CENSORED and BANNED! Well It Had To Happen

It appears that any comments I make to Real Science do not now appear - I suspect I have been banned for talking sense but maybe there is a technical issue let me just check....

Nope, my comments are no longer appearing and some have disappeared.

It seems to have occurred while commenting on this post which I covered in my own post here. In his comments I compared Steve Goddard's cherry picking of record high temps to claim that summers were actually cooling to measuring the time of a journey by only the fasted speed.

One of his acolytes, miked1947, was not happy with my analogy. He then went on to say some really strange things like,

“If we have more days below 90 degrees now than we did then, it is getting cooler” 

Suggesting if we had 1 day above 90 and 99 at 60 then that would be warmer than 100 days at 89 and,

“If I wanted to know whether it was warmer or cooler I would want the average temperature for all the Summers. Because they only provide MAX, MIN and MEAN,”

Clearly he had not quite grasped the definition of MEAN!

After a little polite back and forth miked1947 basically, if unintentionally agreed with me about Goddard's graph by claiming that MAX and MIX were not suitable measures to determine anything significant about temperature trends - while I might not completely agree with what he said he had painted himself into a position where like me he must surely disagree with Goddard's use of maximum temperatures to make his cooling claim.

So I replied asking him why he was explaining this to me and not to Steve Goddard. My comment appeared, the the next day it was gone. I posted the comment again in case there was a technical issue the first time but nothing appeared at all. A test post on another thread of Real Science had the same result - the comment I typed did not appear - I had been banned!

 NOTE: The actual publishing of this post has been delayed for a while because when I double checked to see if my posts would appear some then did including the response to miked1947 mentioned above - which has not been replied to. But currently nothing is appearing. I can't actually ask Goddard if it is now his policy to restrict my comments, as I currently can't comment. If I get some sort of response I will update this post and apologise if it is simply a technical with the Wordpress site.

However it does seem a rather innocuous comment to get quietly banned without ceremony from a site considering I have had Steve Goddard in full name calling mode at me only to have him realise I was right and he was wrong, and issue a retraction.

So perhaps getting one of his minions logic turned around where he had to agree with me was just a final straw, or perhaps it was what I said about his 'birther' beliefs in another thread as I noticed my comment has also vanished from there as well. Actually Steve Goddard has been very sly about this because he has not deleted any of my comments that were replied too, only ones that had no reply giving the impression that I either had no interest in the subject or that I could not think of anything reply.

I wonder what Goddard has said in his own blog on the subject of censorship and banning debate? Well that may make another post.

Steve Goddard Caught Lying?

To my recollection I have never directly called anyone a liar on any of the forums or blogs I have posted on as such terms prove too emotive which tends to get in the way of mature discourse. But have I caught Steve Goddard of Real Science in a bare faced lie?

In my last post I showed how Goddard's foolish attempts to slag of Prof. James Hansen backfired as it would seem Hansen made the correct call some 26years ago. I visited Goddard's post to reveal this with a link to my analysis, and no doubt embarrassed he responded with;

"I have never visited your blog"

Which is a rather strange thing to say since as a response to a post where I caught him doctoring maps he responded with a post on his own blog called 'Enough Is Enough' where he claimed that I had 'written thousands and thousands of lines all over the Internet' and he emailed me directly calling me 'scum' and a 'liar' as reported here.

• How did he reach his conclusions without ever reading what they were? 
• How did he get my contact information without visiting the blog he claims to have never visited?

I suppose someone could have told him what my post contained and gave him the contact information, which would mean that he resorted to name calling based on hearsay. Far worse than lying in my book and someone who would do that would certainly be capable of lying too.

Or perhaps he just forgot he did. That would surprise me in the light of the embarrassing climb down he had to do when someone else realised his maps were botched and he crossed out what he said about me and issued a correction for his post. You'd think he be likely to remember doing that.

So have I caught Steve Goddard telling porkies? The evidence strongly suggests I have.

Real Science Proves Hansen Correct Again.

In a Real Science post, as usual aimed more at right wing politics than real science, Steve Goddard quotes James Hansen from 1986;

"Within 15 years, said Goddard Space Flight Centre honcho James Hansen, "global temperatures will rise to a level that hasn't existed on Earth in 100,000 years"

 Mr Goddard should look rather foolish as Hansen was right. Antarctic Ice Cores from Vostok  revealing temperatures going back 800,000 years show that present temperatures are warmer than at any time in over the last 100,000 years. This is something that was unknown to science back in 1986, so whether Hansen made a lucky guess or an inspired one, he was right.

