The Great Climate Switcheroo

It's a truly rare occasion where Charles Johnson acknowledges the rather shady past of his blog, which has been covered in sufficient depth at this very website for several years.

Having evolved from a persistent LGF Watcher to a casual LGF reader following the colossal paradigm shift that site has undergone, imagine my (positive) surprise when reading this thread on a warning about global warming as from over 20 years ago from Isaac Asimov. Well, not the thread itself, but the first comment written by none other than Charles himself:

If I'd posted this at LGF in 2007, Asimov would have immediately been accused of being a commie atheist hack sci-fi writer with no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

Spot on. How often does this kind of statement by the Lizard King happen?

A more interesting question is though: Why does Charles shove all the blame to his former fan base? Back in 2007, would've he done the same? According to 2011-Charles, definitely not. But as he has previously been proven to have a remarkably short memory when it comes to opinions on global warming, it seems probable that he would've joined in.

But hey, this is quite some progress! Gotta give credit where credit is due.

The great global warming mudfight

Christmas comes early this year! I'm actually starting to like Charles Johnson's antics, most of all because of stuff like this:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35284_Thank_You_Climate_Change_Deniers

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Thank You, Climate Change Deniers

"A few years ago, I used to doubt that there really were climate change denialists.

But then I started posting at LGF about the scientific evidence for global warming, and lo, the denialists began to appear.

Hordes of them.

Posting one comment after another full of talking points, false claims, diversions, and complete BS.

I don’t doubt their existence any more.

So I want to say “thank you” to all the climate change denialists who post comments at LGF, relentlessly hyping every false claim, refusing to follow any links to evidence, and ceaselessly parroting the latest obfuscations.

You’ve really helped open my eyes to the truth."
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Really, Charlie? You seriously didn't know whether or not global warming deniers existed? LGF from 2007 just called, claiming that back then you were actually defending those very people on your blog:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/24774_Global_Warming_Skeptics_Threatened

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Global Warming Skeptics Threatened

"The Religion of Global Warming is apparently just as thin-skinned as the Religion of Peace™: Scientists threatened for ‘climate denial’. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)"

Scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been “hijacked” by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affectingclimate change.

One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.

“Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,” said the professor. “I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.”

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Ah, LGF history, thou art a heartless bitch. Especially when the same members from back then are still around today. On the 2007 thread:

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#290 Sharmuta

"This is vile- Mother-Earth-Loving-Peace-Nics so blinded by their ideology that they are blinded by their hypocrisy yet again. On the one hand they would appease a true Holocaust denier, while on the other they liken a reasoned man of science to the real deal. Obviously they have no concept of the true nature of evil to invoke the Holocaust into this debate. That these enviro-knee-jerk-reactionists would claim freedom of speech as their excuse to say anything they'd like while employing marxist-jihadi techniques to silence the free speech of others is so hypocritical it is beyond the pale.

Logic, reason, open and honest debate- these concepts are the death knell to global warming and the leftists will do anything to stop them. Do we need a global warming Theo van Gogh before people take a look at what is going on here?"
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And on the thread from yesterday:

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#13 Sharmuta

"I think this is another example in a long line of issues where you can see people aren't interested in facts and truth, but are rather interested in propaganda that confirms their existing biases. It's slow, hard work to chip away at such prejudice, but as always, the Truth is worth the effort."
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Now let that second comment sink in for a minute, and read the first one again.

While we're at it, here's something for Chuckles (in both senses of the word):

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/24966_Glenn_Beck_on_the_Radical_Islamic_Agenda

Video is sadly defunct, but the comments are good as gold. Oh what I would give to see the present-day lizard circus meeting up with themselves from 2007..

Quote Of The Weak

Environmental advocate Peter Sinclair put together this presentation about the British documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” When Channel 4’s anti-AGW polemic was first broadcast, we linked to it here at LGF; but since that time a number of ... uh ... problems have been found with the data in the film.

Charles Johnson (June 21, 2009)

Hey Chuckie, 2007 called!

Global Warming Fun

The lizard army is chuckling its collective arse off at the conclusion of the overwhelming majority of scientists and ecologists saying that global warming is indeed a human-made problem that'll have a large impact on our future.

Now regardless whether you believe in global warming or not, it should strike you as odd that in this recent thread, (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32234_Obamas_Science_Leaders) one of the prime arguments in the comment section against global warming, despite the fact that it's freaking winter, must've been the instant classic: "Oh look, it's snowing outside. Global warming is bunk". If I didn't know better, I'd look around my apartment, observe the lack of other humans, and conclude that I'm one of a kind, if I were to follow this tragic line of trashy logic.

Then the lizard tyrant shot himself in the foot with his latest post:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32235_The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle_Debate

The three YouTube videos in that thread should cause your jaw to involuntarily hit the floor or your head to bang repeatedly against the next wall for the sheer dishonesty displayed by Martin Durkin, producer of the documentary "The great global warming swindle" and representative of polemics the lizards are so vehemently clinging to. The part where he gets to defend his own film is literally anywhere between funny and torturous.

Go ahead and watch them if you're feeling adventurous, and give yourself a laugh or two at a group of people not even capable of noticing how excruciatingly bad this man performs, proven by the lack of comments questioning Chuckles' reason for finding this sad excuse of a skeptic - of all people - to present to the world, a scenario oddly reminiscent of their ongoing drooling at a certain female vice president candidate who boasted on how geographic location is a main credential for foreign policy experience.

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"Ignorance is strength" - Eric "George Orwell" Blair, 1984

The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle

Now far be it from us to point out Chuckles the Clown's hypocrisy is promoting a programme on Channel 4 (anyone who reads us regularly will know why) but just to add balance and provide actual information (which the documentary got wrong) here are some bloggers who seem on the ball.

Stoat (here and here)
Realclimate
In the Green
Reasic
Fermi Paradox (who links to a great paper by Damon & Laut)

To use a newspaper cliche 'read all about it' and don't take one programmes 'findings' as gospel. It seems that in his haste to shill for the Bush administrations destructive approach to the environment ,Charles will latch on to anything he can, even if it's a documentary on Channel 4.

UPDATE: More swindles! It seems that a scientist who appeared on the show isn't happy.

Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was ‘grossly distorted’ and ‘as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two’.

He says his comments in the film were taken out of context and that he would not have agreed to take part if he had known it would argue that man-made global warming was not a serious threat.

UPDATE: It appear this isn't the first time TGGWS's director, Martin Durkin, has been accused of misrepresenting people he interviewed for a program.