The Failing List of Evidence for Global Warming Denial

A denialist website put out - with much fanfare - a list of 450 peer reviewed articles that supported their position. I guess the idea is that - how can you argue with that much evidence? Except that, like all denier flack, it consists of more spin than substance. Watch the number tumble down as people start to sceptically examine the list... A quick look at the work being done on the list shows;

- 82 papers on the list are from a non-peer revised journal, Energy & Environment.
- 7 are known to be wrong; based on flawed science.
- A known sceptic author, Roger Pielke Jr suggests that 21 papers should not be on the list (however the list author disagreed and kept them.)

Also if you look at who wrote the papers, a huge 157 of them come from 15 authors which reads like of who's who of oil industry paid denialists. Here's a sample;

S. Fred Singer 6 (Exxon mobil's money buy his opinion)
Patrick J. Michaels 26 - connected to no less than 11 think tanks and associations that have received money from oil-giant ExxonMobil
Ross McKitrick 14 - Economist linked to ExxonMobil funded groups.
Richard S. Lindzen 15 - Member of oil funded thinktank.
Willie H. Soon 13 - Linked to a whole host of oil backed front groups.
Roy W. Spencer 6 - Writer for ExxonMobil funded dirge.

Plus a whole host of other issues the whittle the list down (and eviscerate it's credibility) from a paper that criticises research methods used 20 years ago (a bit outdated now...) to papers that are complimentary to human-cased climate change. The list is bumkum. Typical denialism, big on spin, small on substance. But here is my favourite bit of the whole debark - one researcher spotted a paper that he was the lead author of on the list. He's a bit surprised as it says nothing against human-cased climate change. Here's what he says;

I just noticed I’m the lead author on one of the papers on the list. I have absolutely no idea how that paper could be construed as “skeptical of man-made global warming.” I have no idea how it could be construed as saying anything at all about man-made global warming.

And the response of the arrogant wingnut who complied the rapidly shrinking list?

That is nice that the lead author of that paper has no idea why he is on the list, maybe he should read it before commenting in the future so he does not make ridiculous comments like that.

Yup, that's right - he's telling the author of a scientific paper that he knows less about what it means than politicised interpretation of an armchair amateur climatologist.

Staggering.