A BESTIARY OF SKEPTICS….John Quiggin provides a handy summary of Joel Achenbach’s recent piece in the Washington Post on global warming skeptics. Here it is:
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Richard Lindzen, prominent MIT climate scientist, is an irresponsible contrarian, who?s prepared to defend an implausible position on the off chance of being right when everyone else is wrong
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The Competitive Enterprise Institute, well-known Washington thinktank, is a set of industry shills who will say whatever Exxon pays them to say
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William Gray, respected hurricane expert, is a raving loon who thinks climate change is a conspiracy to bring in world government and compares Al Gore to Hitler (as Achenbach notes, it?s almost impossible to keep the Nazis out of the discussion in GW-sceptic circles)
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All these guys know the score as regards the others.
John’s summary motivated me to read Achenbach’s piece, and I think he has it exactly right: the contrarians come across as obvious shills and buffoons. If you want to watch Achenbach talk about these guys in person, his Bloggingheads.tv conversation with Robert Wright is here.
