Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I went over to Andy Revkin’s site to be entertained by his latest fulminations against “denialists”. Revkin, as you may remember from the Climategate emails, was the main go-to media lapdog for the various unindicted Climategate co-conspirators. His latest post is a bizarre mishmash of allegations, bogus claims, and name-calling. Most appositely, given his history of blind obedience to his oh-so-scientific masters like Phil Jones and Michael Mann, he illustrated it with this graphic which presumably shows Revkin’s response when confronted with actual science:
I was most amused, however, to discover what this man who claims to be reporting on science has to say about the reason for the very existence of his blog:
By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, which moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section in 2010, Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracks relevant developments from suburbia to Siberia.
Really? Let’s look at the numbers put up by this charmingly innumerate fellow.
Here’s how the numbers play out. I agree with Revkin, most authorities say the population will top out at about nine billion around 2050. I happen to think they are right, not because they are authorities, but because that’s what my own analysis of the numbers has to say. Hey, color me skeptical, I don’t believe anyone’s numbers.
In any case, here are the FAO numbers for today’s population:
PRESENT GLOBAL POPULATION: 7.24 billion
PRESENT CHINESE POPULATION: 1.40 billion
PRESENT POPULATION PLUS REVKIN’S “TWO CHINAS”: 10.04 billion
So Revkin is only in error by one billion people … but heck, given his historic defense of scientific malfeasance, and his ludicrous claims about “denialists” and “denialism”, that bit of innumeracy pales by comparison.
Despite that, Revkin’s error is not insignificant. From the present population to 9 billion, where the population is likely to stabilize, is an increase of about 1.75 billion. IF Revkin’s claims about two Chinas were correct, the increase would be 2.8 billion. So his error is 2.8/1.75 -1, which means his numbers are 60% too high. A 60% overestimation of the size of the problem that he claims to be deeply concerned about? … bad journalist, no cookies.
Now, for most science reporters, a 60% error in estimating the remaining work to be done on the problem they’ve identified as the most important of all issues, the problem they say is the raison d’etre of their entire blog … well, that kind of a mistake would matter to them. They would hasten to correct an error of that magnitude. For Revkin, however, a 60% error is lost in the noise of the rest of his ludicrous ideas and his endless advocacy for shonky science …
My prediction? He’ll leave the bogus alarmist population claim up there on his blog, simply because a “denialist” pointed out his grade-school arithmetic error, and changing even a jot or a tittle in response to a “denialist” like myself would be an unacceptable admission of fallibility …
My advice?
Don’t get your scientific info from a man who can’t add to ten … particularly when he is nothing but a pathetic PR shill for bogus science and disingenuous scientists …
w.
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Richard Courtney
I read your linked post. Initial response – superficial. Wave the economic wand and presto.
Reality check!
If its so easy, why did Finland lose 1/3rd of its population – to a cold snap?
Why did North Korea lose 1 million to famine – when it lost its cheap diesel fuel and tractor parts?
Why did China lose 60 million to famine?
Why did US oil production peak in 1970 and then decline?
Why has each state/region of the US except one peaked in oil production?
What is required to replace that oil?
Why is Shell drilling in the Arctic?
Why is oil at $110/bbl instead of $10/bbl?
Study the graphs and data at Actuary Gail Tverberg’s Our Finite World.
Yes I believe there are solutions, and I am working on them. However poor planning could easily result in a billion people dying from famine on the way.
May I encourage you to grapple with the issues and practical engineering magnitude and task of what needs to be done.
What does it cost and how long does it take to install a coal to liquid fuel plant?
See Robert Hirsch, The Impending World Energy Mess.
Try reaching a credible understanding of the issues and how to grapple with them.
How do we supply 10%/year replacement fuel to get form here to there?
Typical cost is $110,000/bbl/year.
World consumption is 91 million bbl/day.
10%/year is 9 million bbl/day.
You “only” need ~ $1 trillion/year.
Saudi Arabia only produces 9.8 million bbl/year of oil.
How do you go about adding a Saudi Arabia of oil about every year?
(Besides having a wand and a black hat)
See Charles Hall, Energy and the Wealth of Nations.
