http://rightwingnews.com/2010/12/gree…

“Recent decline in the global land evapotranspiration trend due to limited moisture supply”
— M. Jung et al, Nature, October 2010

2 Responses to “Potholer on the Newest Climate Denialist’s Crock”

g2-b31f1590b0e74a6d1af4639162aa7f3f Says:

December 16, 2010 at 3:09 pm
A bit OT, but prominent climate-denier Tim Ball is now donning a full-on “Velikovsky” tinfoil hat. No kidding! See http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/31141 for another mother-lode of mock-worthy material.

Excerpt:

Velikovsky’s major ideas built on the claim that Earth has experienced natural global disasters throughout its history. The major cause of natural catastrophes was brushes with other objects in the solar system and beyond. It’s probably thanks to Velikovsky that Walter and Luis Alvarez were able to propose the claim that a collision with an asteroid 65 million years ago led to the extinction of dinosaurs. The father/son connection serendipitously allowed cross-discipline discussion between physics and geology. The intellectual isolation of specialization has undermined the ability to understand.
Science Is The Ability To Predict

In the end Velikovsky succeeded because he passed the ultimate test of science; the ability to predict. More important, they were in contradiction to prevailing views. He made many and apparently none are incorrect to date. The interesting one was the temperature of Venus, which was almost double what the textbooks said. The same textbooks that incorrectly use Venus as an example of runaway CO2 induced Greenhouse Effect.

Failure of the University President to approve a conference on Velikovsky was symptomatic of the dogmatic, closed minds that pervade modern science. The few scientists involved with the AGW debacle deliberately exploited and practiced that condition. Their actions indicate they saw this as a battle, but it was against the truth and as Aeschylus said, “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

Reply
greenman3610 Says:

December 16, 2010 at 3:26 pm
oh, my.

Reply

Climate Denial Crock of the Week