back to article It's 2018 so, of course, climate.news is sold to climate change deniers

In what may be the perfect combination of everything wrong with 2018, the operator of the .news dot-word has sold a batch of premium .news domains to a purveyor of what can be best described as conspiratorial content for cretins. Describing itself as "the global leader in high-quality, new top-level Internet domains," Donuts …

  1. asdf

    A fool and his money. Ethics or morals are certainly not going to get in the way of someone taking people's money they are begging to be taken. That's the thing rarely discussed about fake news. Its not the case it exists only to fool people. Some people actively seek it out (and will even pay for it) to comfort them about their own world views.

    1. JohnFen

      "Fake news" pretty much simply means "something in the media that I disagree with" anyway.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Bollocks!

        Fake news is "news" that is unsubstantiated by observation and observable facts. And claims that try to undermine such validated observed news by contradicting it with unobserved and unobservable non-facts. As in comparing evidence based support for vaccination with the anti-vax cobblers based on a bit of faked research coming our of our own Royal Free Hospital because of one dodgy doctor - Wakefield.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          And so began the climate wars..

          Fake news is "news" that is unsubstantiated by observation and observable facts. And claims that try to undermine such validated observed news by contradicting it with unobserved and unobservable non-facts.

          That is the very essence of the climate debate. Many years ago, Dr James Hansen staged a presentation to US politicians where he showed a simple model predicting global warming based on a set of assumptions. That spawned many other models and predictions, and bitter debate around real vs fake news. Many billions have been spent on global warming mitigation, and many papers published and dissected. Here's one that was prepared earlier-

          https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0667.1

          Which should be good news, ie it's not as bad as was thought. But will likely be decried as 'fake news' because it's written by well known climate 'deniers'. Which is a very modern challenge. Trump was using the term 'fake news' a lot today, and organisations that may be a tad biased are setting themselves up to be the arbiters of truth.. Or shapers of perception. Anti-vaxxers are 'fake news', a lot of climate stuff is 'fake news'. Challenge is for people to overcome perception bias and decide the truth for themselves.

          Meanwhile, companies like this will happily flog subdomains for potentially controversial subjects because they'll generate traffic and ad revenues.

          1. Schultz

            "decried as 'fake news' because it's written by well known climate 'deniers'"

            I don't know why you make this claim about the cited article. The abstract seems to discuss the scientific consensus about climate warming (towards a new equilibrium that may be some 1.6 K warmer), as assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Maybe the authors ruined their reputation previously, but in the cited work they seem to just summarize reviewed scientific results.

            1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

              Re: "decried as 'fake news' because it's written by well known climate 'deniers'"

              Maybe the authors ruined their reputation previously, but in the cited work they seem to just summarize reviewed scientific results.

              Please read the whole abstract. It is quite clear towards the end that the claim in the article is that the predicted temperature data for sea temperature (a very common input variable into most global warming models) differs from observed. Not surprising. If it differed significantly, the hurricane patterns should have changed significantly and they have not. While we have had a few odd years, there is not enough changes to demonstrate something statistically significant.

              As with every research on a very hot topic (remember the fake clonings?) there is some good research and some bottom feeders related to meteorological science. That's now valid for both sides as the amount of money thrown at "no global warming" by the likes of Cox brothers has become roughly comparable to what scientists get as financing for global warming research with a confirmation bias.

              1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                Re: "decried as 'fake news' because it's written by well known climate 'deniers'"

                I think you mean Koch, not Cox. Although Brian Cox has made a few quid out of global warming. But funding is often an element of 'fake news', whether it's the Koch brothers, Soros or just Russians. But given the money involved, there is PR and lobbying. Some years ago, Fenton Communications created 'RealClimate' to promote global warming, now there's climate.news. Where there's money, there are agendas and it's up to us to try and figure out the truth. The paper I cited goes towards addressing this comment from the article-

                The latest lead article on climate.news? "The 'global warming' hoax: 30 years of failed predictions that never happened."

