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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Looks Like Watts Is Having Second Thoughts

WattsAnthony Watts must have at least a few functioning neurons, because he has a nerve cell somewhere that I clearly struck.

Good.

His kind of abject and loathesome denialism needs to be exposed for all to see. Refusing to publish the very evidence you asked for, after denying it exists, needs to be shown for what it is. Refusing to acknowledge what a distinguished newspaper quotes because "I can just as easily create a list of complaints" -- with the implication that the threatened scientists faked them -- is lunacy. In a few sentences in today's post -- far too few, alas-- Watts seems to sense what he has actually been doing. But he brushes that off and returns to form.

By the way, a death threat doesn't have to contain the words "I," "will," "kill,' or "you." It doesn't have to contain any words at all. Brandishing a noose in someone's face is certainly a threatening gesture, and the noose was chosen for a specific reason.

Most importantly, the person who was threatened, Hans Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and an IPCC member, considered it a death threat. Those were the exact words he used to describe it:
"I was confronted with a death threat when I gave my public lecture," Professor Schellnhuber said.
And as with all threats, and all abuse, the person receiving it is the one able to make its most accurate interpretation. Far too often people and families and communities and societies look away from such threats, calling them not real, not serious, not worth investigating. And far too often those threats do turn into action, or incite action, and people get seriously hurt or worse.

Denying these threats as Watts and his minions (microWatts?) do is despicable, and it is dangerous. They have taken this discussion into a very dangerous place, and innocent people are being targeted simply because they are doing their jobs as best they can and have come to a scientific conclusion with implications that some people do not like. It's craven, truly craven.

moncktonhitler.jpgI'm convinced more every day that the extremism that we've been seeing in the last year or two is strong evidence that everyone sees what's happening to the climate and the planet and all that is left is for people like Watts to do is to thrash madly about and, like a spoiled child who cannot now get their way, resort to causing as much damage as they possibly can. We see this all the time now -- from Anthony Watts, from Christopher Monckton, from bullies like Marc Morano, and several others. What they want -- let's be frank about this -- is for scientists to stop their work and to shut up. Keep quiet, is what they are really saying, or you will suffer. You will be hurt.

And you know what? It doesn't matter one iota if these scientists are wrong. The threats that have been received are unacceptable, period. Threats of violence for any reason directed to anybody are unacceptable.

This is darkly vile, very dangerous, and completely unacceptable, and now at a scale that is without precedent in history. It has to end. And those behaving this way and denying them or stroking such behavior need to be called out and denounced.


PS: Oh yeah, my earlier post -- it had nothing to do with Watts' mother. I wonder, though, how she would have felt about what her boy has been doing.

(Picture via The Beast and Alternet)

25 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:42 PM

    David Appell for president!
    He would shut up the deniers!
    Similarities, just look for the similarities.

    ReplyDelete
  2. J. Felton11:49 PM

    I agree that many comments and insults directed at BOTH sides of the debate are terrible, and have no place in any rational debate.

    However, if Prof. Schnellnhuber felt that his life was threatened, why didnt he report it to the police?
    The fool who displayed the noose clearly had his face and name displayed, and if the charges were warranted, shouldnt police be able to prosecute him?

    I think you seem to be mistaking childish internet fools, ( of which there are many) for credible death threats. Not that this sort of thing isnt despicable, but there is a big difference.

    Also, what do you think about the IPCC's Michael Mann suggesting that a campaign be formed to " go after the Deniers"?

    Or how about Andrew Weaver's tendacy to sue anyone who doesnt agree with him?

    Would you care to condemn them?

    And either way, bringing in someones mother, even as a joke,is borderline hateful itself, and brings you down to the level of the very people you are ranting about.

    ReplyDelete
  3. J.Felton,the person most likely to be be threatening law suits is one Christopher Monckton,not Weaver [who actually instigated legal proceedings and won].Monckton is threat- happy batty.

    As for Watts,he is dumber than a stump if he thinks that brandishing a noose is not a death threat...unless he thought it was an invitation to partake in some asphyxiation sex game?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2:48 AM

    Great post David.

    Watts is a fool, a fraud and a hypocrite. You cant convince him because he is unable to understand how serious these death threats are.

    He is playing to his moronic audience, a stupid evil little gnome of man followed by equally stupid little cretins.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous4:23 AM

    PS: Oh yeah, my earlier post -- it had nothing to do with Watts' mother. I wonder, though, how she would have felt about what her boy has been doing.

    I suggest that your comment above is beneath the level of publish discourse.

    I assume that the you apply the same standard to detecting the AGW signal in the temperature record that you do to detecting a death threat? That explains a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6:00 AM

    The AFP are not investigating these 'death threats'.

    Why not?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous6:14 AM

    Dear David,
    I consider your internet post to be threat on Mr Watts life. Your use of Nazi insignia along with the phrase "I," "will," "kill,' or "you." is a clear indication that you intend to cause him harm.

    Your expression of homicidal tendencies is clear. There can be no mistake that you are communicating a death threat. I perceive it to be so it is.

    I have reported your death threat to your local authorities and the FBI.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Karmakaze6:42 AM

    To the morons above, here is a direct quote from Watts' latest post:

    "“Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT,” reads one email."

