Friel vs Lomborg

February 23, 2010 1:51 PM

Bjørn Lomborg is well known as the author of Cool It and The Skeptical Environmentalist, books which challenge the scientific consensus on climate change and global warming. Howard Friel, previously known for his book The Record of the Paper, a critical look at the New York Times' coverage of American foreign policy, has a book coming out in March which asserts that Lomborg's Cool It lies constantly, citing sources which contradict or are irrelevant to his points. Lomborg, in response, has posted a rebuttal to Friel (PDF).
posted by Pope Guilty (52 comments total)

Liar lies about lying. News at 11.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:07 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

But when Friel began checking Lomborg's sources, "I found problems," he says. "As an experiment, I looked up one of his footnotes, found that it didn't support what he said, and then did another, and kept going, finding the same pattern."

I regularly get extremist right-wing "news" articles from a relative on my better half's side. Occasionally, the article will summarize in one or two sentences the opinion it is trying to put forth. If I ever read further and go to the sources listed in the article, it turns out that the original source never said anything close to what the referencing article claimed.

This is a pattern I find over and over again, whenever I bother to fact-check. This Lomborg clown is being paid to write the same sorts of articles: summarizing for his audience the "facts" they wish to hear, adding "citations" which do not stand up to the light of scrutiny.

We have an infotainment media culture that promotes the careers of these liars, where if it feels good then it's true. There are few consequences for being wrong. Lomborg will either go work as a foreign correspondent for FOX News or join a conservative think tank, publishing the same sort of garbage there. Either way, he'll still get a paycheck.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:18 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Liar, Liar, Pants on Global Warming.
posted by beelzbubba at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ann Coulter books also have a lot of footnotes.
posted by box at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2010

Always click the link.
posted by notyou at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2010

Tim Lambett's useful blog Deltoid has been cataloguing bullshit claims around climate change deniers for some time. He has also covered the Lomborg story. And was debunking Lomborg's claims back in 2008.
posted by MuffinMan at 2:24 PM on February 23, 2010 [7 favorites]

Lomberg's rebuttal sounds convincing... I mean it has footnotes and everything!
posted by Kabanos at 2:30 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Say what you will, but Lomborg's website header has me convinced of his qualifications.
posted by decagon at 2:33 PM on February 23, 2010 [9 favorites]

Ah, yes. Lomborg. I picked up a copy of his Skeptical Environmentalist as it was compared, quite favourably, in a long-forgotten venue to John Gray's Straw Dogs, which was and remains one of my favourite books. Having picked up the Lomborg work, I glanced through it eagerly. Having performed said glancing exercise, I replaced the book quite forcefully. I had inadvertently stepped into a world bereft of theology or geometry, and my valve had become a source of great distress, clapping shut violently.
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:43 PM on February 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

There's a big difference between asserting that global climate change is manmade (which I think is true) and claiming that it's the worst problem facing mankind (which I think is not true).
posted by lukemeister at 2:53 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

The first paragraph of this post is wrong. Lomborg is not a global warming skeptic.

It's good that the post has Lomborg's response though.

Lomborg largely accepts the IPCC report. In the Skeptical Environmentalist he even accepts MBH 98 ( the original hockey stick ).

He reject the economics.

It's nice of someone to write another hit piece on him. It just shows how dangerous many environmentalists regard him. They should.
posted by sien at 2:59 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

The first paragraph of this post is wrong. Lomborg is not a global warming skeptic.

I didn't say he was. You assumed that he would be called that and did not bother to check.

It's nice of someone to write another hit piece on him.

This is a hit piece. Documenting the lies of a person who has made himself a public figure is a public service.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

While I appreciate the Dunces quote, Lomborg is not a denialist. He does challenge conclusions, and he appears to be of a Libertarian bent, and thus pushes back on anything that requires large-scale government intervention.

I'm not saying he's correct by any means, but it's not really fair to put him in the Sarah Palin camp, either.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:13 PM on February 23, 2010

What, no rebuttal to the rebuttal to the charges of deception?