                OK, so it's a bit of a dogwhistle headline, but it's trivially true. Predictions were made based on climate models. Time passed, observations made, along with comparisons. Predictions typically have run hot compared to reality. Understanding why that is is both science and good news. So global warming probably isn't as bad as we thought, and it's likely due to overestimating the effect of CO2. Either that has less warming effect, or there's some negative feedback countering it. Observations don't match predictions though.

                1. TheVogon

                  Re: "decried as 'fake news' because it's written by well known climate 'deniers'"

                  "Predictions typically have run hot compared to reality. "

                  Not any more. If you look at say the IPCCs predictions versus the current rate of rise they were extremely conservative.

                  http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/TimeSeries2017.png

            2. Rogerborg 2.0

              Re: "decried as 'fake news' because it's written by well known climate 'deniers'"

              Ah, but burning witches doesn't contribute to climate change.

          2. TheVogon

            Re: And so began the climate wars..

            "where he showed a simple model predicting global warming based on a set of assumptions. "

            To put it a bit more precisely, he calculated and described several scenarios of what might happen if CO2 levels kept rising at different rates based on well known science - that CO2 in the atmosphere was increasing due to human activities was well known and CO2 had been known to be a greenhouse gas for over 100 years.

            1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: And so began the climate wars..

              To put it a bit more precisely, he calculated and described several scenarios of what might happen if CO2 levels kept rising at different rates based on well known science

              Nope, based on assumptions wrt the potential effects of elevated CO2. Which is the crux of the ECS debate, ie if CO2=X then how much warming? Hansen's model is good because it was presented to Congress in 1988. Climate scientists use a 30yr interval to describe climates. So 30 years on from his presentation and testimony, we can see the predictive skill. There's a great discussion of that here from it's 20th anniversary-

              https://climateaudit.org/2008/01/16/thoughts-on-hansen-et-al-1988/

              Where it clearly diverged from observations. And spawned much more debate denying any divergence, cries of 'fake news' and much bile. But the good thing about Hansen's testimony is it raised awareness and funding for what had been an academic backwater. More grants, new satellites, more data to analyse, reanalyse and refine our understanding of how our world works. At the time of Hansen's prediction, he didn't have that data. We do, and it appears to be showing low CO2 sensitivity, which is arguably good news. Problem is climate stuff is still highly tribal and politicised.

              1. TheVogon

                Re: And so began the climate wars..

                "Nope, based on assumptions wrt the potential effects of elevated CO2. Which is the crux of the ECS debate"

                It's not an assumption that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase the temperature. It's a scientific fact that is not disputed by a single recognised scientific institution on the planet. The first paper on CO2 increases causing global warming was published in 1896.

                "ie if CO2=X then how much warming?""

                Like the IPCCs climate projections of CO2 level over time versus temperature you mean? That higher atmospheric CO2 will heat the planet is not in any scientific doubt whatsoever.

                "Climate scientists use a 30yr interval to describe climates"

                No they don't. There is no fixed interval.

                Things have change in the decade since your article was published. For an accurate comparison, see:

                https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jun/25/30-years-later-deniers-are-still-lying-about-hansens-amazing-global-warming-prediction

          3. Mooseman Silver badge

            Re: And so began the climate wars..

            not as bad as we thought? Have you seen the latest predictions about the melt rate of the Antarctic ice?

        2. JohnFen

          I was talking about the term as it's commonly used in the US.

        3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "Fake news is "news" that is unsubstantiated by observation and observable facts. "

          To most right thinking people, you are correct, but the reality of the situation today is that "fake news" is whatever the speaker/writer is claiming it is today. Just look at Trumps comments on his interview with The Sun. He rambled on about recording all press interactions and called the story fake news. Well guess what, The Sun also recorded it. Likewise a BBC reported called out Trump for claiming he was at Turnberry the day before the Brexit vote and "called" the result to the accompanying press beforehand. When the BBC reporter called him on that (he was also there at the time, the day after the Brexit vote, not before), Trumps head of communications backed up her bosses comments. The BBC reporter got no further replies after pointing out that the flight passenger records showed Trump arriving in the UK AFTER the Brexit vote.

          the TL'DR version, yes, fake news is whatever the speaker/reader disagrees with at the time. It might be different tomorrow.

