Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Denier weirdness: The WUWT recycle cycle is ridiculously short. Must be the ozone.

Sou | 3:11 AM Go to the first of 13 comments. Add a comment

I wasn't wrong when I said that Anthony Watts is having trouble finding stuff to fill his daily quota.  Either that or he's suffering denier fatigue or he's really rattled or his memory is getting much, much worse.

Less than a week ago he wrote about a report that summertime ozone levels in the USA will worsen as global warming kicks in.

The ink is barely dry on the webpage and he's already recycling it. The only difference being that he got it from another website this time and he changed the headline. But the press release is word for word the same. It can't have made much of an impression on Anthony!

May 6 headline: Claim: Climate change threatens to worsen U.S. ozone pollution (archived here)

May 12 headline: Claim: Climate change may worsen summertime ozone pollution (archived here)

What do you reckon? What with recycling stuff from five years ago, now recycling a press release from only six days ago. Must be a WUWT record! (Anthony must be really rattled. I mean who forgets something they posted on their blog only six days ago?)

Here's a link to the paper, which Anthony neglected to provide - both times! And here's an excerpt from the press release as reported on ScienceDaily.com. (Needless to say, Anthony didn't link to a press release either time.)
Ozone pollution across the continental United States will become far more difficult to keep in check as temperatures rise, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The detailed study shows that Americans face the risk of a 70 percent increase in unhealthy summertime ozone levels by 2050.
Unless emissions of specific pollutants that are associated with the formation of ozone are sharply cut, almost all of the continental United States will experience at least a few days with unhealthy air during the summers, the research shows. Heavily polluted locations in parts of the East, Midwest, and West Coast in which ozone already frequently exceeds recommended levels could face unhealthy air during most of the summer.
It's a long article, which you can read in full here if you want to.

From the WUWT comments

So far no-one else has commented about the rapid recycle cycle. The WUWT-ers are exhibiting climate change fatigue though.

Eustace Cranch says:
May 12, 2014 at 9:03 am
It’s just broadside after broadside now. Rationality abandoned, panic button pushed.

Rhoda is getting on in years and says:
May 12, 2014 at 9:08 am
Damn, 2050 is going to be such a remarkable year. Shame I won’t be around to see it. 

Shawn in High River says lots of dots and a few words:
May 12, 2014 at 9:15 am
notice how every projection these days goes into 2050? Wonder why that is……..

 Col Mosby says they should be using a Commodore 64, or something:
May 12, 2014 at 9:16 am
Once again comes the bogus claim that superior computing power provides superior modelling.

Update: I just did a refresh and, although the article has now been up for an hour and a half and got more than 30 comments, not one of Anthony's readers has noticed that it's a repeat article. Maybe he's not getting any repeat readers at WUWT these days :)

G. G. Pfister, S. Walters, J.-F. Lamarque, J. Fast, M. C. Barth, J. Wong, J. Done, G. Holland, C. L. Bruyère. Projections of Future Summertime Ozone over the U.S.. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/2013JD020932


  1. Maybe there are several people validating articles under his name ? There are several articles a day on his site to publish (meaning formatting the text) + IT stuff to do, he can't do all that alone - and on top of that he monitors the threads ...
    It's strange to let several people endorse his name, but if the website infrastructure is weird maybe it was the only practical solution (with all the associated potential disasters). It would explain also his apparent schizophrenia on his denial category :) ("it's the sun !" "no, the soot !" "no the poor siting !" "it's all a scam !"

    another explanation : he is currently close to a burnout and suffers partial memory loss. And I say that without any hidden snark - I mean he really doesn't remember because he is overwhelmed. In this case, either he steps back a bit, or it won't be pretty. As a person having gone toooo close to a real burnout, I say that without malice but with actual concern.
    Seriously. Burnout isn't pretty to live - or to watch.

  2. Captain FlashheartMay 13, 2014 at 11:31 AM

    It would be a special type of burnout too if actually deep inside Watts is no longer convinced by his own ideological opposition to the facts, but has built such a name for himself that he can't back down from the barricades. The coming el nino is going to batter the faith of all of these deniers but they aren't going to be able to back down. If Watts is burnt out and suffering a crisis of faith in such a prominent public position ...

  3. Burnout is possible.

    I hadn't thought about him letting someone else post his articles. That would explain the formulaic feel to WUWT, where every science press release is just that without comment (or links to sources) and a headline starting with the word "Claim".

    It doesn't explain how WUWT managed to repeat a press release after only six days. Surely that's the first thing a stand-in would check. Although I guess they could be just putting up articles from a list.

    There hasn't been much by way of original in the last few weeks. Mostly just copy and paste of other stuff. That in itself isn't unusual, except that guest essays are very thin on the ground. Bob's still in there. Willis is contributing occasionally, but less often and nothing worth noting. The fact that Anthony is posting a lot of stuff by Eric "eugenics" Worrall shows how much he's struggling - and resurrecting climategate and Mann-bashing shows that he's really, really struggling.

    Maybe someone will come riding to his rescue. "Steve Goddard"? (Anthony had to back down from a recent idiotic chart of Steve's. That wouldn't have sat too well with him either.

    He's bounced back before I expect. Six years of blogging nonsense must take it's toll though.

  4. I've just checked and finally someone noticed it was a repeat. Anthony took all the blame saying he was distracted by family matters. He objected to my suggestion that he was losing his memory.

    That just leaves what I first surmised, that Anthony doesn't bother reading the articles he puts up on his blog.

    For example, when he denied having posted the "OMG it's insects" articles - and finally had to back down when someone posted a link to it here.

    1. 'Must be the ozone'.

      Idunno,more likely it's the drought. The disconnect must be hard to maintain while living through one of the worst droughts in Californian recorded history.

      Interested to find that, to judge by his comment, if Anthony doesn't read the nonsense at WUWT, he does at least keep track of it by reading HotWhopper!

      Hi Anthony, and welcome. Thanks for all the laughs. Sou seems to think that the majority of your commentators are nuts. I reckon most of them are completely off their boxes on prescription meds? What do you think?

      P.S. Remember not to mention the drought. I think I might have mentioned it, but I think I got away with it.

    2. ha ha - too true, idunno.

      I always do Anthony the courtesy of letting him know via twitter when I comment on his latest bit of nonsense. After all, how else is he going to find out what he's just posted on his own blog?


    3. You're terrible Muriel.

    4. Lol - for international readers - that's an Australian-ism ..

    5. That's too cryptic for me, George :(

    6. I think that George is alluding to the affected pronunciation that Muriel used for her own name, Sou.


    7. Oh is that it. Thanks.

      It's a while since I saw Muriel's Wedding. Did she do a Mrs Bucket (pron bookay). For a while there "Myoorial" wasn't the most popular name, was it. I don't think I've come across a Muriel since I was in primary school back in the 1950s! (Oops - my age is showing.) Though it's a pretty name.

    8. Sorry not to reply sooner, Sou. Got a callout. Bernard's right - the Muriel character thought that Mariel was more exotic sounding. It'd be similar to someone pronouncing his name as Antany Votts.



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