As we patiently wait for Scott Pruitt to resign, stockpiling puns to use when the scandals are finally too many to count (Scott Blew it!) it’s a struggle to talk about anything else.
But we spotted an easy one yesterday, in a post by Anthony Watts, attacking NASA GISS head Gavin Schmidt. Watts apparently thinks it is “a troubling omission” that Schmidt failed to condemn a tweet which suggested that because “the ends justify the means” we fake graphs to make them more emphatic and “kill the arguments of climate deniers.”
For starters, not responding to a dumb tweet is hardly an endorsement. No one considers anyone responsible for social media comments made by other people.
But apparently Watts does. And if that’s the case, he should follow his own advice. Because his own commenters, in a rare show of true skepticism, were quick to point out that the account calling for fake graphs is a pro-Trump troll who retweets deniers and conspiracy theorists.
So the comment about faking graphs is rather obviously from a troll attempting satire, and not an actual climate alarmist. Which leaves Watts in an interesting position. Does he ignore his own commenters and leave the post up as an attack on Schmidt and NASA GISS? This would make Watts guilty of exactly the sort of “ends justifies the means” deception-by-proxy for which he criticizes Schmidt.
Or does Watts remove or amend the post to acknowledge that in his zeal to attack Schmidt he failed to do even a cursory amount of due diligence on whether or not it was an honest call for dishonest graphs? If he takes this route, he will at least be replying to comments made to him, which is what he’s calling on Schmidt to do. But it would also be an admission that his post standards aren’t truth and accuracy but whatever attacks are convenient.
Either way, Watts is guilty of a troubling omission himself. Either an omission of a correction to his falling for troll bait, or an omission of basic integrity and accountability in treating as serious what is obviously trolling and letting it stand uncorrected.
Not that we expect anything better from WUWT, whose apparent standard for post admission is whether it’s convenient for defending continued CO2 emissions, with truth an allowable omission. After all, it’s not truth but denial that’s the site’s e-mission.