Sometimes you just have to laugh. This is one of those times. I’ve been put in my place by an “urban coyote poet” for daring to publish on this blog.
Elmer (of M4GW, not M4CC), Chris Monckton, and I , apparently are threats to democracy, and mentally imbalanced too, because apparently a radio station personality, Sue Jeffers, is using WUWT as references on air in Minneapolis. Observe:
She browbeat him with a torrent of misinformation: There is no global warming; polar bears are not in trouble; consult the work of “Lord” Monckton; on and on.
I wondered where she got this nonsense, so I checked her website. There she promotes links to the Republican Party, the Tea Party, and a site called “Minnesotans for Climate Change,” which is linked regularly to Wattsupwiththat.com. Mystery solved — mad Anthony Watts is a major source for the misinformation she dumps on her listeners.
Oh, the humanity! I’m apparently mad as a hatter. I’ll give the advice I give radio listeners that sometimes write in to my own radio station to demand that some program be taken off or censored: you have control of your own radio receiver, if the program doesn’t suit you, change the station. You are not being forced to listen.
The rant continues:
Then there is “Lord” Christopher Monckton, neither a lord nor a scientist, whose job in England appears to be deputy head of a right-wing nationalist party. In the United States, he serves as “policy advisor” to an infamous climate-denial website, apparently qualified for the position by his degrees in classics and journalism.
It is notable when poets consider themselves qualified to pronounce “climate truth”, and to pronounce others as being “mad” for having a differing opinion but people with backgrounds in mathematics (Monckton) and meteorology (myself) are not. Oh, the ironing.
You can read the entire Lenfestey opinion piece at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
The state of fear at the new year
I thank Mr. Lenfestey for bringing hundreds of new visitors to WUWT, perhaps they’ll take time to read and consider rather than simply taking an emotional stance as Mr. Lenfestey has done.
Readers may want to get background on Mr. Lenfestey at his website – I particularly liked this photo in relation to his book of poetry anthology LOW DOWN AND COMING ON; A FEAST OF DELICIOUS AND DANGEROUS POEMS ABOUT PIGS (Red Dragonfly Press, 2010)
UPDATE: Chris Monckton sends this letter:
To The Editor, Star Tribune.
2 January 2012
Sir,
Climate: get the facts right
Mr. Lenfestey (January 1), in an article about the climate that remarkably presented not a single fact about the climate, says I gave a “misleading” presentation at Bethel University in 2009. That presentation was truthful, while the driveling attempted rebuttal of it by a non-climatologist at a local bible college, gleefully referenced by Mr. Lenfesty, was full of elementary errors of science, of fact, and even of arithmetic. Would it not have been fairer also to give the URL of my detailed and, indeed, devastating reply to this mendacious nitwit? See scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/response_to_john_abraham.html?Itemid=0.
Here are a few facts about the climate. This millennium there has been no statistically-significant global warming (UAH and RSS satellite data, 2001-2011). Sea level has been rising for the past eight years at a rate equivalent to 2 inches per century (Envisat, 2004-2011). Pacific atolls are gaining land mass, as is Bangladesh, where sea level has been falling (Mörner, 2011). Global sea-ice extent has hardly changed in 30 years (University of Illinois cryosphere data, 1980-2011). Hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones are at near-record lows of activity (Accumulated Cyclone-Energy Index, 2011).
It is at least ten times cheaper simply to adapt to any warming that may occur than to tax, trade, regulate, reduce or replace CO2 (President Vaclav Klaus, lecture at Cambridge University, May 2011). Besides, China, which already emits more CO2 than the entire West, will continue to build one or two large coal-fired power stations a week (annual official PRC statistical communiques, 2008-2010).
Authorities are investigating the tiny, malevolent clique of politically-motivated scientists behind the now-collapsing climate scare for downright scientific fraud against taxpayers: ag.virginia.gov/Media%20and%20News%20Releases/News_Releases/Cuccinelli/100410_UVA_Mann_Docs.html).
A growing body of learned papers concludes that the warming we cause will be about one-third of what the IPCC predicts, so it will be harmless and even beneficial (Lindzen & Choi, 2009, 2011; Spencer & Braswell, 2010, 2011; Douglass et al., 2008; Shaviv, 2008, 2011; etc., etc.).
Finally, Mr. Lenfestey puzzlingly says I am not a Lord. But I am (Who’s Who, 2007-2011).
Yours faithfully,
MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY (by Letters Patent granted to my late grandfather in 1957).
The Smothers Brothers did a skit about that song. To quote Tommy Smothers, “Sounds like some kind of nut!”
Comedy gold!
I’m apparently mad as a hatter.
Well apparently there are a few of us are…. I had a baker tell me that I was “anti-science” when I told him that CO2 was less than 0.04% of the atmosphere…. I asked him how many millions of $$ he had pulled down in NRC grants for science research so we could compare records — unfortunately he declined to be forthcoming. I even offered to give him all my records and tell him who he could contact to expose me!
Of course I was going to write him up in a report exposing him as the major source of CO2 in Minden… All that yeast you see… I was gonna picket his bakery too!
However the raisin buns were great! So, it was not a lost day by any means…
On another note — Happy New year — and I can give you a good reference for a shrink — it worked for me. I now believe in CO2 🙂
Well, they make sure not to let you leave any comments there, hah!
So, let’s imagine the watermelons get their way and everyone is reduced to grubbing around in their own hand-2-mouth existence; emitting no more evil CO2 with their own personal pig for company. Hurrah for Gaia, The World is saved!
