Is Anthony Watts airbrushing his past ?

Watching Anthony Watts on PBS Newshour I was struck  by how reasonable Anthony appeared. He stressed at least three times how he agreed Global Warming exists, and his account of his past was shall we say surprising. Anthony mentions James Hansen's testimony to Congress in '88 and claims that he was motivated by it.  So the viewer could be forgiven for thinking that Anthony has taken a measured path from AGW proponent to skeptic over the years.

But surely theres something missing. What about Anthony's denial of global warming? He seems to be airbrushing that out of the record. I tried to post a message on the open thread on his blog asking how he got from Leipzig Declaration signatory to his current oh-so-reasonable stance. It hasn't made it through moderation.

Ironic how climate denial blogs claim their view is being suppressed yet are quick to censor any dissent or probing questions.

IMHO it's a worthwhile question. Conceding the world is warming but taking the stance that warming is insignificant is much more nuanced than his flat denial of the consensus back in 1995. We need to know whose judgment to trust and it seems Anthony can't account for his earlier stance.  How can we take Anthony Watts seriously now ?

Anthony Watts can't do Attribution

Update: This post has been substantially rewritten now that Anthony Watts has printed my comment to his blog.

Anthony Watts declares on his blog : USA’s record warm March 2012 not caused by “global warming”

To support this assertion Watts draws on the work of Dr Martin P. Hoerling of NOAA . Hoerling finds GHG forcing "likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude of the heat wave" which turns Watts's headline on it's head.  Dr Martin P. Hoerling is an expert on attribution.  Anthony Watts is not.  So there's a wide gulf between the words of a NOAA scientist and what the blogger says the scientists said.  WUWT cannot reflect the highly nuanced question of attribution. And that's not opinion, that is observation.


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