Is climate skepticism pseudoscience ?

From a *skeptic* blog

"My (admittedly inexpert) understanding of the impact of global warming on hurricanes is that  because the poles are expected to warm the most, the temperature difference between poles and equator will be reduced and there will be less energy to transport between them. In other words there will be fewer, weaker hurricanes."

From NOAA

 " The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "

Hmmmm. Skeptics like to remind us that theirs is a dispassionate search for truth and that nobody is right all the time. But if their position is supported by ignorance, as the above statement by Andrew Montford would appear to be , then at what point has it crossed in to the realm of denialism ?

How superinjunctions work

1. Hack discovers nauseating titbit about sleb's sex life

2. Editor considers this newsworthy

3. Vanity obsessed sleb calls in scumsucking lawyers

4. Senile old judge issues superinjunction

5. Speculation takes over, cue twitter

6. Real News is sidelined like the fact that tens of thousands of kids a day are dying simply of hunger.



I've blogged before on this and found it was 13 000 a day. According to this website it's 15 million per year or 41 000 a day. Every day. Still not enough  to get coverage in the news.

This is what Noam Chomsky was on about in 'Manufacturing Consent'. I personally couldn’t give a toss which sleb is sleeping with which sleb . The super injunctions make the media look even more moronic because their story is now they can’t report what I don’t care about. Meanwhile real stuff goes unreported . Good grief.

Consistency with Andrew Montford

How much weight should be placed on a particular type of evidence? For  Andrew Montford the answer depends on whether the evidence is good or bad for your case . 

"The latest bright idea" writes  Montford "from CAGW subscribers is to use opinion polls to measure climate change. I kid you not... " Well Montford may not be kidding but he is certainly being economical with the truth. He is referring to researchers taking evidence from remote villagers in the Darjeeling Hills and suggesting that amounts to 'opinion polls' .  It's Montford's way of ridiculing a scientific study that produces evidence he disagrees with.

Last month, in his write up of the Spectator debate there was no doubt about the most impressive argument "Benny Peiser's talk was the one that intrigued me. He essentially argued that the science is irrelevant - that the public have made their minds up and that they vote out any party that pushes the green line too far."  Doctor Peiser's argument relied solely on opinion polls .  And on that occasion Montford found opinion polls very impressive.