I look forward to your serious response.
in Australia, we have science reporter, Robyn Williams, who fronts two radio shows for the taxpayer-funded ABC – The Science Show and Ockham’s Razor.
i heard a repeat of an ABC “The Naked Scientists” program recorded at the AAAS in Chicago, this morning, & a condensed transcript plus audio is on the Cambridge University “Naked Scientists” website:
ABC Naked Scientist: Chris Smith: Naked at the AAAS
Do scientists resort to propaganda to defend climate change? How do we deal with evolution unbelievers? How do governments and policy-makers decide what science should be funded? Where will the next generation of communicators come from? Why are western countries spending more on baldness than malaria? Live at the AAAS 2014 meeting in Chicago, panellists David Willetts, the UK Minister for Universities and Science, Robyn Williams, of the Science Show on the ABC, MIT Enterprise Forum president, Kathleen Kennedy, IgNobel Awards founder Marc Abrahams and University of Madison-Wisconsin scientist Molly Jahn join Chris Smith to answer questions live from the audience…
CONDENSED TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Chris Smith otherwise known as the Naked Scientist. We’re here at this conference with people from all over the world who are authorities in their own rights and we’ve been hearing about lots of discoveries and challenges that are going on…
Now, the AAAS meeting is all about science and innovation…
ROBYN WILLIAMS: Robyn – Well first of all, a point about entrepreneurship which I find rather fascinating. We mainly think about great entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, but a point made by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, who’s at the University of Sussex and she specialises in innovation is that if you take Steve Jobs’ wonderful invention kind of, the Smartphone, all seven technologies and scientific discoveries for that device came from state-funded campuses and he put them together. It wasn’t done in his firm. It was done at state-funded universities. So, we need to bear that in mind…
***Joel Veness, science journalist. Like most good ideas at this conference, this question came from some spirited drinks we had after the session yesterday. Climate deniers often use the tools of propaganda to further their campaign. Should science be embracing these similar tools?
Chris – What propaganda?
Joel – Yeah.
Marc – Propaganda and lies, that’s what you’re asking?
Joel – Maybe not lies because that goes against the whole principles of science I guess, but maybe propaganda?
Chris – Marc?
Marc – It’s difficult. Arguments between somebody who wants to discuss whatever the topic is and somebody who simply wants to stick their foot out and trip the other person, they’re not fair fights in either direction. Does anybody here have any guidance for anybody in dealing with that?
Kathleen – I’ve been doing a lot of work in Russia lately. I was actually in Moscow 4 weeks ago, I think. It’s interesting, this propaganda question that there’s in society like that. there is still this idea of – I’m in meetings and often they talk about science innovation policy that they’re trying to build that we should just do that in the innovation Marcets. They sort of talk about – if they talk about it enough, things will happen. It’s such a counter thinking to how science and technology is done here and in the UK I’m sure. That it’s a very much a bottom up type thing and I think propaganda is about being a top down methodology. And so, I think that there are certainly places in the world that are trying to do that and they think if they push it down enough that it will happen. My thinking is that I see the way science works here and I don’t know that – it seems to me, counter the way that science actually happens…
David – Yes, I think it will be dangerous to get into propaganda because the origins of propaganda is propagating the faith and science has to be a rational and sceptical inquiry. I think the problem with the climate change deniers is that they’ve taken one of the tools of science which is scepticism and taken it to such an extreme. It’s become a new form of kind of irrationality. I think where science has to get it right is, how sceptical you can be. If you’re being asked to believe that almost all major western scientists and researchers working in this discipline are engaged in a kind of organised conspiracy, at that point, calling it scepticism doesn’t capture then the sort of irrationality of it. So, I think getting the balance, getting the scepticism right is the best approach.
Marc – Rather than going for the tools of propaganda.
Robyn – It just so happens, I did my programme the Science Show, the first one in August 1975 and one would guess it was Lord Ritchie Calder and he happened to be talking about the energy crisis then back in 1975. And he said, “Amongst other things, we’ve been so concerned about the use of oil and coal, and fossil fuels that this is going to change the atmosphere and affect the climate drastically. We’ve been talking about this since 1961 and here we are in ’75 and no one has done anything yet.” Which was, when I heard it back, rather chilling. But I think what has been shown Naomi Oreskes who was at San Diego and is now at Harvard in her book “Merchants of Doubt”. As Marc said, what one side is using is rational argument and trying to get the information over and it’s complex. When there’s something that knocks their ideas, they write a 20-page article which is published in one of the journal which their mates read and on the other side, the people who are knocking climate science are using all the techniques of advertising, of propaganda and the sowing of doubt. Naomi Oreskes is sighting the tobacco companies who, for 40 years or more were trying to say that cigarettes may be okay. There is doubt about the science. So, it’s unequal and I think it’s time the scientists really got up, didn’t use propaganda, but use short, sharp sentences and fought equally.