A good liar, a good lawyer, a good academic, should all convince themselves of the correctness of their position. This is the source of confirmation bias. A really smart person will believe the numbers support his position and clearly contraindicates his critics or adversaries. Two people can argue over the meaning of the same data.

A REALLY good liar will blow such awesome smoke out of his ass that his critics don't even bother to respond.

The rest of us, ultimately have to suffer.
posted by Xoebe at 3:39 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

The accusaton of lying implies that Lomborg believes something else and is willfully misleading people.

Show that Lomborg doesn't believe what he writes.

He might be wrong. But he is not a liar.

Are all the people involved in the Copenhagen Consensus complicit in what you say is Lomborg's deception?

They include the nobel prize winners: Robert Fogel , Douglass North, Thomas Schelling and Vernon L. Smith.

Why are they associating with this person you say is deceptive?
posted by sien at 3:45 PM on February 23, 2010

Climate change: don't bring logic to a rhetoric fight.
posted by digitalprimate at 4:18 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Show that Lomborg doesn't believe what he writes.

Does he cite sources that contradict or are irrevelant to his points? That'd be a start.
posted by DarkForest at 4:36 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's pretty obvious that climate science has few tough questions to answer in the coming years and Lomborg has been one of the most consistent and (to my mind) most relevant dissenting voices in the climate change debate. Whether history proves him right or wrong, to frame his motivations as mercenary or worse is not just ridiculous but downright dishonourable without some form of proof.
posted by eeeeeez at 4:38 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Lomborg has no training in science, climate science, or meteorology. He is a political scientist, and not even an economist.

His whole argument is predicated on a moronic false dichotomy that a six year year old could refute ("cure climate change, or cure aids/starvingchildren/puppies!!! One or the other!!"), and if he thinks that climate change isn't going to dramatically increase malaria infection - one of his pet hypotheticals - he's even more deluded than I think.

He's in no position to judge the damage of climate change; why he chooses to disregard the opinions of the best scientific, peer-reviewed, funded minds on the planet - both climate scientists and economists talking about the costs of action vs inaction - in favour of some nebulous, yet-to-be-developed-yet-to-be-deployed solution that may or may not happen is beyond me.

He may not be a denialist, but when you're a poster-child for denialists, write books for denialists, give talks to denialists, and take money from denialists, the distinction seems a little academic to me.
posted by smoke at 4:42 PM on February 23, 2010 [12 favorites]

Mitigation needs to be the name of the game at this point, because herding cats is unpossible.
posted by vectr at 4:50 PM on February 23, 2010

... a good academic, should all convince themselves of the correctness of their position.

What? No! This is totally, 180 degrees wrong. Do people really think this?
posted by Dreadnought at 5:28 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Smoke has it. There is legitimate disagreement (e.g. this debate)about the economic impacts of climate change and the magnitude of the costs to mitigate it, but Lomborg doesn't seem to be a useful contributor to that debate.

His "Copenhagen Consensus" (a non sequitur reference if ever I saw one--in what way, exactly, is settling global warming policy debate supposed to be like debates about fundamental interpretations in quantum physics?) was a total red herring. The Economist and the Copenhagen Business School team up with some friendly, mainstream economists* to refute arguments for government intervention and regulation? What a surprise!

Honestly, the remarkably public divide in economics that has become apparent since the economic crisis should put paid to any easy faith in that discipline being totally reliable. Not to say that all or even many economists are wrong, dishonest, etc--but there have been some interesting exchanges in the econoblogosphere with prominent economists--including Nobelists--pretty openly calling into question the intelligence, honesty, or otherwise of their learned peers.

(*Here I should concede that I don't know enough about their work to know what to make of the fact that Douglass North and Vernon Smith---sort-of-heterodox institutionalist economists---were part of the mix at Copenhagen.)
posted by col_pogo at 5:39 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Lomborg isn't a skeptic.

Show that malaria has increased in C20 while temperatures went up. If it was like that in C20 why won't it be like that in C21?

Malaria was endemic across much of the US until the 1940s including states like Washington. Vector control and the CDC controlled malaria. It had no link with temperature.