What do we think the demand for Poets would be in such a world… and I don’t imagine that pig of his would last long neither.
His bio says he has four children. Doesn’t Leftinsky know that humans destroy the Earth and that more children mean more destruction? What an evil man he is. 🙂
His vitae says that he spent a career in academia. In the arts, i’m sure, and not the sciences.
Quite an emotional little pig lover he is.
This is the first letter to the editor I have ever sent. “Mad” Anthony Watts indeed ! A draft version was also placed in the comments. The odds of this being published are thin as Lenfestey was a former editorial writer for the Strib and it is not about sports.
While it is clear that Sue Jeffers has a limited and biased understanding of climate science it is also clear that James Lenfestey also has a limited and biased understanding of climate science. Anthony Watts climate science website WUWT (Watts Up With That) has had nearly 100 million views, more than the next three climate websites combined. Nearly every new climate science paper is announced and linked at this site to be analyzed and critiqued by the many contributors. In addition all the climate science websites are linked there from both sides of the argument.
Many readers may agree with Fourier’s understanding of the atmospheric effect from water vapor and CO2 but there is still much research needed on forcing and feedback in our large complicated solar, atmospheric, and ocean coupled energy balance. Many of the earlier dire climate catastrophes predicted are not being proven from observation. This is the portion of the science that clearly is not “settled”. The tools to make the correct determination are too new or not deployed yet. One clear “fact” is, if the data does not match the model attack the data or the messenger of that data as evidenced by the exchange at Bethel University in 2009. Until some new found or otherwise presently not well accepted form of base load generation for electricity is adopted, fossil fuel will be used for the worlds growing energy needs. In the meantime careful study of all the data in a clear headed non alarmist fashion is the prudent path to follow.
A funny man, to refer to the George W. Bush administration as a “scientific body.”
However, I think oyu may be too hard on him, Anthony. He didn’t threaten your life or health, or (insofar as you have mentioned) vandalise your home, car or place of business. As greens go, he counts as a nice guy.
“You can read the entire Lenfestey opinion piece at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:”
I choose NO thanks!
This little rant by Lenfestey is just the Faculty Lounge come to the op-ed. Notice that Lenfestey’s ego is impervious to all feedback from the world; otherwise, he would remove all the contents of his website.
You can whisper to all of the trees some of the time. You can whisper to some of the trees all of the time. But you can’t whisper to all of the trees all of the time.
==========
There once was a poet named Jim
Whose knowledge on climate was thin
He tried to take shots
At our Anthony Watts
But we ended up just laughing at him!
Poetry sarc/off
Eternal optimist says:
EternalOptimist says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:11 am
I notice that pig in the photo only has three legs.
I guess when one has a pig that appreciates poetry and has a keen interest in mother Gaia, one wouldn’t want to eat it all at once
I generally agree, although I don’t like either pork or poetry, and especially what is depicted in the photo. However, as if to match the three legs showing, there are also three teats. Doesn’t this make it a sow instead of just a pig?
I hope you realise that by providing a link to Lenfestey’s site, you’ve probably quadrupled his “visits” tally.
Only a few mill. more and he could be challenging you for the Weblog award!
Huh. I was under the impression that livestock, pigs especially, produce a huge amount of methane which is a greenhouse…. You know what? Never mind. If the insane level of Al Gore’s hypocrisy on the carbon footprint front isn’t enough to wake people up, this guy’s pig isn’t going to register.
@rwct: The TREE Whisperer. Anyone know what they whisper to him,
Yes: You’ve been a knotty boy
Kay B. Day says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:12 am
We really should require a license for anyone practicing poetry nowadays.
———————
Agreed.
The most terrifying words in the English language?
“A viewer/listener has sent in this poem…”
Dive for the mute button as if your life depended upon it.
An old 60’s hippy allright. He must still be eating peyote and smoking cannabis!
Why does he have his ear to the tree’s “ear” He’s kind of confused, methinks.
Charles Gerard Nelson says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:55 am
I wonder if the IPCC has asked him to ‘peer review’ anything yet?
Looking at the picture I would certainly see him qualify for beer review
Not at all strange when one defines democracy the same as they do in the Democratic People’s Republic of (AKA North) Korea.
Was just in Minneapolis a few days ago between Christmas and New Years, you can always find a goodly amount of liberal talk radio there but this time it seemed to be particularly aggressive (ran across Stephanie Miller on AM 760 I think) and they are in full attack mode on the conservatives. Listened three days while walking the dog and the general story line, not suprisingly, was “conservatives lie about everything”. 1130 AM is the big conservative radio station in Minneapolis so it makes sense that they attack that one. And I just noticed we have liberal talk radio here in the mornings in Milwaukee too.
I’d chalk this up to election year politics. They are really trying to nullify the advantage conservatives have on the radio imo.
Mardler says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:46 am
There is much, much, more work to be done and the Canadians are showing us the way.
Yes there is quite a bit of work to be done:
http://environment.yale.edu/climate/publications/ClimateBeliefsNovember2011
The most disturbing aspect of this particular survey is that:
Only 14 percent of Americans have ever heard of “the United Nations’ panel of climate experts, the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”
Don’t forget however that our greatest ally is Nature herself. But it may take 10 or more years to prove that CO2 is not a driver.
I’ve heard of horse whisperers. They calm the skittish critters after, eg., a sea voyage. I wonder if this fellow calms skittish trees? Perhaps we could ask our own dear(sic) heir to the throne of UK.
GP Hanner says:
January 3, 2012 at 11:05 am
His vitae says that he spent a career in academia.
Sweeping it!