Mann overboard - Josh 157

With Mike Mann's book still getting good coverage in various corners of the media I felt another cartoon was needed. Especially as another Mike, Mike Daisey, gave us such a brilliant quote: "I stand by it as a theatrical work" speaking of his made up story about the conditions at a Chinese factory which makes Apple products ( you can read the whole retraction here).

Mike Mann is not totally happy with all the PR, though, as we know from his Twitter reaction to reviews by Anne Jolis and Miranda Devine. He is probably going to be really teed off when he see this poll on the Daily Kos.

Click for a larger image

The article's title is 'Michael Mann is a Modern Hero and we need to acknowledge that!'. To date around 97% of readers do not agree and think he is either distorting evidence or should be fired from the University. That number sounds like a consensus to me.

And 'Game of Thrones'? It's an HBO blockbuster of a series based on George R R Martin's books 'A Song of Fire and Ice'. If you haven't seen the series you might not have the foggiest clue  what I am referring to... but, never mind, even the title 'A Song of Fire and Ice' couldn't be more apt. And guess what the show's slogan is: "Winter is coming".

Cartoons by Josh

Wind Energy: to the nearest whole number - Josh 156

I thought a handy illustration of a few facts about Wind Turbines and Wind Energy might be helpful.
(Higher res version for printing here)

Especially as there has been a bit of a Twitter storm over Matt Ridley's superb piece in The Spectator on Wind Energy, see at his blog here.  

Mark Lynas claimed that the article had no facts in it. Mark then asked for references, which Matt duly provided (all in the blog article). Mark either didn't like the references or is still busy reading them. We are still waiting for an apology from Mark for his completely unfounded Tweet.

Could be any time soon...

Cartoons by Josh

Sub Prime Subsidies - Josh 155

We are going to look back and say "Why did we do this to ourselves...again!"

Click the image for a bigger version

Cartoons by Josh (a bit of a treat there for you... if you like pigeons)

Brandon Shollenberger's review of 'The Hockey Stick and Climate Wars' by Michael Mann

At Lucia's blog, on Feb 15th, Branden Shollenberger commented:

"I just received my copy of Michael Mann’s book. The first sentence of it is (emphasis mine):

On the morning of November 17, 2009, I awoke to learn that my e-mail correspondence with fellow scientists had been hacked from a climate research center at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and selectively posted on the Internet for all to see.

Two pages later, there are these two sentences:

Instrumental records from around the globe indicate that Earth has warmed by almost 1 degree Celsius (about 1.5°F) over the past century. That may seem a small amount, but it is already noticeable in glacier retreat, rising sea level, more frequent heat waves, and more intense hurricanes, among many other phenomena.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but it shows a disturbing trend. Ideas which are possible, but by no means known to be true, are stated as fact. If this is remotely representative of the book’s accuracy, there is no way the people giving it glowing reviews read it with an open mind."

Over the next few days Brandon finds more errors as he reads the book. It is quite fun to follow the unfolding story but you can download the whole review as a pdf here.

And there's more! This weekend Brandon hopes to share a second document covering other issues and which we will add as an update to this post.

Frank O'Dwyer has his own opinions on Brandon's review which you can read here - he doesn't like it.

Posted by Josh

Update on Mar 7, 2012 by Josh

H/t Hilary Ostrov How could I possibly miss that?

Update on Mar 10, 2012 by Josh

Brandon's next chunk of review:

Download the pdf here.

Jurassic PR - Josh 154

 

Click the image for a larger version.

Cartoons by Josh

Update on Mar 6, 2012 by Josh

Added the title to the image, as per the WUWT version following Anthony's suggestion.

US Government Climate Change spend 2011 vs Heartland - Josh 153

Fakegate showed how small the Heartland Institute budget is compared to spending on Climate Change science. Here is just one example using US Government figures. I thought a simple graphic would be more helpful than a cartoon here.

Click the image for a bigger version.

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Lindzen in London - Josh 152

Below are the cartoon notes from the superb lecture by Richard Lindzen on Wednesday 22nd Feb 2012.

The notes do not do the talk justice in any way and one or two are a bit obscure. They might make more sense if you read the pdf notes here. Click the image below to see a larger version - warning, it is quite big!

 

Cartoons by Josh

Update on Feb 27, 2012 by Josh

Video Part 1

Video Part 2

Naked Churnalism - Josh 151

Some journalists seem keen to get their kit off for a bit of exposure.

Cartoons by Josh

Shrove Tuesday - Josh 150

There seems to be some confusion in some minds as to what is heroic and what is plain illegal. Let's hope the spirit of Shrove Tuesday leads to clearer light being shed on current sins.

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Not fake, no, not really - Josh 149

(Click the image for a larger version)

Everyone is writing Open Letters these days - so I thought I would have a go.

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Heartfelt but not Heartland - Josh 148

Links to this story just about everywhere this week.

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Quote of the month - Josh 147

With recent news  that wind farms have been paid a secret £13 million compensation to shut down over the last few months it is no wonder all those in the industry are hearing the clink of cash above the roar of the turbines.

Cartoons by Josh

Embarrassed science - Josh 146

IPCC head man Rajendra Pachauri famously dismissed criticism of the Himalaya's supposedly rapid ice melt as "Voodoo science". I think it has come back to haunt him.

Cartoons by Josh

Daft arguments 2 - Josh 145

H/t Matt here at Briggs' blog and James Evans on BishopHill here

Cartoons by Josh

Cherrypicking

There has been a lot of blog battling and twitter twootling started by a WSJ article entitled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming". A lot of the argument was about 'how to do climate graphs' with input taken from Skeptical Science. So here is a quick lesson in how to do Climate Graphs...

Click to read more ...