Canadians Tim Ball and Tom Harris have a new post on PJ Media (the far right blog that was Breitbart before Breitbart was Breitbart) claiming that because “we have no way of knowing” past temperatures, future forecasts are “impossible.” With a headline that claims “In Bonn, a Global Warming Propaganda Tsunami Is Triggered,” we were curious to see what COP news they were talking about. We were disappointed.
Ball and Harris open the rambling 1400 word diatribe with a quote from Sherlock Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” In a move that would surely make Conan Doyle himself embarrassed, they use this as a framing for the first half of the piece focusing on alleged gaps in the temperature record. According to Ball and Harris’s dubious logic, there have never been enough thermometers--and what ones there were weren’t accurate enough--to provide a working understanding of the 20th century climate. There’s not enough data, they claim, to provide any answers.
From there the two men start wandering into standard IPCC-climate-models-are-all-wrong staple denial talking points. (Seems like they haven’t gotten the memo that the old IPCC models have proven accurate, and if anything have underestimated warming.)
When they finally find their way back to titular Bonn by pointing out that supporters of climate action use the IPCC as evidence, Ball and Harris go on to imply a conspiracy between politicians, press and activists “because scaremongering drives media sales, changes votes, and bolsters the bottom lie for environmental groups.” Were wondering if Ball and Harris have turned on a TV recently, since nightly news programs devoted a whole 50 minutes of coverage to climate in the entire year of 2016.
We’re guessing that Holmes would let out a wry chuckle about his words about twisting facts to fit a narrative being used to frame a piece where the authors twist their facts to fit a narrative. But even if one accepted their criticisms, bringing the famous detective in to defend a theory about how scientists can’t extrapolate from incomplete data is simply baffling. After all, using one small clue to uncover the larger truth was Sherlock’s whole schtick. That’s literally what detectives do.
If presented with this post and asked to deduce the author’s level of education, Sherlock Holmes probably would have said “Elementary, my dear Watson.”