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            No claiming it's fake doesn't make it fake. believing it's fake equally doesn't make it fake. Being fake makes it fake.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              "No claiming it's fake doesn't make it fake. believing it's fake equally doesn't make it fake. Being fake makes it fake."

              Again, you are correct, but you are concentrating on the correct and literal meaning of the word "fake" rather then the popular consensus of the meaning(s) of the entire phrase "fake new" and how it is being used currently. It's a bit like pointing out the origins of the word decimate and ignoring the fact it's not been used in its original meaning for generations.

              1. Terry 6 Silver badge

                John Brown (no body)

                Sorry I disagree. "Fake(news) still means fake. All that has changed is the frequency that it is used to undermine honest truth by mislabelling it. This is not Orwell's Newspeak however chilling it may be. The meaning remains the same. The blatancy and frequency in which it is misused has changed, that's all.

      2. Tom 35

        "something in the media that I disagree with"

        No, that's just the Trump version.

  2. Rich 11

    FFS

    "In an age of 'fake news' and too much clutter, we want to offer readers high-quality, fact-based news content," said WebSeed CEO Mike Texas – in the actual press release from Donuts announcing the sale of the gTLD.

    Liar.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: FFS

      He's probably got a PhD in BS and was awarded a golden shovel at graduation.

      1. Ashley_Pomeroy

        Re: FFS

        I read that as "golden shower" for a few seconds - but perhaps he was.

      2. Eddy Ito

        Re: FFS

        PhD meaning Piled high & Deep I presume.

        1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

          Re: PhD

          Can also mean

          "Public House Drunkard"

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: PhD

            "Public House Drunkard"

            That's extremely apt for any actual philosopher. Doing it in an office has a nasty tendency for the philosopher to go insane.

  3. SVV

    good.news

    Describing itself as "the global leader in high-quality, new top-level Internet domains," Donuts announced the sale of science.news

    Aaaah, I remember the days, when buying onlinenaturalfertiliser.com was going to make you a zillionaire selling shit over the web. Nice of them to enable another re-run of that sure fire way to glory. Nothing screams "global leader", "high quality" and "top level" more than a company called Donuts.

  4. JohnFen

    gTLDs

    Fortunately, there are quite a lot of people (including myself) who regard any gTLD domain name to be automatically suspect to begin with.

    1. Winkypop Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: gTLDs

      ****** WE HAVE A WINNER ******

    2. Ashley_Pomeroy

      Re: gTLDs

      I note that Donuts itself uses donuts.domain - it appears that they don't actually own donuts.com. That must hurt.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    is there a flatearth.news or even a homeopathy.news? We need good websites that don't let science, facts and evidence get in the way. Remember even idiots need places to go on the internet other than Facebook.

    1. Rich 11

      I can't for the life of me figure out why you got downvoted at all. There must be something wrong with my brain. Maybe I can exchange it for one used by a flat-earther homeopath, because they sure as fuck aren't using it.

      1. GrumpyOldBloke

        Perhaps AC got down voted for his fake news viewpoint. While flat earth is fairly easy to disprove, homeopathy - the traditional system of medicine in many parts of Asia for thousands of years - cannot be dismissed so easily. The scientific approach would be for AC to propose his theory, construct and conduct a series of tests and observations to prove his theory and then publish the results to let others pick over the method and the conclusions. One wrong step and his theory is disproved and we all go back to a state of healthy skepticism of all such claims - for and against.

        Simply claiming as AC implies that homeopathy is idiotic with no supporting evidence is mere belief or prejudice - what we might call fake news - and worthy of many down votes.

        1. Rich 11
          FAIL

          WTF!!

          homeopathy - the traditional system of medicine in many parts of Asia for thousands of years - cannot be dismissed so easily.

          It most certainly can be dismissed easily. Homeopathy flies in the face of all we know about chemistry and dose-response biology. The idea that diluting a substance to the point where it is vanishingly unlikely that even a single molecule remains yet the greater the dilution the greater the potency of the cure is utter stupidity. You must also not be aware that homeopathy has been tested many times, and that the only near-positive results come from small, badly designed trials and not from large, well designed ones. No amount of claiming that it is 'the wisdom of the ancients', as you fallaciously argue, can overcome that. Shame on you.

