A new low from creepy sleazy Anthony Watts, stalking climate scientists and reading their emails
Sou | 4:19 PM
Anthony Watts is a creep. Yes, you knew that. Today there's another example. He wrote about how he's been stalking climate scientists and their families (archived here). It's another low from Anthony Watts, posting aerial shots of what he said was the roof of the homes of some scientists in the USA. He was pawing through the Internet and Google Earth looking to find climate scientists who didn't have solar panels on their roofs. Anthony wrote:
From the “arch denier Watts leads the way” department (see my photos below) I thought it would be interesting to see how many climate scientists actually have solar power on their home, so I did an aerial survey to find out. The results don’t speak well for them. Don’t worry, I did not disclose anyone’s address – AnthonyThe first thing that struck me was how sleazy that was. The second was how offensive it is to judge a person's understanding of climate change by whether they had solar panels or not. The third thing that I noticed was that most of the photos showed houses surrounded by trees. Trees have a habit of blocking the sun and don't mix well with solar panels. Another thing I noticed was that he got some houses wrong - one he discovered and at least one he didn't.
Anthony doesn't approve of governments offering incentives to install solar, even though he has admitted he himself got a government rebate via PG&E. Nor does he understand that installations should be sited well. He wrote about Dr James Hansen having the solar panels on the roof of the barn not the roof of the house, if it was his house. The house was surrounded by trees, the barn was not. It's not uncommon for people to put solar panels on the roof of the garage or other building nearby if the house is subject to shade. Anthony implied that this wasn't good enough.
No, scientists do not have to stop living their lives, and neither do you
His article reminded me of an article by Michael Mann on Facebook. He pays for his electricity to be provided by windpower, not solar. But that's not the point. He wrote this when he saw a comment implying that climate scientists should stop leading normal lives if they are to be believed about climate. The implication was that if scientists use modern transport to go to Antarctica or their university or wherever to study climate change, then they are hypocrites. Professor Mann wrote:
I actually find this sort of argument rather offensive. Nobody--at least not I, certainly--is telling anyone they have to stop living their lives, that they have to stop traveling etc. That is a straw-man argument promoted by propagandists like Bjorn Lomborg. By parroting their specious claims you are facilitating their attacks.
I have been quite consistent and clear in arguing that what we need to do is put a price on the emission of carbon and incentivize, dramatically, the shift away from fossil fuel burning to renewable energy. We can do this in a way that is not in general disruptive of a reasonable lifestyle. If you ask, am I in my own life doing what I can do to decrease my carbon footprint, then the answer is yes--I get my electricity from wind power (I pay extra for that but am happy to), I drive a hybrid vehicle, I recycle, reuse, and reduce energy and resource usage wherever possible. Personal responsibility plays a role, but any real solution is going to require policy change at the highest level, including a price on carbon. I have pretty much devoted by life to trying to make that happen. So let's stop with the false dichotomies, specious arguments and the crypto-ad homs, and focus on the problem at hand. Thanks.Anthony posted a photo of what he claimed was Michael Mann's house - except it wasn't!
Anthony Watts plays hero and persecuted victim
Deniers would be delighted if climate scientists gave up their careers and went to live in caves, surviving on cold stone soup. They want scientists to stop observing how rapidly climate change is occurring and reporting what's causing it.
Anthony boasted about how put up some solar panels a couple of years ago, and played both hero and persecuted victim in the process, in the style of conspiracy theorists:
But, I’m the evil one, according to many climate scientists, anonymous coward bloggers, and activists.I remember coming across his articles from back when he installed his panels. He tried to make money out of his readers. He also didn't know that the rebate he got from PG&E was from the government - it was part of the government's renewables incentive program!
Scientists use email therefore climate science is a hoax
This intrusion into the personal lives of scientists from Anthony Watts is more than distasteful, more than offensive, it's downright creepy. He makes a habit of it. In another article today (archived here), he is rubbing his grubby hands together at the prospect of wrapping them around up to sixteen years of personal emails belonging to two eminent climate scientists, Professors Malcolm Hughes and Jonathan Overpeck from the University of Arizona.
With deniers, the content of emails doesn't matter. They never find anything in them that shows wrong-doing or that climate science is a hoax. With conspiracy theorists, all that's needed to prove their "climate hoax" conspiracy is the existence of emails. Using email is proof that climate science is a hoax, in the mind of science deniers. When they can't find anything wrong with the emails, that just proves to the utter nutter deniers that the conspiracy is deeper and darker than ever and extends even further. It's not even evident in private emails! (Climate science deniers are nutty as a fruit cake and are, by definition, conspiracy theorists.)
A Cautionary Postscript
The horrific assassination of British MP Jo Cox should act as a caution for Anthony Watts and his personal vendetta against scientists, whose only "crime" is doing scientific research. He should be very wary of doing or writing anything that would lead one of his nutters to do something like that. I doubt he'll stop.
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