***Chris – And stun guns might help as well.
Robyn – Yes…
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/naked-scientists/show/20140214-1/nocache/1/?cHash=7cc4c94970a73724aa3bd0a2037b8257&tx_nakscishow_pi1%5Btranscript%5D=1
***Joel Veness: find proof anywhere online that shows Veness is a science journalist. i have found nothing whatsoever.
however, Veness was previously with UNSW &. on his website heading, he is now Adjunct Professor at University of Alberta in Canada, tho his own website says he moved from Sydney to the UK. who knows or cares, but he’s into REINFORCEMENT LEARNING, which sounds very much like PROPAGANDA to me:
Joel Veness: GOOGLE SCHOLAR
University of Alberta
Artificial Intelligence – Reinforcement Learning – Data Compression
http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=_iYrAxEAAAAJ&hl=en
much, much more craziness in the transcript at The Naked Scientists/AAAS link.
Well my local talk radio station, has an evening talk host (weekdays), name of John Bachelor. A usually interesting guy, with often more interesting guests, from all over the world, and news gamut.
So just the other night (thur or fri) he has on Andrew Revkin, who, being from NYT is the world’s leading expert on climate. So Revkin spouts the usual CAGWMMCC as if he hadn’t seen any evidence for the last 17 years and five months.
So Bachelor laps it all up, and effectively appends his stamp of credibility to Revkin’s authoritative stature.
Sorry John; Revkin did nothing to raise his stature; but he surely did send yours right into the toilet bowl.
So there’s another talk radio Icon; whose reputation has bit the dust. It’s getting like the WWE and MMA, are about the only things one can trust any more. But I am also saving batteries in my portable radio.
I called Revkin a “lapdog” for the Climategate crooks. Revkin objected above to this. So I suppose I should remind him that it’s all in the public record …
Andrew Revkin to Michael Mann:
I guess this is what passes for hard-hitting science journalism in Pomerania … when someone writes a paper, you email a scientist that hates them with a passion, and ask his advice regarding what you should write about, and ask him whether you should mention the paper at all …
Then there’s this one, about Mann/Jones et al and their “key allies” …
So perhaps Revkin really isn’t a Pomeranian, since he’s a “key ally” like Dick Kerr at Science magazine … then there’s this:
So the activists are doing their part in spreading their lies, the science is settled, and he’s doing his part for the activists … but of course, if he gets off-line, they yank his leash … this from Ray Pierrehumbert to Andy:
Note the concern is not that what Andy writes might be true, or even that it might be false. The real concern, what Ray is telling Andy to get back to doing, is providing “public relations” for “us”, that is to say for the Climategate unindicted co-conspirators …
Then there’s the famous “pause” in temperatures. When that appeared, what did Revkin do? Well, he asked his masters what they wanted to have highlighted in his “independent” article:
Note that I haven’t touched on Revkin’s abysmal handling of the crimes of Peter Gleick, or a host of other related topics. Those are just a few of the low points, there are plenty more.
To me, all of that spells “Pomeranian”, but YMMV …
w.
Siberian_Husky says:
February 22, 2014 at 6:59 pm
I’ve spent the day where I’ve spent the last three days, in a hospital room with my father-in-law, who is 86, blind, and not at all well. I feed him, and hold the urinal for him, and clean him up afterwards, and tuck in his blankets … and in between, I write to fill the endless empty hours, and to take my mind off of his ongoing pain.
So thanks for your concern about what I do, but in fact, I have a life, and a very full life indeed. It’s not necessarily full of rainbows and unicorns, but it is a full and very rewarding life nonetheless.
I’ll let my father-in-law know that you think I should be doing something completely different. He’ll enjoy the irony … he’s lost a lot, but he still has a sense of humor.
w.
Calling people “denialists” and calling me a “hobbyist” is “civility” on your planet? Dang, you must live in a bizarre place. That’s not keeping a “civil tongue in his pen”.