          1. Rich 11
            FAIL

            Re: WTF!!

            I forgot to add that you're also wrong about it being a Chinese system of medicine. Homeopathy was invented by a German doctor in 1802. I think you must be confusing it with acupuncture, the other great steaming pile of bullshit which infests the brains of far too many people around the world.

            1. Stoneshop
              Headmaster

              Re: WTF!!

              Homeopathy was invented by a German doctor in 1802.

              s/doctor/quack/

              1. Mike Ozanne

                Re: WTF!!

                "Homeopathy was invented by a German doctor in 1802.

                s/doctor/quack/"

                That's a little unfair... he developed a therapy set that effectively did nothing, when doing nothing was often more beneficial than applying the medical treatments of the time...Chuck in the placebo effect and for 1802 you have what appears to be a superior system of medicine.

              2. strum

                Re: WTF!!

                >s/doctor/quack/

                In 1802, there wasn't much of a distinction between the two.

          2. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: WTF!!

            Rich 11

            Well said. One of the weapons of the fake news/Anti-vaxxers/etc. is to say that a 100% negative hasn't been proved. But of course it never can be, let alone to their loony "standards". Because no negative ever can be proved 100%. I can't 100% prove that there aren't fairies at the bottom of my garden, or that there isn't a conspiracy of lizards running the world.

          3. JimBob42

            Re: WTF!!

            The unlikelihood of there being any active ingredient present is a feature, not a bug. The entire enterprise is premised on the idea that water is magic and has a memory of compounds it has been in contact with.

            1. Just Enough

              Re: WTF!!

              "The entire enterprise is premised on the idea that water is magic and has a memory of compounds it has been in contact with."

              It's more magic than that. It relies on water have a memory of *some* of the compounds it has been in contact with (i.e. the ones that homeopaths are charging for) and no memory at all of all the others.

              Otherwise every glass of water on the planet would contain a homeopathic remedy for every ailment known to medicine, at really powerfully diluted concentrations, for free.

              1. Eddy Ito

                Re: WTF!!

                Otherwise every glass of water on the planet would contain a homeopathic remedy for every ailment known to medicine, at really powerfully diluted concentrations, for free.

                Unless that glass was filled from a tap in my previous apartment. The water from which smelled more heavily of chlorine than did the swimming pool.

            2. Rich 11

              Re: WTF!!

              the idea that water is magic and has a memory of compounds it has been in contact with.

              About ten or twelve years ago I was wandering aimlessly in the area around Russell Square on one of those very rare days in my life when I was all museumed out. I found myself on a street running alongside the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital and, heeding the call of nature, nipped down an alleyway for a slash. I like to think that every subsequent shower of rain that strikes the back of that building potentises my contempt for the idiocy which is homeopathy.

        2. katrinab Silver badge

          Homœopathy != herbal medicine, and is not "the traditional system of medicine in many parts of Asia for thousands of years". Homœopathic remedies are no different to, and no more effective than placebos.

    2. Mage Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Fake news

      The UK Guardian running fake news on "Mobile phones cause cancer". A cherry picked study of rat tissues rather than large surveys of humans with real phones.

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/14/mobile-phones-cancer-inconvenient-truths

      A distortion of research on the subject.

      Though the BBC has been dreadful for science reporting for years.

      WiFi sensitivity!

      Facebook only demoting rather than removing PROVEN fake news.

      It's curious that some Victorians wanting to attack the Church of England invented the Mediaeval Flat Earth myth. Historically most people didn't think about such things, but those that did usually figured out the Earth's diameter not too badly.

      Though the Victorians didn't invent Fake News. The Ancient Greeks worried about it and knew it was a problem. The Fake news is so often more attractive, compelling, fun etc than the real stuff. Sometimes seems more likely that the real news!