Reducing C02 emissions to try to reduce malaria would be a staggering waste of money.
posted by sien at 5:45 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Apparently my post was unclear and I am a fool for hoping that people would actually read the links. Friel isn't just calling Lomborg a no-good son of a bitch. He is going, one by one, through the footnotes and references of Cool It and showing that most of the sources he cites either say something completely unrelated to what Lomborg says they say, or that in many cases they directly contradict what Lomborg says they say. Lomborg is lying, not only about what is actually happening in reality but about what other people say is happening. If there is a strong, valuable voice on his side, he is not it; his apparently habitual lies discredit him as a person and as a pundit.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:36 PM on February 23, 2010 [13 favorites]

Indeed, Sien, so why is Lomberg constantly harping on about it? (look, now's he's an epidemiologist, too! Truly, a man for all seasons)

Lomborg would be shocked to know you can pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. His arrant hypocrisy is breath-taking, climate change being to hard to tackle, but malaria is a doddle!

He talks about malaria being solved with only $3 billion a year. If the figure itself weren't so completely laughable, it would illustrate the absurdity of talking about a trillion dollar,, global life-on-earth-ending problem with a billion dollar one.

Lomberg isn't a skeptic, he's just a dangerous idiot being paid and lauded by them.
posted by smoke at 6:42 PM on February 23, 2010

Friel is just as ideologically tainted as Lomborg, having worked as a research assistant to Edward Herman, whose signature is decidedly left-wing. Based on the insinuations made by some commentators here, Friel's arguments could be dismissed based on that allegiance alone.

Looking at the substance of the matter, it is pretty clear that Lomborg has made errors of attributions and generalizations/insuations that are disingenuous. However this is a bit of a red herring, as it sidesteps the core issue, namely a) whether these errors invalidate his overall points about the politics surrounding climate change and b) whether these errors are more significant than the errors that have been made on the "other side".

Science cannot answer these questions. Reasonable people must make up their own minds and hearts on these issues.
posted by eeeeeez at 7:43 PM on February 23, 2010

e6z, who brought up ideology apart from you? Don't give a shit about Lomborg's ideology, I do give a shit that he's demonstrably wrong, and purports to comment on scientific matters while clearly having minimal qualifications or capacity for the matter.
posted by wilful at 8:11 PM on February 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

eeeeeeez -

Science (which climatology is) isn't made up of what people's "minds and hearts" say it is. The point Friel makes is that Lomborg pretends to be building an actual case rather than talking out of his ass, when in reality he's talking out of his ass and throwing citations in to make it seem like he's building an actual case. This is the issue, as Lomborg generally is presenting what passes for an "actual case" in the climate change denialist camp.

And what does Friel's politics have to do with it? Other than trying to intimidate anyone who disagrees out of the arena.
posted by graymouser at 8:21 PM on February 23, 2010

So, you're saying, "the evidence that Lomberg has based his argument on is fabricated, but that ignores whether his argument is right or not, and whether other people have lied." That's pretty weak, dude.

When Lomberg fronts up in refereed journals and is prepared to defend his ideas in the public academic arena through said journals, as opposed to commercial publishing where you can write any thing, any time, I'll start giving him some credence.

Science can answer the question of whether your arguments and methods stand up to rigorous analysis. Lomberg published a book filled with rubbish. He simply does not possess the same credibility as the IPCC, or most climate scientists and govt dept in general. And his minor league credibility is looking progressively shakier.
posted by smoke at 9:05 PM on February 23, 2010

hi graymouser - the very second comment makes a comparison between "extremist right wing" publications and Lomborg, presumably to discredit Lomborg's claims out of hand. This is where politics enter the debate. With regards to Friel's point, I have reviewed some of the claims and counter claims, and remain unconvinced that Lomborg has acted in bad faith. What makes Friel's word the final word? Why can I not decide this for myself?

hi wilful - recent weeks have brought to light a number of demonstrable errors and retractions by climate scientists. Do you give a shit about that? I think the important question is whether Lomborg (or anyone, for that matter) is qualified or capable to comment on policy, given that I don't think he significantly deviates from the IPCC findings.
posted by eeeeeez at 9:07 PM on February 23, 2010

Lomborg has built his reputation as a serious voice in the debate on fraudulence. Every attempt to tie this back to ideology is an attempt to divert people's attention from the fact that he lied over and over and over in order to make his arguments. His arguments are invalid, regardless of their content, because they are based on lies.

