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Temperatures are off the charts this year. NASA graphic.
Handful of below-average temps spurs frantic activity on denier website
By Bob Berwyn
SUMMIT COUNTY — Global warming deniers have always been good at cherry picking data to try and prove that that Earth isn’t warming inexorably, and to the likely detriment of most species on the planet.
This week, the denier website Watts Up With That took the schtick to a whole new level with a post highlighting a handful of low temperature records in recent days. The post carefully avoided making the claim that those readings somehow disprove global warming — that would, of course, demolish any last shred of credibility that might still linger with the increasingly outlandish denier arguments.
Instead, the post took issue with media coverage of climate issues, charging that the mainstream media would ignore the localized low temperature records after having played up the long string of record highs spanning several months and covering much of the country.
This rather oblique cheap shot in some ways is more alarming than a direct attack on climate science, since it’s a modified version of the “shoot the messenger” tactic aimed at creating doubt about the way media reports on weather, climate and temperature records.
In a way, it’s almost insulting to the many people who lost their homes, crops and livestock in this summer’s withering weather.
Along similar lines, the same website, along with other deniers, has recently been repeating over and over again the charges that federal scientists are manipulating data to make it look warmer than it really is. There’s absolutely no proof for that; all they’re doing is smearing the reputation of some fine scientists.
Their real goal is to cast doubt be repeating a false argument, parroting the disinformation spread by a tiny minority of anti-science fanatics trying to portray themselves as “reasonable” skeptics. So, for the record, there’s absolutely no validity to the arguments made on the website about how the media reports temperature records.
Filed under: climate and weather, Environment, global warming Tagged: | climate change, Climate disruption, Climatology, global warming, media
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Innovative energy underwrites coverage of energy stories.
and the deniers are held in such high esteem? most deniers don’t want money spent on projects and policy when that science has an agenda. not enough science without politics to be trusted.
” … There’s absolutely no proof for that; all they’re doing is smearing the reputation of some fine scientists. …”
This particular sentence being more appropriately applied to the accusation that skeptic climate scientists are on the payroll of ‘big coal & oil’. As I pointed out in an earlier Summit County comment section ( http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/05/22/op-ed-clock-is-running-out-on-heartland-institute/#comment-50009 ), this is a literally unsupported accusation and astute readers will note that none of the commenters there were able dredge up actual proof of money given by fossil fuel industries in exchange for demonstratively false fabricated climate assessments, which is the central core of the accusation. You’d think that over a long enough span of time and with enough discussion on the topic by the likes of Naomi Oreskes, George Monbiot, and Al Gore, such proof would be readily available for folks like Bob Berwyn and his loyal commenters to cite.