      Is the UK really stockpiling processed foods, medicine and for NI, electricity generators? I've given up trying to decide on some of it.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Fake news

        Yes, weapon number two* of the anti-science conspiracy theorists is to undermine the strength of the science by equating it with other trivial irrelevant or even non-existent material (Darwin is just a theory). The BBC is terrible for this. They'll, say, bring a respected scientist into the studio but then square him/her off with a known climate denying spokesman with no scientific background. as if that person has equal credentials.

        *Version 2b is to undermine the science by focussing on minor or non-substantive variations to argue that the scientist aren't agreed.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      is there a flatearth.news or even a homeopathy.news?

      There is a homeopathy.news, but if you read more than a byte of it, it doesn't work.

  6. Crazy Operations Guy

    Nothing worthwhile in the post-2012 gTLDs anyway

    I've been running my own pseudo-root DNS server just so I can block so much of this bullshit. It grabs the root.zone file off the internic ftp site once a week, then goes into the downloaded file, and rips out every TLD longer than 3 characters, most of the 3-letter ones, and a selection of the two-letter ones. Absolutely no regrets.

    I even block my employer's gTLD since it does nothing but redirect to the appropriate sub-domain of the .com page (really, all it is is a bunch of CNAME records for each of the subdomains with an @ CNAME to point to www.company.com).

    1. -tim

      Re: Nothing worthwhile in the post-2012 gTLDs anyway

      You don't need to delete the gTLD, you need to point them to a mostly useless zone file that provides the proper info for the anti-spam filters. That zone file should also point www.@ to a local web site that says "computer says no" while counting the people trying to visit while providing reports of people most likely to click where they shouldn't.

      1. Crazy Operations Guy

        Re: Nothing worthwhile in the post-2012 gTLDs anyway

        I've been thinking about updating it to do stuff like what you recommend; right now its just a simple shell script that I wrote back in later 2012 and isn't much more than a 'curl', a dozen 'sed' lines, and the 'kill -HUP' to restart bind.

  7. Thought About IT

    Something in common

    Climate change deniers, Trump supporters and Brexiteers all seem to have the same aversion to facts and in a Venn diagram they would likely be the intersection of all three sets.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Something in common

      4 downvotes have proved you right.

      Have an upvote on me.

    2. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: Something in common

      @ Thought About IT

      Amusingly you could pick the other sides and the Venn diagram will still intersect with their aversion to facts. Almost like tribes stick with their tribes through right and wrong.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bollocks

    "....all seem to have the same aversion to facts"

    As do people who make sweeping generalisations.

    1. Craig 2
      Trollface

      Re: Bollocks

      "....all seem to have the same aversion to facts"

      "As do people who make sweeping generalisations."

      Err.. that's a pretty sweeping generalisation...

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Bollocks

      Everything counts in large amounts.

      I'm sure people thought others were just generalizing about Nazis as well, eh?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Denier?

    Climate change denier? ... so these are people interested in meteorological change and who judge the thickness of yarns? https://www.wikihow.com/Identify-the-Denier-of-Hosiery

    1. Stoneshop
      Holmes

      Re: Denier?

      so these are people interested in meteorological change and who judge the thickness of yarns?

      Well, with average temperatures rising one tends to see a significant decrease in, or even absence of hosiery, and a corresponding reduction of the thickness of the yarn out of which it's made.

  10. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    So, simply avoid all .news sites

    Thanks for the heads up.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      especially fake.news which I am suddenly tempted to try to grab

      1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge

        Ironically, fake.news would presumably carry impeccably vetted, accurate, and impartial news articles.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          $ whois fake.news

          This platinum domain is available for purchase. If you would like to make an offer, please contact platinums@donuts.email.

          Oh, platinum. I had better make a pretty sweet offer, then. J/K, I ain't got time for that anyway. Well, if I could afford it, I'd probably just have it redirect to whitehouse.gov

        2. John Savard

          Since they really have a fake.news domain, once it's sold, it probably will carry...

          links to impeccably verified, accurate, and impartial news articles

          from stories explaining why they are fake news.

  11. aidanstevens
    Stop

    ISTR it wasn't all that long ago that El Reg was posting climate change denial nonsense. Happy to see it's turned a corner.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Read this: https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2018/06/Berkhout.pdf

      1. TheVogon

        "Read this: "

        Yes, perfect example of fake news.