That is an insult, and a deliberate insult. Not only that, it’s an insult that he has been asked time after time not to use, and still uses … charming.
Civility? Joe, that kind of passive-aggressive behavior might fool you, but not me. His entire headline consists of nothing but ad homs, and despite that, you’re so taken in that you actually say he “avoids ad homs”???
Wake up and smell the coffee.
w.
PS—Various skeptics have asked Revkin over and over, politely and nicely, to stop insulting us by calling us deniers … you see how successful your brilliant plan of being nice to the man has worked? Did you ever hear the phrase “nice guys finish last”? It’s because of guys like Revkin that we say that.
So you may be right that throwing napalm at him might not change his mind … but at least he might actually notice that there is an issue when his eyebrows are singed off …
Siberian_Husky says:
February 22, 2014 at 6:59 pm
Frivolous shots can ricochet.
“””””…..alan neil ditchfield says:
February 22, 2014 at 4:57 pm
INNUMERACY
a,n.ditchfield
Innumeracy is a new word, coined as a companion to illiteracy. To those afflicted by innumeracy, the dozens, thousands and millions are mere words. The Innumerate talk about billions and trillions with no concern for what they say and are prone to bad judgment when it comes to large quantities…..”””””
I found your innumeration of the world’s Deuterium resources to be very interesting, and also the existence of hydrogen bombs as evidence that fusion energy is doable, even if not yet demonstrated in controlled fusion.
I have often read statements to the effect that all the energy the world needs can be obtained from the deuterium in just the top 1/16th of an inch of the water in San Francisco Bay. Of course SF Bay is much smaller than it used to be, so I don’t know if that is still a good number.
Also, there is some doubt that the top 1/16th inch of SF Bay, is actually water.
But more importantly; do you know for a fact, that those H bombs you mentioned are actually deuterium ones ??
The …1D2 + 1D2 -> 2He3 + 0n1 + 3.27 MeV reaction is not yielding a whole lot of energy, and it is not particularly easy to start, in terms of reaction crossection at a given Temperature, plus the neutron radiation is a bit of a safety issue. Even smaller crossection is the alternative :
….1D2 + 1D2 -> 1T3 + 1H1 + 4.04 MeV , but eventually that tritium has to give up a neutron.
….1D2 + 1T3 -> 2He4 + 0n1 + 17.60 MeV has the largest crossection and yields the most energy, plus that pesky neutron, and is the easiest one to do. I have zero knowledge about which
reaction(s) have been used; but I doubt that it will be free / cheap, however they do it, or clean either. There are other reactions more interesting, but probably damn hard to do under control.
Then there is the problem, that gravity sucks, which is why the sun works. But electromagnetism pushes; and then what the hell is it going to push against to squish the fuel ?? Good luck on that; and check out Earnshaw’s theorem.
And my M$ restricted nomenclature should be obvious to anyone. Sorry about that.
How do you negotiate with a parasite?
The great global warming scam has been a real winner in the game of robbing the many to enrich the few.
Doom, damnation and salvation are always the key memes of mass manipulation.
Now lets look at who is doing this.
Our governments, especially the bureaucratic branches of our governments.
So either these bureaus are staffed with idiots or power hungry thieves, or they have a great mission.
Me I say fools and bandits, the government payroll has always attracted the most lazy, clueless and greedy.The great mission concept does not compute, what with the post office and motor vehicle branch, Obama care…
Government has grown like a cancer for the last 5 decades, critical mass must have been reached in the 1980s and the IPCC was formed.
Seems the parasites are foolish and greedy enough to assume that they shall rule over the productive peoples of this world.
The parasite now believes it shall dictate the behaviour of its host.
The Greeks who gave us Democracy, called this Kleptocracy.
My last attempt at quoting didn’t work out so well, so I’ll try to be very clear in my comments instead.
This post seems a little mean-spirited.
