The decline of Tim Ball: Denier champion reduced to railing at real scientists
There was a guy named Ted Ball Who thought he knew it all Yet when he bumped his gums misinformation fell out And denier positions brought about further credibility fall
By Richard Littlemore • Saturday, April 4, 2009 - 13:26
Pity poor Tim Ball.
Despite having a short (eight years as a professor) and undistinguished (five peer-reviewed publications in his lifetime) career as a geography professor at the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Ball was able in the last 10 years to elevate himself to the level of self-appointed climate change expert. By working with energy industry lobby firms .. http://www.desmogblog.com/dr-tim-ball-the-lie-that-just-wont-die , he was able to insinuate himself as a would-be advisor to committees of the Canadian House of Commons and the the U.S. Senate. At one point, he presumed to send a letter directly to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, introducing himself as “one of the first climatology PhDs in the world .. http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Johnson%20statement%20of%20defence.pdf ,” - a claim so far from accurate as to be laughable.
By his activism, his constant and so-often ill-informed criticism of scientists who were actually working in the field of climate change, Ball had, by 2006, established himself as Canada’s pre-eminent global warming denier. The Globe and Mail called him “Mr. Cool,” although the accompanying feature .. http://www.charlesmontgomery.ca/mrcool.html .. was anything but complimentary.
Still, at least he was getting attention.
When someone (University of Lethbridge Professor Dan Johnson) finally called Ball on his trumped up resume, the uber-denier launched a suit of defamation. Big mistake. The statements of defence .. http://www.desmogblog.com/tim-ball-vs-dan-johnson-lawsuit-documents .. included more devastating slander than Ball had ever previously endured. Lawyers for the Calgary Herald, for example, dismissed him as someone “viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry, rather than as a practicing scientist.”
Ball abandoned his suit and went back to spreading disinformation in small prairie town service clubs. This blow to his credibility was such that he is no longer even a candidate for inclusion in the periodic lists that the climate denial industry creates to try to give the impression that there is still a legitimate scientific debate about climate change. For example, in a full page that the Cato Institute placed in five major American newspapers last week, Ball’s name was left off the list .. http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/cato_climate.pdf , in favour of “climate experts” like Dr. Susan Crockford, an archeoanthropologist who’s actual expertise in the evolutionary theory of the domestic dog. The folks at Cato might even be applauded for trransparency. Instead of using Ball, who has tried on many occasions to deny that his income derives directly or indirectly from oil and gas revenues, Cato included on his petition A Neil Hutton, the past president of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. There is clearly no question who’s interests the American Petroleum Industry-sponsored Cato is trying to defend - and without the help of a damaged ally like Tim Ball.
So now Dr. Ball is left with a dwindling audience, writing his weekly column in the little-known libertarian website Canada Free Press. There .. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9746 , recently, he set upon doctors James Hansen and Andrew Weaver, two of the most respected climate scientists on the continent. Both of these men have published more peer-reviewed research in a single season than Ball wrote in his entire career. Both have gained the respect and admiration of their professional colleagues and both are prominent contributors to the Nobel quality work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Both are also seriously (and justifiably) concerned about government inaction in the face of a slimate change threat that grows more daunting by the day. Ball is fond of dismissing concern as “alarmism” - as if alerting your neighbors to danger is somehow a bad thing.
It’s true that pulling the fire alarm in a theatre is an act of mischief - WHEN THERE IS NO FIRE. But when providing an early warning could save lives, it is an act of heroism. That may be especially the case when standing up to raise the alarm can subject you to the kind of ill-informed character assassination that Ball directs at Hansen and Weaver.
The question, for Dr. Ball - an expert with no credentials and, increasingly, an advocate with no audience - is this: If he would have us criticize Hansen and Weaver for alarmism - for “frightening people” in a theatre that is about to be engulfed in flames - what accusation would he hurl at the usher who blocks the door and recommends people return to their seats and ignore the smoke already curling around their head.
I’d suggest “criminal negligence” at the least, especially if that “usher” truly had above-average scientific understanding and was particularly able to assess the risk.
As the bodies start piling up, others may prescribe more dramatic charge - perhaps some variation of “deadly irresponsibility.” In the first degree.
Why Temperature Lags Behind C02 - another "global warming myth" explained
By Kevin Grandia • Friday, November 23, 2007 - 10:09
One of the more popular excuses right now among those who still seem to think global warming is a “myth” made up by left-wing scientists and an underground network of communist politicians, is the fact that in the earth's long history scientists have observed that increases of CO2 in our atmosphere have lagged behind rises in temperature.
This is in the minds of many, including climate science “experts” like John Stossel at ABC News .. javascript:openPopup('http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3873082',%20'popup',%20800,%20635); .. [video], puts to rest the whole idea that CO2 has anything to do with temperature.
Question: if John Stossel and others are so certain that this temperature/C02 lag somehow brings into question the theory of global warming, wouldn't scientists have heard of this and have accommodated for it in their research?
Answer: of course they have.
I asked one of the top climate scientists in the world, Dr. Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria .. http://web.uvic.ca/seos/people/weaver.htm , to explain the fact that C02 lags behind temperature rise.
Turns out that the answer is quite simple.
It also turns out, that Dr. Weaver is putting the finishing touches on a new book called Keeping our cool: Canada in a warming world, and he has a whole section on the very topic of C02/temperature lag that he kindly sent on.
Here's Dr. Weaver's simple explanation excerpted from his new book:
“Antarctic ice core records also contain valuable information regarding the relationship between temperature and the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.
It's only during the slow deglaciation process, however, that sufficient resolution is available to allow scientists to explore the statistical relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide.
Several groups around the world have independently examined a number of different Antarctic ice cores and found that during deglaciation, the local changes in Antarctic temperature led changes in carbon dioxide by about 800 ± 600 years.
That is, temperatures changed first and then greenhouse gas levels followed, precisely as one would expect.
The greenhouse gases act to amplify the otherwise small changes in seasonality associated with very long timescale variations in the Earth's orbital configuration.
Feedbacks, like those I discussed earlier in this chapter, act to amplify the level of carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour in the atmosphere. These cause further warming.
So the next time you hear your favourite global warming naysayer point out that carbon dioxide lags temperature by 800 years in the glacial record, don't be surprised. That's exactly how it must be.
There were no coal burning plants 21,000 years ago spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide levels increased in response to warming thereby amplifying this warming further.
Remember that changes in the Earth's orbital configuration affect seasonality, and not the total amount of radiation the Earth receives from the sun in any given year.
By itself, a change in the Earth's orbital configuration does not cause global warming or cooling; the small signal must be amplified, and this is precisely what changes in surface albedo, carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour do.
That is, it doesn't matter whether you put carbon dioxide in naturally or unnaturally, the fact remains that it is a greenhouse gas and traps outgoing longwave radiation.
And, we've known this for over 100 years. Cold climates can't be maintained without a depletion of greenhouse gases and warm climates can't be maintained without an excess of greenhouse gases.”
F6 you have covered this aspect of Alex Jones money making con before. Just while wincing at his Elmer Gantry-like spiel at the end of the video i had to include this, too.
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