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge

        What a curious site. I went to the top level and found this as the first item:

        New Report: Recycling Plastic Is Making Ocean Litter Worse

        Next... Black is white and up is down.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Dan 55

          But the main feature of such sites is that you can't trust anyone who may know what they're talking about. And sadly that's become mainstream politics. We don't trust "experts", after all, what do they know?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed!

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/dec/17/register-climate-myths

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Read the guardian!? Wash your mouth out with soap!

        I'd sooner read the New York Times for fake news

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There is a big difference in denying that climate is changing (which it is and always has been) and questioning the accepted "truth" that mankind is the ONLY cause.

      Trump et al are in that first camp and are complete fucking morons.

      Others, including myself, are in the second camp but sadly our message has been undermined by that orange moron in the White House.

      There is a very good reason for me to be a Man-Made Climate Change skeptic - I've seen the code that comprises the computer models used to make predictions and it is complete and utter crap that I would fail big time if it came to me for code review. I have a background in both geophysics and software development and also in computer modelling so I think I know complete and utter crap code that I wouldn't rely on predicting the setting of the sun let alone the climate!

      I'm not a climate denier, I'm a climate skeptic.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        There is a big difference in denying that climate is changing (which it is and always has been) and questioning the accepted "truth" that mankind is the ONLY cause.

        Please try not to lie. Climate scientists do not believe, and never have believed, that humans are the only cause of climate change. Apart from anything else they know about things like ice ages.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Please try not to lie. Climate scientists do believe, and always have believed, that humans are the main cause of modern climate change.Even though they know about things like ice ages.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Clever: a response which looks like you are disagreeing with me, but actually isn't. Very good.

      2. itzman

        I dont think Trump denies climate changes. I think he denies that man has a serious impact that's all.

      3. TheVogon

        "and questioning the accepted "truth" that mankind is the ONLY cause."

        The position accepted by >97% of climate scientists is that the planet is warming and that humans are at least a SIGNIFICANT cause of that.

      4. TheVogon

        "I've seen the code that comprises the computer models used to make predictions and it is complete and utter crap that I would fail big time if it came to me for code review. "

        You don't need to look at the projections of the future. Just look at recent history - www.woodfortrees.org

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Alien

      I think the person who was spouting that nonsense got buried in a pit.

  12. Terry 6 Silver badge

    News

    It is almost as of the term "news" has been hijacked and come to mean, on the internet at least, "It's not what they're telling you."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: News

      It is almost as of the term "news" has been hijacked and come to mean, on the internet at least, "It's not what they're telling you."

      Of course that's what it means.

      If you want to start a war, first start a heated debate about fox hunting and devote 100 times more attention to that.

      If you want to not talk about the global financial crisis, talk about gay marriage instead.

      If you want to take control of the lifeblood of civilization - energy - talk about 'climate change' instead, and quietly use that as an excuse to take control.

      By definition the real news is what they are not talking about.

  13. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Facepalm

    donut?

    Shirley that should be D'oh, Nuts!

  14. P. Lee

    Fake news?

    Then you should be banned from the internet. We should be able to trust all things which have "news" in the name!

    I'm sure that will fix everything.

  15. Eddy Ito
    Meh

    Comes as no surprise

    not.news

    /\.news$/ REJECT

    or as appropriate.

  16. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Weapon 3

    Weapon 3 of the science deniers is to deny the credibility of the scientists. 2b will have laid the groundwork. All that's needed then is to suggest that the scientists are working for some evil enterprise. (Big Pharma is good, because that one is, to say the least, a bit too plausible. But the government is always there as Aunt Sally if needed). It becomes beautifully circular, self defining and impervious at that point. Any further scientist who supports the research is obviously in on the conspiracy - otherwise they wouldn't be confirming the research, because everyone knows it's a fake..Anyone who questions the reason (why would they go to to all that trouble and risk to fake the moon landings?) is just a dupe. Unless they are in on it, of course.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Weapon 3

      Exactly. You cant trust these people who work for the Koch Brothers and the GWPF.,

      Nothing they say counts no matter how good scientists they are.