1. IIRC, Revkin was mentioned in the climategate emails as someone who couldn’t be trusted, not as a media lapdog.
2. Dot Earth has had the same blurb at the intro since 2007 – except for the clause “, which moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section in 2010,” World population in 2007 was 6.7 billion. Add 1.3 * 2 and he was talking about 9.3 billion – not so far off after all. (My sources for those numbers are indexmundi and geohive, the top google hits when i did quick searches on world and china annual population)
By the way, how confident are you in FAOSTAT’s data? I see 1.34 billion quoted on the top 6 google hits I get on China’s current population, with annual increases only in the tens of millions. CIA World Factbook says 1.349 as of last July. 1.40 seems high. Were you including Taiwan, and the CIA excludes it maybe?
I think what we’re seeing here in the climate wars is analogous to what’s happening today in the Ukraine, in Venezuela, and even in Syria. Low level warfare between two sides that despise each other can stay hidden beneath the thin veneer of “civility” for a while, but that is only a temporary situation. Either the situation is resolved, or sooner or later open warfare always breaks out, and that only ends when one side definitively wins, and one side definitively loses.
There is no more civility left in the Climate Wars; once one side abandons it, it is foolishness for the other side to cling to such a thing- you get no rewards for “style points”. But that means the warfare is out in the open now, and there is no turning back, not even for those who wishfully think that they could stay free from it.
The warmists have been trying to destroy the careers and reputations of the skeptics for quite some time now; suddenly they realize that we are gaining the ability to strike back at them in the same fashion. This is going to get a lot uglier before it gets better, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop that. Things have already gone too far, and for too long.
w.
PS—Various skeptics have asked Revkin over and over, politely and nicely, to stop insulting us by calling us deniers … you see how successful your brilliant plan of being nice to the man has worked?
It’s the stroke I tell ya; the man is not ‘firing’ on all eight cylinders (or six, or 5 -e,g, old Mercedes 3L diesels- or 4, or 3 -e.g. Smart Car engine et al-) … He may be 1 stick shy on memory, or the ‘access’ lines are all screwed up; maybe dynamic RAM refresh time is messed up now and he is slowly ‘losing bits’ …etc …
Revkin has been and continues to be a Toady for members of The Team. He spins the truth and lies and is deceitful. He is following his own particular agenda. These are facts Ladies and Gentlemen. Nobody can truthfully deny this. Sitting here on the sidelines I see Mongrel (read variations that are not genuine) Climate Scientists that Revkin admires so much spin their science output to suit their own agendas. They have been doing it for years. Calling Revkin out is entirely appropriate. ALL True Climate Scientists should climb down from their Ivy Towers and make a habit of doing this. The public would thank them.
Willis,
I think Mr. Revkin is typical of most “main stream” media types. They have been trained by a long line of “journos” that it is noble to defend the environment and the “little guy” from the evil big corporate polluters.
This simplistic narrative is part and parcel of the liberal ethos on which the vast majority of journalists, especially ones that have been employed by the Gray Lady, have been weened.
He doesn’t have the intellectual firepower to overcome this simplistic bias nor do I expect that he has the courage to turn upstream against the current, that has carried him along to his comfortable place in the “media”, even if he were to figure out that the scientific evidence is aligned against the narrative that he has reflexively supported.
“F” him.
Keep up the good fight.
Apparently Mr. Revkin reads this blog.
Is it possible he believes calling skeptics ‘deniers’ is really that different from calling African Americans “ni**er”? Both terms serve to end conversation, delegitimize those who disagree with you and end all discussion. Odd behavior from someone whose job is allegedly about communication.
The question is why shouldn’t skeptics pile on point out when he makes idiocratic mistakes, plays lap dog for AGW promoters, etc., if he is just another cowardly bigot pushing an agenda?
[snip – a bit over the top -mod]
Willis Eschenbach, you are super sharp mathematical analyst with an amazing life-experience build up of knowledge about the atmosphere and oceans. I learn a great deal from your posts on WUWT. Thank you and please continue with your contributions. I have great empathy with the current situation with your father-in-law. We old men who have been through these tough times have great appreciation for those who help out in difficult times. hang in there.
Roger A. Pielke Sr. you are very powerful hero of all of we climate skeptics. I think I understand your approach to the Andrew Revkin issue. An effort to maintain professional contact and improve the personal relationship so that he might give some consideration to your work in the future seems like a good approach.
I align myself with all of my fellow skeptics who have been highly offended by Revkin’s frequent attacks on us and his very abusive name calling while he gives unwavering support for the climate alarmists.t
As a Journalist and a Professional Meteorologist I feel it is important to never stoop to name calling and personal attacks on those who take the other side in scientific debate.
