Misinterpreting a new study requires there to be a new study in the first place. Though it may seem obvious, this basic truth was evidently lost on the throngs of deniers who pounced on a story about solar variability that appeared on the news aggregator ScienceDaily—on May 12, 2008.

The piece, entitled “Solar Variability: Striking a Balance with Climate Change,” makes the point that, over the course of the Earth’s history, the sun and volcanic eruptions have typically exerted the largest influence on climate change. In recent decades, however, the sun’s influence in particular has been replaced by that of anthropogenic activity—something which Robert Cahalan, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, says “has never happened before.”

Yesterday I wrote a piece outlining the apparently illogical pseudo-science being sold by Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters as justification for doing nothing to solve the crisis of human-induced global warming. 

Shepard tries to make the claim that the discovery of the world's oldest tree by Dr. Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University's department of ecology and environmental science in Sweden, somehow brought into question the entire theory of human-caused global warming. 

Presumably, Shepard did not attempt to contact Dr. Kullman before putting in front of his readership the misinformation that he did. I know this because I emailed Dr. Kullman last night to comment on Sheppard's piece and got this concise answer:

I find it quite strange how an old tree can be used in the climate change controversy." 

So will Newsbusters be willing to correct their mistake? Will Sheppard do the responsible thing and print a correction? 

It didn't take long for Noel Shepard at Newsbusters to twist a new study on the discovery of the oldest living tree to fit his notion that the world' top scientists have it all wrong when it comes to human-induced climate change.

The study, carried out by a team led by Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University's department of ecology and environmental science in Sweden, has found the world's oldest tree living in the mountains of Sweden.

Somehow Sheppard has got it in his head that this finding:

[results] in a total rewrite of climate history while bringing into serious question global warming theories espoused by Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his sycophant devotees."

 

For the past week, the breathless buzz on the global warming denier blogs and radio programs has been about a certain BBC News article regarding the temporary cooling effect of El Niña this year.

What do you do if you are an oil-industry sweetheart of a 'news group' and you need to challenge climate science?

Be smug and use sarcasm of course. Newsbusters.org wrote a criticism within a criticism, taking to task the New York Times' 2 reviews of a new film on global warming's effects on polar bears, called 'Arctic Tale'.

Apparently 2 glowing reviews of the movie in less than a week was enough to get columnist Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters a little hot under the collar.

The "Liberal Media" bashing Newsbusters is complaining today that the American media have ignored the 2005 Climate Catastrophe Cancelled video produced by the "Friends of Science."

Newsbusters asks: "Think you’ll see this video on American television any time soon?"

If it is to appear on American TV, which based on the quality of production and factual inaccuracies I am guessing not, here's a bit more on the Friends of Science and Newsbusters for you to consider.