Seriously, though, eeeeeez's post is a classic in dishonestly derailing an argument. Check it out:

Friel is just as ideologically tainted as Lomborg, having worked as a research assistant to Edward Herman, whose signature is decidedly left-wing. Based on the insinuations made by some commentators here, Friel's arguments could be dismissed based on that allegiance alone.

First, eeeeeez tries to shift the balance of power in the argument to himself by making the assertion that people in this thread are denigrating Lomborg based on his ideology. This is untrue; the point here is that Lomborg lied, not that he's on the wrong side. But by making it a matter of ideology, eeeeeez frees himself of the need to address the facts, and in addition attempts to smear the people he disagrees with as vicious ideologues who dismiss Lomborg simply for his ideological allegiance. This is dishonest.

Looking at the substance of the matter, it is pretty clear that Lomborg has made errors of attributions and generalizations/insinuations that are disingenuous. However this is a bit of a red herring, as it sidesteps the core issue, namely a) whether these errors invalidate his overall points about the politics surrounding climate change and b) whether these errors are more significant than the errors that have been made on the "other side".

Here he feints by admitting that Lomborg isn't infallible, and then uses that momentum to assert that, rather than lying, he has "made errors of attributions and generalizations/insinuations that are disingenuous". This is, of course, a lie; Lomborg didn't "misattribute" his sources, he lied about what those sources said. eeeeeez is plea-bargaining for Lomborg, admitting to honest mistakes in hope of making observers and discussors run with that framing and forget the fact that Lomborg, in fact, lied. But that's not all- next he implies that building your argument on lies doesn't invalidate your argument (to which I can only say: lolwut?) and then pulls a tu quoque. The discussion at hand isn't about whether one side or another is more or less honest, but about the fact that Lomborg was caught and publicly called out as a liar. eeeeeez is attempting to divert your attention away from that.

Science cannot answer these questions. Reasonable people must make up their own minds and hearts on these issues.

And then the cherry on top- a diversion away from the subject at hand altogether into a uselessly vague statement. Here we are discussing an issue which is black and white- did Lomborg in fact build his arguments on a foundation of lies?- and eeeeeez wants to talk about how there's no objective answer. That's ridiculous bullshit- yes, there is an answer, and we can compare the documents he cites to the claims he makes about them to see if they say what he claims they say. Shifting this off into vague territory does nothing to advance the discussion, but only serves to shift the focus off Lomborg's actions.

eeeeeez isn't here to have an honest discussion. He's here to derail the discussion by diverting it away from the facts at hand. This is not a behavior which is useful to this discussion or any discussion.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:09 PM on February 23, 2010 [20 favorites]

hi smoke - I agree that Lomborg's publications have not undergone the same review that refereed journals do. But I disagree about the rigor you seem to think comes with such review. I'll grant that it's better than most book publishers will do, but on the other hand his book The Skeptical Environmentalist has received more critical attention than most academic papers. As far as I can determine this criticism has exposed a number of flaws but not proved it structurally and/or scientifically unsound.

As to his credibility, I fully agree he is less credible than e.g. the IPCC. I'm not sure what your point is here, though. He can be entirely incredible and right, after all.
posted by eeeeeez at 9:16 PM on February 23, 2010

hi pope - sorry, I do not agree with your claim that Lomborg is a liar. The material I have reviewed does not seem to support such a characterization. Since this seems to be the basis of your... thing... I will forgo engaging the rest of it.
posted by eeeeeez at 9:26 PM on February 23, 2010

eeeeeez, I'm not arguing for the sanctity of refereed publishing, however they are the best that we have, and as you yourself have recognised, considerably better than commercial publishing.

"Critical attention" in this context is _not_ the same. There are millions of people giving the 4th IPCC report critical attention, but they are neither qualified nor equipped to give it. Quality is the issue here, not quantity.

re: criticism of the Skeptical Environmentalist (not the book in question, btw), the journals Nature and Local Environment wrote _very_ harsh critiques of it, and the Union of Concerned Scientists said:

"These separately-written expert reviews unequivocally demonstrate that on closer inspection, Lomborg's book is seriously flawed and fails to meet basic standards of credible scientific analysis."