I am professionally convinced there is no significant man-made global warming, has been none in the past and is no reason to fear any in the future. I am convinced that carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas, not a pollutant, and not a significant greenhouse gas. I will debate Revkin and all of his alarmist friends as long as I am alive.
It is a very difficult situation and very frustrating that the issues have become political, almost religious in its fervor, a key environmentalists agenda driven debate and an issue that is funded by billions of tax dollars that entrap major organizations and institutions into accepting the alarmists positions.
Despite all of this I will not stoop to calling Gove, Mann, et al names and being personally abusive. Only fifth graders who have run out of reasonable arguments stoop to name calling.
Join me on the high road, please, one and all.
wws says:
February 22, 2014 at 8:46 pm
Out in the open now? Now?
Where have you been for the last decade, during which climate skeptics have been routinely vilified, pilloried, accused of being in the employ of big oil, fired from their jobs, claimed to be mean-spirited, described as “flat-earthers”, and a thousand other forms of opprobrium far, far worse than anything discussed here? Where was your feigned outrage then?
Go clutch your pearls elsewhere. I’m not buying it.
w.
br4ynzofsteel says:
February 22, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Y’see, folks? This is why I ask people to quote my words that they disagree with …
I said absolutely nothing of the sort. I did not put it forward as an excuse or justification of any kind. That is purely your sick twisted interpretation of my words.
In fact, from my perspective I do not deserve any commendation for taking such good care of my father-in-law. Instead, I see it as a minimum requirement that would only be worthy of comment if I didn’t do it. It is my obligation, one which I fulfill happily because I’d be a fool to fulfill it in any other manner.
I was given impolite advice (although nothing compared to yours) that I should get a life … so I described the life I have. Sorry you don’t like it, but it’s the only one I’ve got.
w.
b4llzofsteel says:
February 22, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Huh? Everyone who can read understands that Willis responded to this by Siberian Husky:
I’ve seen such attacks before but that guy’s name was bra1nofw00l.
You beat me to it, Willis.
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 22, 2014 at 8:25 pm
[…]Calling people “denialists” and calling me a “hobbyist” is “civility” on your planet? Dang, you must live in a bizarre place. That’s not keeping a “civil tongue in his pen”.
That is an insult, and a deliberate insult. Not only that, it’s an insult that he has been asked time after time not to use, and still uses … charming.[…]
[…]So you may be right that throwing napalm at him might not change his mind … but at least he might actually notice that there is an issue when his eyebrows are singed off …
———————————————————————————————————–
The problem is, Willis, it’s not actually about changing is mind. The only thing that’ll do that is his readers (given enough time). Like any journo, he’ll write what his readers want to hear because that’s his business.
But part of the illusion is that, as Nature increasingly makes the whole thing untenable, he’ll be one of the first to start (openly) changing his tune because that allows his readers to start expressing their own doubts. The fact is, most people want to be told what to think and will avoid admitting to a new thought until someone tells them it’s ok to.
Quite apart from p*ss*ing him off, reacting like this hands him ammunition to take to his readers about just how nasty and unreasonable we all are. They won’t see that there may be valid complaints at the root of it, just that AGW sceptics are thoroughly nasty people who make unwarranted attacks. They will also tar all sceptics with the same brush because most people are plain stupid (and inherently tribal) like that.
Meanwhile, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never really got all this “equating with holocaust deniers” bit. Sure, that may have been the intention of whoever started using it, but it’s only a word and it only has that connotation if we react to it and keep highlighting it. The warmists consistently deny that’s what they mean by it, so take them at their word and the word looses its power.
If they then try to escalate the insults they’ll have to be more direct next time and some of their own readers will find that just as unpalatable as some of us find this post.
b4llzofsteel says:
February 22, 2014 at 9:50 pm
So, caring for your father-in-law gives you the excuse to behave like a rabid dog, Eschenbach?
———————————————————————————————————————–
That’s not only below the belt, it’s taking a valid, if robust, discussion into the playgorund.
george e. smith says:
February 22, 2014 at 7:43 pm
While I didn’t hear the Bachelor broadcast you mentioned, I did catch a portion of his Wednesday evening broadcast…and he’s, apparently, not unsympathetic with the skeptic viewpoint.