A special WtD response to the recent article by Andrew Bolt, “The death of global warmism: 10 signs of hope”.
Bolt believes he has marshaled ten “killer” arguments against the science. A full-page is given over to the article in which Bolt makes this and a number of other claims: climate models are unreliable; climate change is a scam; and even if it was warming, it’s a good thing.
Having read the article it became very apparent I could not begin to address all of his claims in a single post.
Each one of his claims will be sceptically examined:
- Andrew Bolt’s “The Death of Global Warmism”: a special WtD response to his most recent article
- Andrew Bolt’s “The Death of Global Warmism”: how Andrew poisons the well
- Andrew Bolt’s “The Death of Global Warmism”: false claims about the planet not warming and cherry picking his fact
- Andrew Bolt’s “The Death of Global Warmism”: Plimer’s book sold 40,000 copies, ergo climate change not true
Watching the Deniers 
[…] Andrew Bolt: WtD response […]
[…] Watching the Deniers has a series of posts on a Bolt article on the death of global […]
In 2011, the former Australian Department of Climate Change, in an article challenging Prof Ian Plimer’s book, “How to Get Expelled from School”, admitted on page 32 that, for the past 800,000 years, temperature rises preceded rises in atmospheric C02 ~ the opposite of what Al Gore asserted in his infamous doco. Hard to blame C02 without a shred of historical evidence. Later in the pdf (now redacted) they admitted that a quiet Sun is followed by a cooler Earth. Here comes the Little Ice Age.
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/142904/20130920-1151/climatechange.gov.au/node/1422.html
To be honest, I read Ian Plimer’s book as someone who was quite doubtful of this idea of climate change – and it persuaded me that climate change was real.
Not precisely what the author intended, I know, but his arguments swayed me. I did read it with an anti-Plimer reference beside me, but barely used that – Plimer’s arguments failed without any assistance, and when I turned to pretty much any source for further information about what he had written, it was clear that he was wrong; or telling half-truths; or flat-out lying; or when all else failed just ignoring arguments that didn’t fit his narrative and beliefs.
That’s not science, it’s polemic – and on top of what Plimer wrote I was able to do some other reading that convinced me.
Brian, I suggest trying to read the EVIDENCE with the possibility that – just perhaps – you MIGHT change your mind. Don’t just cherry pick the one or two sentences that you feel justify risking the future of humanity. If you feel really brave, you might even go a step further. Set up a debate with a friend (or enemy) who believes those 95% of scientists that agree with the broad theory of anthropogenic climate warming. Now for the tricky part: swap sides, so you are putting forward the argument for climate change and your friend argues against. Put some reasonably serious money on the contest, or some other incentive for each of you to put one’s best efforts into winning. Find a judge – preferably completely impartial (good luck with that), or at least someone who is capable of judging debates on the quality of argument rather than just the content.
Unless you are both fools, you will both learn something about one another and about the ‘arguments’ for and against climate change. (Note: if done in good faith, this is a great way to approach all sorts of controversial issues.)
You say you read it with “an anti-Plimer reference beside Me” and at the same time you exhort others not to be fools? So, which of Plimer’s books did you read? He has, after all written quite a few.The best, imho, is A Short History of Planet Earth, which was published by your ABC in 2001-it won the Reed New Holland Eureka Science Book Prize in 2002, Of course the taxpayer funded ABC, being totally unbiased in any way, has refused to publish it since, and will not give up the copyright, so good luck getting hold of a copy
excellent submit, very informative. I wonder why the opposite experts
of this sector do not understand this. You should
continue your writing. I’m sure, you have a great readers’ base already!