This figure shows historical CO2 (right axis) and reconstructed temperature (as a difference from the mean temperature for the last 100 years) records based on Antarctic ice cores, providing data for the last 800,000 years.

 
This isn't the fist time Goddard has shown Hansen to be correct even though he remains in denial. Like many foolish people Goddard doesn't know when to quit and his defence of this evidence is to incorrectly insist that;

"According to ice cores, temperatures peaked 8,000 years ago"

 This is an old denier fallacy which was promoted by people like Don Easterbrook and long debunked by sites like Skeptical Science. 8000 years was a warm period and Easterbrook presented graphs like this one that that showed just that;

But as can be clearly seen, Easterbrooks 'present ' times stopped in 1855 just as current global temperatures started to rise. It would be rather inconvenient for a science denier to include modern temperatures and highlight that present warming really is at an unprecedented high, not seen for many thousands of years. Clearly Goddard and his other foolish promoters of myths are living in the past as current average global temperatures are higher than 8000 years ago and as shown higher than over 100,000 years ago just as Hansen said they would be.

 "There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won t."

Goddard's Appeal to Athority

Steve Goddard continues to misrepresent Hansen to misinform his readers, and probably himself.

As previously reported he accuses Hansen of calling or declaring a permanent drought in the US, when what Hansen actually said was, there would be a semi-permanent drought over the next several decades with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.

He repeated a similar claim in his 'Warming To Bring Permanent Drought And Permanent Flood To The Midwest' post and said;

 "No sooner than Hansen declared permanent drought for the midwest – we get a new global warming report warming of permanent floods in the midwest."

Well as  anyone can see Hansen has never declared a permanent drought and certainly no drought for this present time. Nor has there been any war(n)ing of permanent floods. Why does Goddard feel the need to make this easily refuted stuff up?

Just to reiterate, what we have is drought conditions being alleviated somewhat by heavy rain. Doesn't that fit exactly what Hansen suggests will happen over the next several decades?

“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.”

But it gets better. When I said "Shouldn’t that be Semi-permanent drought over several decades?", Mr Goddard replied with his usual politeness;

" I have been hearing the exact same crap for three decades already."

So straight away on being challenged Goddard drops the permanent drought claim - though don't hold your breath for a correction.

It seemed only fair that I should suggest he provide a quote of Hansen saying 'the exact same crap' three decades ago and he kindly provided a link to this news article about US drought in 1988;

Now any one with a keen intellect will immediately realise, (sorry Mr Goddard that can't include you), that 1988 can't be said to be three decades ago.

The article itself is also an interesting read in light of Goddard's claim. Although Hansen is quoted in it, and there is a quote "It is an example of the kind of drought that will occur more frequently as global warming become larger", this wasn't said by Hansen, but Manabe, a soil specialist.

However, something I found rather amusing happened in our conversation when I asked Goddard if he really did think 1988 was three decades ago. He replied in his usual amiable way;

"You are a know nothing idiot child. I was working on global warming studies at Los Alamos in 1980."

Well 1980 is over three decades ago so I will give him that but perhaps he should have quoted his own published Global Warming research instead of a news article eight years later.

Blow me, isn't that a prime example of the Fallacy: Appeal to Authority? Only using Goddard's view of his own self importance to make himself the authority?
 

Hansen Forecast Verification

Goddard likes to twist the truth to align it with is ideology. In a recent post called "Hansen Forecast Verification" he claimed "Hansen called for permanent drought from Texas to North Dakota", only to show a US map of recent heavy rain in Texas. No reference was given but Goddard must have been referring to an opinion piece in the New York Times where Hansen didn't 'call' for anything but  said;

“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.”

So it isn't a ' permanent drought'  occurring now as Goddard misinforms his readers but a semi-permanent one that Hansen is referring to and is to happen over the next several decades, but even so it semi-permanent drought is still holding true even with the heavy rain in the past week, the rain was not sufficient to alleviate the current drought conditions.

But twisting things is Steven Goddard's modus operandi to give his deluded readership what they want to hear.

Fox News Can't Decide if Climate Change is for Real

A mirrored post from Christopher "Tanoro" Grays' blog; A Personal blog of science and reason

Just last week, I was arguing with someone on Facebook that when an organization with a clear-cut bias that claims to report the news cannot even get its own position straight, we should become less inclined to take said organization seriously. At the time, I was talking about NaturalNews.com, the Fox News of alternative health. This time, it's Fox News doing what it does best.
My boss told me this morning that Fox News released an article indicating that new research shows that wind farms may cause global warming.