Whether you agree with them or not, the people who from UCS who wrote the subsequent, detailed critiques are certainly in a position to know what they're talking about; experts in the fields Lomberg is writing on (a claim he can only sporadically make himself).
posted by smoke at 9:28 PM on February 23, 2010

hi smoke - thanks for that response. It is clear to me that Lomborg is somebody who is very successful at marketing himself by driving at high speed along the edge of a steep cliff. So far I don't think he has fallen in and there seems to be a genuine concern behind the spectacle - a concern that I share. And it is almost inevitable that at some point he will fall in, unless books like Friel's keep him on course.
posted by eeeeeez at 9:38 PM on February 23, 2010

hi wilful - recent weeks have brought to light a number of demonstrable errors and retractions by climate scientists. Do you give a shit about that?
Wiat, wait, wait. Yes I certainly would care about that. I follow this stuff pretty closely, but haven't heard anything about it. Can you point this out to me?
posted by wilful at 9:50 PM on February 23, 2010

But what is your definition of falling in? If he hasn't determinedly lied, then he is at very least culpable of gross, almost shocking, ignorance. Either way, this is not someone who has a credible voice on climate change, or climate change policy.

I mean, if nothing he says can be taken seriously in the field in which he writes, unless you check every single reference, every time, how is that not "falling in" to all intents and purposes? If there's a few cranks and ideologues who still listen because he says what they want to hear, I just can't call that success - on any topic, for any person.

Your peers, their publications, universities, government departments etc are what constitutes success for an academic or policy-maker. Success for an op-ed writer has a considerably lower bar, I concede.
posted by smoke at 9:54 PM on February 23, 2010

wilful: eeeeeez is probably referring to the two errors in the IPCC AR4 report. RealClimate.
posted by russilwvong at 10:15 PM on February 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

hi wilful - I have heard various inaccuracies and misrepresentations as I am sure you have, too. Here are two of the most recent that I consider credible and damaging:

IPCC mistakenly claims 55% of the Netherlands is below sea level

IPCC reinvestigates claim that Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035

In addition to outright mistakes and the use of non-scientific material, there are numerous insinuations on the lopsided selection and review process at the IPCC, favoring environmentalist views. But this is of course circumstantial and not conclusive. You can still be right even if you're an unreconstructed environmentalist, after all ;-)
posted by eeeeeez at 10:17 PM on February 23, 2010

I love the use of "environmentalist" as a pejorative. It's emblematic of the sickness at the heart of the right.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:23 PM on February 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

hi russilwvong - thanks, spot on :-) The almost lackadaisical response from RealClimate is typical of the apparent bias many people perceive in the organizational structure of the IPCC (claims that lower the threat level from climate change are not relevant; claims that raise the threat level require immediate action).
posted by eeeeeez at 10:25 PM on February 23, 2010

OK Pope Gulty it is worth looking at the stuff in the links. From Lomborg's defense on page 16 of the PDF he writes:

Friel’s habit of putting words in my mouth (and ignoring what I
actually say)
Friel starts off his main climate chapter by cutting-and-pasting three-and-a-half pages of
regional impacts from the IPCC that he believes I should have mentioned (LD, pp. 70-
73). He claims that they refute my argument “that there would be few (if any) harmful
impacts” from global warming (p. 69).
In fact, the idea that I claim global warming will cause “few (if any) harmful
impacts” is simply untrue. Early on in Cool It, in a list of the book’s four basic points, I
say just the opposite:
Global warming is real and man-made. It will have a serious
impact on humans and the environment toward the end of this century.
[CI, p. 8]
So how is the guy a skeptic as the opening line of the post states?
posted by sien at 10:26 PM on February 23, 2010

Apologies, how does this challenge the IPCC position on AGW?
posted by sien at 10:27 PM on February 23, 2010

hi pope - I thought bringing in ideology was a sign of derailing the debate? But now that the shoe is on the other foot it's OK? Never mind - your response is emblematic of the sclerotic joylessness of the doctrinaire lefty ;-)
posted by eeeeeez at 10:29 PM on February 23, 2010

dear all - many thanks for all your comments. I must bow out for the time being. I will try to revisit this thread later.

