A student in despair over Romm's 11°F temperature increase article – if this comment was reversed, it would be called a 'death threat'

UPDATE: 5/30 8:45AM After we pointed it out Romm has now snipped the ugly part of the comment seen in the screencap below, it only took him five days to notice it with our help. The original post in entirety is preserved here http://www.webcitation.org/682NzGF0b – Anthony

UPDATE2: 5/30 3PM Reuters has issued a correction, removing the 2050 reference and replacing it with (towards the end of this century) See http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/co2-iea-idUKL5E8GO6B520120530

UPDATE3: 5/30 4:3oPM In response to being called out, Romm issued one of his usual jihads, insinuating with the help of Eli Rabett aka Dr. Joshua Halpern that everybody else is stupid but him, and that we really will all roast. He trots out his favorite predictive Wheel-of-Climate! again.

It’s a laugh riot. But Romm didn’t start questioning the story until AFTER other people started to question it, and he passed it on with no caveats in the original post, archived here. He did make a note in comments saying “I meant to post that 2050 is obviously a mistake by the reporter.” but never actually did make any caveat in the main body of the post until he found himself embarrassed by it all. He also deleted (5 days later after we pointed it out ) the ugly commentary about death wishes for “coal/oil people” (see below).

The level of noise today is telling, much like the “voodoo science” claims of Pachauri. – Anthony

This is sad. Joe Romm promotes another overt fabrication, and some poor kid writes in despair, hoping all the “oil/coal people” here die “a horrible death, preferably caused by climate disasters”. If that were sent to somebody at ANU, it would by the Appell/Stokes rule, be declared a “death threat”. Since it’s on Romm’s site, the poster gets sympathy and counseling instead of admonishment. See below.

First, Romm’s reporting of an overt fabrication of 11°F temperature rise by 2050 by Fatih Birol.

The claim of 11°F  comes from this Reuters news article . It cites Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the IEA, who says:

“When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050), which would have devastating consequences for the planet,” Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist told Reuters.

Of course 6°C =11°F, and given the climate sensitivity figures bandied around by the IPCC, there doesn’t seem any way these numbers can pencil out.

Hans von Storch writes on Die Klimazwiebel that this is “pure alarmism”:

A forth interesting issue is that climate science has become irrelevant; it shows up in passing, when “limit devastating climate effects like crop failure and melting glaciers” is mentioned, and the quote “the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050)” is made.This is a pretty bold prediction, given that we have so far less than 1 degree warming since pre-industrial times, so that the warming must be more than 5 degrees/38 years, i.e., about 0.7-0.8 deg/decade. I consider this pure alarmism, which is related to the timing, and a misuse of scientific analysis for creating some unsustainable short term drama for the Bonn-negotiations.

I wonder if this 6-degrees claim is really from IEA, or just an addition by Fatih Birol, because is no not mentioned in the IEA’s announcement.

Even Joshua Halpern, aka “Eli Rabbet”, says in comments the claim by Birol makes no sense:

Not having a BS detector that works on himself, Romm runs with it, embellishing it with this bit of propaganda:

As Birol said of 11°F warming late last year, “Even School Children Know This Will Have Catastrophic Implications for All of Us.” If only school children ran the country.

And following his rant, we get this comment first up from a school age child:

And not one person in the thread following that comment, not Halpern, nor even Romm himself, says anything about the death wish, or even suggests to the poor kid that saying such things are unacceptable. There’s agreement in the silence. There’s no significant disagreement with the feelings of doom espoused either. It is really depressing for the lack of reality based discussion.

I have to wonder though, if this kid has ever driven or ridden in a car, or used electricity made from coal. Maybe he/she thinks such things are powered by the grace of the green energy fairy.

If the situation were reversed, Romm, Appell, Halpern, and the whole cast of haters would be all over it as yet another example of how terrible skeptics are.

Their double standard behavior is disturbing. Romm should be ashamed of himself, but he won’t be, because he’s paid a six figure salary to promote this garbage.