Over at Counting Cats, they have acquired themselves a warmist troll. What’s interesting is trying to follow the argument. Go on, do, it is illuminating. Sam Duncan’s original posts was pretty straightforward; warmists have been crying “wolf” for decades and in this case, Al Gore’s prediction of global catastrophe has failed to materialise. Every so often these people will come out with “we have ten years to save the Earth” bullshit. The ten years pass and what? Well, they just did and what? Which, of course, was the point. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now watch as a troll comes in and try to make the whole thing more than it is. Paul Marks’ comment was his starting point. It is usual for warmists to claim that extreme weather events are not climate – which thy are not – until it suits their argument. I, as any reasonable person would when reading his comment, picked up the underlying nuance that these people are hypocrites.
What then followed became increasingly bizarre as all of us were accused of being conspiracy theorists and taking positions we had self-evidently not, assumptions were made from thin air. This from someone who hadn’t bothered to read and comprehend what the original post was all about. Believe me, I have enough experience to understand what makes a conspiracy theory and no one in the conversation meets the bill. No one mentioned conspiracies, because, frankly, there were none and it wasn’t relevant.
What was really, really peculiar and it’s the first time I’ve seen it, was the editing of quotes and then quoting them back as if the person being quoted had said it. This takes the strawman argument to whole new levels of idiocy. And, frankly, weird. Of course people will notice.
Add to this the usual narcissism – although in this case it was overt with self-congratulatory preening – and passive aggressive trolling, this is a believer indeed, who clearly believes that scientific consensus is scientific. As RAB pointed out during the discussion – and it’s one I use as well – Einstein showed just how good a consensus is when he blew a hole in the Newtonian theories that were, at one point, a consensus.
The science is not settled. Climatology is in its infancy and has a great deal of maturing to do. All it takes is one person with inconvenient facts to destroy a consensus, so a consensus is worth nothing.
As for climate change; well, when it stops changing I will worry.
And the troll? Well, he was amusing for a brief period, but has grown tiresome now. Apparently, my pointing out an observable truth makes me a liar. Go figure…
The consensus on climate change is presumably referring to the 97% of scientists claim. This figure was claimed by a very poorly executed study, the figure was not remotely supported by the data.
It should be noted that Einstein was an amateur physicist with little formal training.
Warmist trolls who actually know a thing or two seem to have faded into the background. We are left with those who don’t or won’t understand what a disaster their cause has been.
This one seems to just make stuff up and keep repeating it ad nauseum. It is obvious to anyone looking that it is tosh, but he just keeps hammering away anyway. The man is a tosser.
I kinda knew this post was going to appear. You describe the scenario well. 😉
There’s something fascinating about these people. There is the unwarranted self-regard and narcissim, the inability to follow a logical argument and the twisting of people’s words – in this case to an extreme. It’s a bit like watching a train wreck. Difficult to look away.
97% of scientists? It is well known that 87.9% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Well I went over there and I couldn’t resist:
“Cedric you said this:
” Instead of getting your science from whoever, you should just go the scientific communities. That would be the smart thing to do. Getting your science second-hand is very silly.”
So are you suggesting that real scientists have made predictions that have turned out to be correct or that the whole climate change scare was confected by the media and various unqualified talking heads? If the former you can easily convince everyone by citing a few examples, if the latter then that it appears that you agree with the fringe views of the conspiracy nuts.”
I don’t see it there…
I can see it but there is a note saying that it is awaiting moderation.
Oh, yes, of course. They use first comment moderation as I do.
Thanks for the support, Longrider. Although, frankly, I don’t think you can make this guy look any more ridiculous than he already has. As I said in the thread, there is a pro-warmist argument to be made there, if he was smart enough to make it. Crying “Wolf!” never does you any good, and these over-statements of the alleged problem have only harmed the CAGW case, not helped it. I’d genuinely be more inclined to listen if they admitted that. Bjorn Lomborg isn’t a “denier”, for example, but he rejects these warnings of doom. Ditto Lord Lawson, who points out that the likes of Gore grossly exaggerate the findings of the IPCC itself. (Hmm, maybe I should have mentioned the IPCC when ol’ Cedric brought up scientific communities…) Theirs is a reasonable position to take.
Anyway, I’ll get on your comment as soon as possible, Stony. It may take a while though. You know how slow and flaky CCIZ can be; logging in is even worse. 🙂
What’s interesting is that I made no claims regarding climate change – I merely drew attention to his behaviour, nothing more. Clearly he is somewhat precious when that happens.
“The science is not settled”
It is in Australia – 350 jobs are to go at the CSIRO, apparently because Climate Change is “Beyond Debate”
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/02/csiro-wipes-out-climate-division-350-scientists-to-go-since-its-beyond-debate-who-needs-em/
Oh diddums, now they’ll have to find a proper job…
You’d need a heart of stone…
My comment has been visible for nearly twelve hours now and Cedric hasn’t answered my question.
I noticed. Maybe it’s got too old now.
Well, you got a reply. Naturally, he did to you what he did to everyone else and instead of responding to what you said, made something up and responded to that. So, another strawman, then. Twat.
Well Cedric hasn’t come back on any of our other threads, thank god. He is something I haven’t come across before. Arrogance and extreme opinionation is standard in trolls, but someone who quotes you, then alters the quote, is a first for me. Did he insanely believe we wouldn’t notice?
Perhaps though CCIZ has an inbuilt advantage here. The site is so flaky and slow that it is an utter exasperation to us Kitty Counters, but for impatient trolls,well it must be interminable, so they bugger off elsewhere. 🙂
That was peculiar – and to flatly deny it despite the evidence being right there in black and white. This one was also particularly narcissistic.