Just as a remark for now, I must say that the interaction so far has been useful. I share some of Lomborg's stated skepticism/concerns, but this post & the discussion have raised my suspicion level on him (although I still don't think it is reasonable to call him a liar). Thanks &c.
posted by eeeeeez at 10:41 PM on February 23, 2010

although I still don't think it is reasonable to call him a liar

Well, what should we call someone who just makes shit up?
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 12:55 AM on February 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

The accusaton of lying implies that Lomborg believes something else and is willfully misleading people.

Aha, you're saying he's stupid! He reads those references, completely misunderstands them, summarizes his mistaken interpretation, then provides you with a footnote so you can see how bad his reading comprehension really is...if, that is, you bother to check.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 12:57 AM on February 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

eeez, where did the IPCC get the data saying 55% of the netherlands is below sea level? From the dutch government, that's who.

And the himalayan glaciers stuff, which section of the report was that in? The section written by economists and social scientists. The section written by climatologists did not say anything of the sort.

And anyone who thinks that those trivial errors represent any sort of fundamental problem with the IPCC or with the report has got some massive barrow to push.
posted by wilful at 1:22 AM on February 24, 2010 [8 favorites]

No, thank you for listening, eeeeeez. It's much more enjoyable to do this as a proper dialogue rather than two separate diatribes, never meeting!

Regarding the IPCC's recent errors, I would say the response is illustrative of an overall greater approach to this issue. When confronted by errors, the IPCC apologises, retracts the erroneous claims, and works quickly to insert the right data.

When Lomborg and other figures on the denialist spectrum are confronted with errors, they deny or disagree, try to conduct an argument via the press, blogs, and other non-academic non-rigorous forums, refuse to alter their data or address concerns that fundamentally affect their argument, and then try to paint whoever is making the accusations as hopelessly bias, fantastical, and incompetent.

I'm not defending the errors, but just as two swallows do not make a spring, nor do two errors in a several thousand page document invalidate its argument. Those errors do not fundamentally change or invalidate the facts of global warming. The case does not hinge on them, and - as anyone who has worked in publishing will tell you - errors are _bound_ to creep in, in a 300 page book or a 3000 page policy.

What would be disturbing is a systemic pattern of widespread, multiple errors that fundamentally change what is being portrayed as fact, allude to gross ignorance at best and deliberate distortion at worst, coupled with a refusal to acknowledge, investigate, or change the argument and a failure to address these concerns in the appropriate forums.

My contention is the latter behaviour is far more widespread amongst those who would deny global warming.
posted by smoke at 2:04 AM on February 24, 2010 [7 favorites]

Oh, and also, I'm not even touching the fact that deniers are overwhelmingly being bankrolled by oil companies, coal miners, car manufacturers etc. Most of the proponents of global warming are being funded by universities and governments.

The idea that people promoting climate change action are somehow in it for the money really is the reverse case. Whether you agree with him or not, you only have to see the persecution and bias that James Hansen has endured to see how dramatically untrue this is. Taking a denialist route would have been an almost infinitely better career move for him.
posted by smoke at 2:09 AM on February 24, 2010

Show that malaria has increased in C20 while temperatures went up. If it was like that in C20 why won't it be like that in C21?

Because once you drain a swamp or invent an insecticide, you can't really do it again. If you really want to make this argument, take the 1960s and 70s as your baseline - where we have all of these controls in place - and then see what happened in the last bit of the 20th century.

It had been that malaria in the US was imported - people came here with it or caught it while elsewhere. But guess what...
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:13 AM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's a pretty decent wrap-up of the CRU emails, the himalayan glaciers mistake, and the bogus recent attacks on the science.

Anyone reading that with an open mind, prepared to do independent research, would agree that these items reflect very poorly on denialists, and do nothing to shake anyone's confidence in the science.
posted by wilful at 2:43 PM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]