Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, May 13th 2010 « The Daily Bayonet

Al Gore invokes the memory of Elvis to sell the global warming hoax, which is awkward because Elvis might be the only thing deader than Al’s favorite scam. A hippie blames an airline’s cheap flights for his traveling habit, the UK gets a Green MP and Ed Begley Jr. hates the planet.

Just How Leaky Are Assertions From the Anti-Global Warming Crowd? | Environment | AlterNet

[Q] I watched a debate between you and Marc Morano, the Republican communications guy, and he was generally much more aggressive. He kept interrupting, probably tripled your word output, and kept repeating key phrases. These kinds of tactics seem to work on a public with a short attention span.

Joseph Romm: That technique is called the Gish Gallup. It was invented by a Creationist. You talk fast, interrupt and throw out a non-stop stream of one-line lies or half-truths. There’s not much one can do about that technique, because in a debate you can’t constantly say, “That’s false, that’s false, that’s false.” Every one of those sentences takes a paragraph to rebut. So again you’re left in this realm of what you don’t rebut goes unrebutted. When you do rebut you use up all of your time. So I don’t think there’s anything productive to be gained by those debates. Juan Cole [President of the Global Americana Institute] wrote a piece urging climate scientists not to debate because you’re automatically giving equal weight to disinformation.

[About a different scientific fraud]: An Interview with Eugenie Samuel Reich » American Scientist

[Q] Ostensibly science is designed to detect exactly this sort of thing. Has looking at Schön's story shaken your confidence in the scientific enterprise?

[A] It definitely shakes your confidence, because you worry that there are undetected frauds that could be using some of the same tricks, perhaps combined with other tricks that we don't know about, to get away with this. Although it came to light in the end, it only did so because a number of people took personal risks that we should hope scientists would not have to take in order for science to make progress. People really need to stick their necks out in order to make the self-correction process of science happen. It doesn't happen by itself.

The Associated Press: Wyoming, Colorado get dumping of spring snow

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A spring storm has dropped nearly 3 feet of snow in the mountains of central Wyoming, closing some highways and schools and causing scattered power outages from broken and sagging tree limbs.

Pelosi says House would take up climate bill if Senate acts - The Hill's E2-Wire

The Speaker has pledged to avoid politically difficult votes heading ahead of the fall campaign season after a year in which House Democrats supported narrow passage of health care, climate change and financial reform measures.