New research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night, a phenomena that could put a damper on efforts to expand wind energy as a green energy solution.

The title of the article is very misleading and doesn't quite reflect what the study's author actually said.

"Overall, the warming effect reported in our study is local and is small compared to the strong year-to-year changes" that result from natural variation, said Liming Zhou.

This means that a big enough wind farm could cause small, but noticeable, change in local meterology, a warming effect quantified in the study as 0.72°C per decade in the regions containing such wind farms. That doesn't mean climate change! As usual, Fox News is trying to sensationalize the story.
What I find troubling, however, is what story was right below this one on Fox News' homepage.
The article highlighted here discusses a blog by climate change denier, Steven Goddard, a former guest author on WattsUpWithThat. The blog questions whether or not greenhouse gases cause severe weather patterns attributed to climate change. Now, this is not a topic with which I am familiar, so I cannot comment on it. What I found most laughable is the author's introduction in the Fox News article.

Steven Goddard, who runs the skeptical climate blog Real Science and has a background in geology and computer science, has spent thousands of hours studying bad weather events around the world.

What is wrong with this picture? First of all, Fox News is quoting an expert in geology and computer science on the subject of meterology and climatology? I can actually hear my brain cells shriek in pain.

Secondly, Fox News has no trouble spelling out the pseudo-science claptrap of the anti-science minorities, but they fall flat on their faces when trying to transmit a simple message from the peer reviewed literature. What's worse, the message they successfully conveyed is by a stark opponent against climate change while the headliner is an article suggesting alternative energy causes climate change. Fox News, if I "head desked" everytime you got something hopelessly wrong, I'd have brain damage that strongly correlates with the frequency in which I read your content.

Sources:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1505.html
http://grist.org/list/wind-farms-do-not-cause-climate-change/
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/30/wind-farms-are-warming-earth-researchers-say/
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/30/proof-global-warming-isnt-making-weather-wackier/

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

After the hack at Steven Goddard Orwellian named 'Real Science' web site that resulted in no posts for several days, normal service has been resumed.

The latest post still rejects science and rationality. It still denies global warming is happening. It still promotes conspiracies including '“Global Warming” to scare the masses and make lots of money while controlling nations'.

The only real difference is that this post isn't from the guy who calls himself Steven Goddard, he still seems to have lost control of his domain, but by someone calling themselves Richard Garwin.

There is a rather eminent physicist called Richard Garwin, now 84 years old, and a Board member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, but this clearly isn't Goddard's hacker.

The post has received quite a lot of interest form Goddard's usual commenters but they seem unhappy with it for some reason and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Perhaps this Richard Garwin is slightly more extreme in his conspiracy theories with talk of Elitists, Weather Control and UFOs, but it hardly makes less sense that Goddard's 'Birther' conspiracies for example. But what is assured is that their ability to think rationally remains just as impaired;

'Ano' suspects the hack could be down to the warmists;

I would suspect it might be a guy from Desmog Blog. This is their kind of thing

 'Dave Burton' agrees;

I suspect that the person impersonating Richard Garwin is a climate alarmist having some fun at skeptics’ expense.

Meanwhile, normal service has been resumed by Steve Goddard himself over at his old Worprdpress blog where his own anti-science, conspiracy theory nonsense continues.

Unfortunately so does the nonsense that the hack was an attack carried out by the warmists, 'ntesdorf' says:

Dirty tricks are all that the Warmists really know.

  And 'Rogelio' says:

I still think that that site was stolen because it is and was really doing major damage to the AGW. I cannot possibly contemplate any other reason

Apparently it was even believed that Richard Garwin the physicist, was responsible for the hack, 'foxgoose' says;

Is he really a Board Member of the Union of Concerned Scientists?
Hilarious!
Obviously they’re a lot more “concerned” than we thought.

 All this despite Goddard's best efforts and continued claims that this incident has nothing to do with either. You really could not make this stuff up.

Real Science Hacked

It appears that someone has got control of the Real Science Blog and posted an announcement of Steve Goddard's death at the age of 81.

From what I can tell from posts on the likes WUWT, the person going under the name of Steven Goddard is fine but has lost access to his own blog for now at least. I hope he gets it back soon.

The hacked site claims that there will be no posts today out of respect so it will be interesting to see what if anything is posted tomorrow if the hackers still have access. Comments to the site are moderated so news of the hack and the true state of Steve's well being never appear. It must be weird seeing your own messages of condolences.

I immediately suspected something was amiss as the announcement claimed Steve Goddard was a scientist, and I'm not being unkind but as far as I know he has never claimed to be a scientist.