Thursday, January 28, 2016

Reheating the Michaels rehash

An easy blog post when Pat Michaels keeps reposting the same old thing, every time a new global temperature is associated with El Niño, or simply when the year after a new record happens to be slightly colder than the previous year. It's a recipe for cooking him, dating back to my early blog years of 2006:

How to cook Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt, and Patrick Michaels

1. Place Blair, Bolt, and Michaels in a large, water-filled pot equipped with a step ladder they can use to escape at any time. Set initial water temperature at average levels.

BLAIR/BOLT/MICHAELS: We're quite comfortable, thank you!!

2. Increase temperature to an unambigous, new historic high.

BLAIR/BOLT/MICHAELS: No big deal! Not going to last!

MICHAELS: Want to bet it won't be this warm again?

3. Drop temperature back down, but still far above average.

BLAIR/BOLT/MICHAELS: See!! Vindication!! There is no potboiler warming! Not a problem!

4. Gradually increase temperature to near or above the historic high.

BLAIR/BOLT/MICHAELS: We deny it's above the historic high! Deny it!

MICHAELS: And, uh, the bet offer is withdrawn.

5. Keep temperature very high, but a tiny bit below Step 4.

BLAIR/BOLT/MICHAELS: The science behind potboiler warming is bogus, and we'll stay here for as long as it takes to prove it!

BLAIR: I'm not feeling hot - crank it up, people!

BOLT: Me neither!

6. Repeat Steps 2 through 5 until done. Don't worry, they won't use the step ladder to get out. Process will be sped by the fact that their brains were already cooked.

Please, please, please, may some denialist point out to me that we haven't yet repeated Step 2 - just be prepared to put your money where your mouth is about what will happen in the near future.

(Hat tip: Deltoid.)

UPDATE [from 2006]: From RealClimate:

Most bizarre new contrarian claim:
"Global warming stopped in 1998".
By the same logic, it also stopped in 1973, 1983, and 1990 (only it didn't)
So we have repeated steps 2 through 5, multiple times.


UPDATE 2016:  you'd think the Wall Street Journal would want to publish something original, but maybe they're hard up for content.

12 comments:

Bernard J. said...

As I've just said at HotWhopper, after having said the same thing ad nauseum for years, we could continue at the current rate and variability of warming to the point that we boil all the water from the surface of the Earth and with the Denialati's innumerate logic, at any point in the process it would never have "warmed for the last [12 to 20] years"...

Fernando Leanme said...

I know it will sound selfish, but I'm enjoying this Disney World climate we are having. We have wonderful sunrises with swirling clouds, the temperature is perfect, it only rains a slight drizzle in the middle of the night, the grass is green, and birds seem to be enjoying the new type of insects we are seeing.

Anonymous said...

Fernando,
Great. Be sure to write all this down so your grandchildren can appreciate your bliss as they are sweating and eating insects and kudzu salad.

Bernard J. said...

"I know it will sound selfish...

Oh, rest assured, it doesn't just sound selfish.

It's also myopic, ignorant, logically fallacious, geographically/intergenerationally/interspecifically elitist, cognitively scotomatic, and a whole bunch of other adjectives.

Seriously FL, with that farcial attitude to the manner in which we're screwing the planet's climate, I have to consider whether I'd piss on you even if you were on fire.

Sometimes I wonder if you're a poe. Or perhaps an unfortunate victim of elevated blood lead levels...

John McCormick said...

Fernando, you set yourself up as a human pinata. Do you ever read what you post. I think not. You are more than selfish. Yo are stupid.

Anonymous said...

No FLea has said this sort of sociopathic nonsense all over the place not least Grauniad CiF, demonstrating an over inflated ego, self worth and general Dunning-Kruger effect. This includes claims to help bring down the USSR, a greater capability on scientific subjects than Michael Mann etc etc.

Funnily enough, as a refugee himself, Flea, will also be against the climate refugees caused by the continued denial of climate science.

Back on topic, the article is already being put into practice by the ignorant deniers, who care claiming that (variously)
(a) El Nino is the cause of warmth
(b) Other things are more important
(c) we need to reduce population (yeah how ? - suicide pact, you go first)
(d) warming is good for everything,. always EVAH.

Al the best.

Hank Roberts said...

> enjoying the new type of insects we are seeing.

Ah, yes, the anopheles.

First the anthropocene,
then the microcephalocene.

Nature self-corrects.

EliRabett said...

Which raises the question, is FL Florida Man? https://twitter.com/_FloridaMan

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

Congratulation to Brian on acquiring the late Mike Crichton's giant missionary boiling pot

It has lain idle for far too long for lack of victims more politically incorrect than itself.

Using it energy-efficient ambient heating should only take 500,000 hours to pasturize Michaels, and a million to bring his blood to the boil.

Brian can pass the time lobbying for a new SI unit, designed to simplify prime-time and op-ed climate calculations, equal to the time required to raise 100 generations of frogs, ten generations of GCM's , or three generations of lobbyists, whichever comes first.

Hank Roberts said...

http://fortune.com/2016/01/27/jonas-climate-snow-job/

"... the CATO Institute’s Patrick Michaels makes a number of scientifically inaccurate statements, whether about humans contributing to climate change, El Nino’s role in 2015’s record heat, the sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gases, or the connection between extreme weather and climate change...."

E. Swanson said...

Big News over at Watts Up With That. Looks like they culled the Oregon Petition for signers who are still among the living with Robinson and Singer on board. I noticed that Spencer signed, but Christy's name didn't appear. Maybe Christy realizes that some serious truth seeking might need to be applied to his work as well...

Jeffrey Davis said...

After an increase in 120 ppm of CO2, we've experienced almost 1C of warming. As local agriculture crumbles, where will we put the refugees? Will they be welcomed with open arms, Fernando? The next 75 years of balmy winters will produce a wonderful increase in rationality and charity, yes?