    It was even BOLD in Watts' article. That is a clear threat that someone will end up as "collateral damage" in a "war", "GET IT".

    Clearly Watts and his morons here can't read.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous7:10 AM

    I can confirm Mr. David Appell is being investigated for death threats to Mr. Anthony Watts.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Karmakaze

    Collateral damage - damage that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome.

    Hmm. I must have missed where collateral damage has anything to do with death or killing or even physical harm. Could a professor losing his job be collateral damage? Or could grant money drying up be collateral damage?

    If that is the best you can find then you would look less foolish if you just kept your mouth shut.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "Collateral Damage" in my opinion is the waste laid to the credibility of scientist who cling desperately to beliefs that demonstrate themselves to be false.

    "Collateral Damage" can be the complete loss of funding of jobs.

    It can be many things.

    One can play the same game with other situations. The University of East Anglia continues to deny access to the data and methods at every turn. They follow the letter of the law and ignore the spirit. They do everything they can to twist a sentence into meaning something it doesn't to say "Well, I can't fill that order because it isn't clear enough!"

    Watts elevated you readership for a day by at least one.

    ReplyDelete
  12. David 7:31am and Brad Tittle:

    Oh sure, and by your 'standard', when someone says "I will kill you" with no further clarifying context, will you similarly insist that it's meant metaphorically?

    No?

    Then shut up. (That was meant metaphorically.)

    -- frank

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous9:47 AM

    You stalk the comment section of anthony's site. Write deplorable articles about him here and then you have the audacity to whine about bullies?

    You are delusional. The only bully in the room is ... You.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous10:26 AM

    I have no idea why you think articles in the Guardian should have any more weight given to them than articles anywhere else. It seems to me that you have a great deal of "faith" in it as a publication.

    Personally I don't believe anything I read in newspapers, especially when that newspaper and its readership are so heavily invested in the very meme it is writing about.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous10:40 AM

    Your article is headlined:
    Anthony Watts Denies His Mother Ever Existed

    You then go on to say:
    PS: Oh yeah, my earlier post -- it had nothing to do with Watts' mother.

    Which measn you are either a liar or a fool.
    Or perhaps both.
    Whatever the case you are a perfect poster boy for the AGW scam.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous12:49 PM

    Keep posting your garbage. You are the best evidence of just how fanatical the koolaide drinking alarmists really are. Nutbar.

    $10 says you're too cowardly to post this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Having failed to refute David Appell, the 'skeptics' resort to hurling feces. Nice.

    -- frank

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous3:46 PM

    Death threats? Complete nonsense.

    Come again? A Norwegian island full of dead kids? Must be a econazi leftist commienazi, who listened to all those criminal climate scientists who want to take away our freedom and free market! Some people might say, not I of course, that they should be taken to see a David LYNCH movie. Catch my drift, commenters?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous5:05 PM

    "The information revealed how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise that man-made factors are driving climate change."

    Oops...

    Now, everyone repeat after me: AGW is a hoax! AGW is a hoax! AGW is a hoax! AGW is a hoax! AGW is a hoax!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous7:00 PM

    The electrons wasted on this post are lost forever.

    For shame.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous7:27 PM

    As I said of Watts:

    "a stupid evil little gnome of man followed by equally stupid little cretins."

    Point proven by the comments here supporting Watts.

    ReplyDelete
  22. You might enjoy this. . .

    ------------

    NEW YORK—In a statement posted this morning on several Warmist websites ( here, here, here, and here) comprising the Global Warming Network, IPCC, claimed responsibility for last Thursday's devastating personal attack on Northern California resident Anthony Watts.

    The highly coordinated strike, targeted the unsuspecting TV weatherman as he exited a meeting where he had received further marching orders from Roger Pielke Sr. and made light of Watt's failure to execute a useful experimental design for the Surface Station Project, related to his complete lack of training and meaningful qualifications, and inability to meet single women, occurred at 9:32 AM. At 9:35 AM, a second wave of vicious insults was reportedly launched at Watts, obliterating what little remained of his self-esteem.

    "The foot soldiers of IPCC have struck at this pathetic slob of a man with righteous force, and they have brought him down," read the statement from the James Hansen Kombat Brigade hiding in the wastelands of northern Manhattan. All praise to Claude N. Williams, Jr., and Michael A. Palecki from the NOAA/National Climatic Data CenterNational Climate Data Center, who carried out the personal attack. "There is nothing left of him now. Anthony Watts has been destroyed."

    "Praise be to Rajandra K. Pachauri," the statement continued. "Rajandra K. Pachauri is great." . . . .

    ReplyDelete
  23. When Pinch of the Times can brandish a moose,
    Why should Watts object to a lynching Larouche?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Looks like we're advancing: it only took 23 entries for the denialists to reduce themselves to blubbering gibberish. Their efficiency standards must have been tightened...

    Best,

    D

    ReplyDelete
  25. Dano:

    Could you please drop me your current e-mail address, to seitz@physics.harvard.edu ?

    I'd like your reaction to Oreskes & Conway.

    ReplyDelete