Global Climate Change Deniers Eat Bacterial Crow

[Terralthra]

OSLO (Reuters) - A hoax scientific study pointing to ocean bacteria as the overwhelming cause of global warming fooled some skeptics on Thursday who doubt growing evidence that human activities are to blame.

Laden with scientific jargon and published online in the previously unknown "Journal of Geoclimatic Studies" based in Japan, the report suggested the findings could be "the death of manmade global warming theory."

Skeptics jumped on the report. A British scientist e-mailed the report to 2,000 colleagues before spotting it was a spoof. Another from the U.S. called it a "blockbuster."

Blogger skeptic Neil Craig wrote: "This could not be more damaging to manmade global warming theory ... I somehow doubt if this is going to be on the BBC news."

It was not clear who was behind the report, which said bacteria in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans emitted at least 300 times more carbon dioxide than industrial activity -- a finding that, if true, would overturn the widely held view of scientists that burning fossil fuels are the main cause of warming.

But scientists knocked the report down.

"The whole story is a hoax," Deliang Chen, professor of Meteorology at Gothenburg University in Sweden, told Reuters. He said two "authors" listed as from his University were unknown.

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UPDATE: I have to put this up top, because it's so deliciously delightful. Turns out Rush Limbaugh fell for this scam, hook, line, and sinker. He bought it because he misunderstood a warning from notorious skeptic crank Roy Spencer -- he thought Spencer was calling climate change, not the paper, a hoax. Spencer subsequently apologized for, um, Limbaugh's stupidity and gullibility. Wow. I hardly know what to do with all this schadenfreude.

The world hardly needs any more proof that the remaining climate change "skeptics" (who among other things have ruined the perfectly respectable term "skeptic" for the rest of us) are ideologues who will believe anything that supports their position and disbelieve anything that refutes it. They keep offering us proof anyway.

Last week a paper was drifting around the tubes that allegedly showed that ocean bacteria, not humans, are responsible for most global warming. It was published in a heretofore never-heard-of online journal called Journal Of Geoclimatic Studies. It contained charts and graphs and other scientistical-type stuff, but what really gave the skeptics a stiffy was this passage toward the end:

But we recognise that in [overturning anthropogenic climate change] we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the "consensus" on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardise the funding of the departments for which we work.

We believe that academic intimidation of this kind contradicts the spirit of open enquiry in which scientific investigations should be conducted. We deplore the aggressive responses we encountered before our findings were published, and fear the reaction this paper might provoke. But dangerous as these findings are, we feel we have no choice but to publish.

Brave scientists battling the "consensus" cabal! This played perfectly to the fruitloop paranoia of the skeptics, so naturally they ate it up.

And naturally it's a complete hoax.

DeSmogBlog has a detailed account of who created the hoax and who fell for it. Amusing stuff.

Postscript: The founder of the Weather Channel, who's been a TV weatherman since 1952, says global warming is a scam. How does he -- without, you know, practicing science or having a degree in the relevant disciplines -- know this? He thought hard about it:

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct.

You really can't make this stuff up.

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Its purpose was to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate sceptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position.

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[wolveraptor]

Man, you should see the comments on the last link's site. Apparently, global warming is a religion bent on controlling other people's freedoms.

So many people missed the point the whole fiasco makes about "skeptics", willfully or through sheer ignorance.

[Morilore]

I have a depressing feeling that high-profile public retards will be crowing and crowing and crowing and crowing and crowing about this supposed study so loudly that the very person who wrote it saying it's a hoax will be completely drowned out.

[Darth Wong]

I have a depressing feeling that high-profile public retards will be crowing and crowing and crowing and crowing and crowing about this supposed study so loudly that the very person who wrote it saying it's a hoax will be completely drowned out.

Like the "crop circle" people who keep doggedly pursuing their "research" even though the guys who made the original crop circles have since come forward and admitted it, even going so far as to show how it was done on video?

[Flagg]

I have a depressing feeling that high-profile public retards will be crowing and crowing and crowing and crowing and crowing about this supposed study so loudly that the very person who wrote it saying it's a hoax will be completely drowned out.

Like the "crop circle" people who keep doggedly pursuing their "research" even though the guys who made the original crop circles have since come forward and admitted it, even going so far as to show how it was done on video?

You mean like the Loch Ness monster guys? And the Bigfoot guys? And the Cottlingly Fairy women?

[Guardsman Bass]

That honestly would not surprise me. Expect this "report" to pop up among skeptic websites over the next couple of years.

[Darth Holbytlan]

But we recognise that in [overturning anthropogenic climate change] we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the "consensus" on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardise the funding of the departments for which we work.

And they were right! As a result of the article, they weren't just denied funding by the Cabal of Environmental Scientists Conspiring to Destroy the World Economy, but had their careers erased from existence along with the journal they published in:

"The whole story is a hoax," Deliang Chen, professor of Meteorology at Gothenburg University in Sweden, told Reuters. He said two "authors" listed as from his University were unknown.

It was published in a heretofore never-heard-of online journal called Journal Of Geoclimatic Studies.

Soon the GW believers will be claiming these two never existed at all, once the records have been erased and the bodies disposed of!

Expect this "report" to pop up among skeptic websites over the next couple of years.

With luck, maybe it will just be dismissed by the GW deniers: "We aren't experts, so why is this mean-spirited trick being taken seriously—as though not being an ivory tower intellectual was some sort of deep personal flaw. This just shows what depths of deception these 'experts' will go to when trying to discredit the TRVTH!" (Never mind that their inability to recognize good research was the point.)