      Only scientists whose livelihood depends on them mentioning climate change can be trusted to be impartial.

      Along with journalists and writers who have made a career out of climate change, green organisations whose profile and importance has never been higher, because of climate change, politicians with backhander payments from renewable energy companies, whose influence has never been greater, big oil and gas, that realise renewable energy is a crock of shit, but want to see the end of coal and nuclear for sure.

      OH yes, you can trust all those people implicitly

      Why would they lie?

  17. Byron "Jito463"

    It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

    I'm not in any way affiliated with the website from the article, and haven't even looked at it so I don't really know (or care) if they're right or not. The thing is, most of us labeled "climate change deniers" are more accurately "man-made climate change" deniers. It's utter hubris for mankind to believe we can affect - for good or for bad - the climate of the entire planet. We cannot change it, and we cannot "save" it.

    Of course, I believe in a God who's in control, so probably half the people reading my comment will just ascribe me as a religious kook and ignore what I have to say.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

      If you believe in a God who's in control, then why do wars, nukes, diseases, hangovers, et al exist ?

      If you claim that those particular ills exist because of $REASONS$ (nature as designed by god works that way / free will / gods "big plan", take your pick) then why would manmade global warming through CO2 (a well documented mechanism, much like gravity and the theory of evolution) be exempt from that ? We have shit our bed before at smaller scales, technology is an enabler to do so at ever increasing scale.

      1. Byron "Jito463"

        Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

        "If you believe in a God who's in control, then why do wars, nukes, diseases, hangovers, et al exist ?"

        All I'll say to that, is that God gives us free will to make our own choices, that still doesn't mean we have the power to affect an entire planet. Beyond that, I refuse to have a dialogue with someone who's too scared to post without the 'anonymous' option. I knew what I stated would be controversial (at least on here), and still chose not to post anonymously. I guess I'm just more willing to stand behind what I believe than some others.

        1. Spacedinvader
          Trollface

          Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

          Does he have noodley appendages? If not, fake %DEITY%

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

      Right, it's just obviously not the case that puking billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere can make any difference at all, right? The same way it's just obviously not the case that, for instance, the landscape of the UK is different now than it was ten thousand years ago because we've cut down a lot of trees, grown a lot of crops &c &c. No: ten thousand years ago there were fields and hedges just like there are now. Oh, wait, no, that's all some stupid bullshit.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

        I suggest you look at the mauna loa and stallite CO2 data.

        CO2 fluctuates massively throughout the year.

        And not in step with where industrial emissions are either.

        What does it all mean?

        That whatever is going on, is not exactly what they are claiming...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

          'What it means' is that you don't understand enough (or, probably, anything) about the dynamics of CO2 in the atmosphere, and you're therefore making really stupid statements. I wish there was any point discussing it but experience shows that arguing with anonymous cowards is, well, as fruitful as you'd expect.

    3. Anonymous Cow Herder

      Re: It's not about whether the earth is warming (or cooling)

      " more accurately man-made climate change deniers" - So you accept that the climate is warming, but you think its all part of Gods plan to cook us alive. Nice.

      Build another ark, but this time out of asbestos.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    History will judge

    Who are the climate deniers.

    People who go by the evidence?

    Or people who produce computer models using parametrised linear modelling to model intrinsically chaotic non linear processes and then say the science is settled?

    When you said they had sold it to climate deniers I thought you meant skepticalscience or realclimate.

    Both oxymnorons,. or perhaps just morons.

    People who 'believe in Global warming' either dont understand science, or haven't stuidied the data closely enough...

    20 years of warming followed by 20 years of almost no warming is completely inconsistent with the proposition that carbon dioxide (which has risen steadily and monotonically the whole 40 years) is te main cause of climate change today.

    You cannot match a mesa to a slope, no matter how hard you try, without introducing something else.

    And the moment you do that, Carbon dioxide is NOT the main driver,. The thing you introduced to 'fix' global warming is.

    Pah!

    And then the 'readjustment' of historical data to put the hockey stick back in?

    That is really scraping the barrel guys.

    No honest scientist believes in AGW these days.

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