The dishonest James Delingpole

“it is not my job to read peer reviewed papers”

Every now and again while swimming through the reams of information on the Internet you come across someone who is particularly nasty and evil. In this case, it is on James Delingpole from the United Kingdom. There are many ways to make money. If you are a failed journalist you can become a prostitute, a gang member, a drug mule or in the case of this person, a climate change “skeptic”. I put the word, “skeptic” in inverted comma`s, because no respected skeptics society or free thinkers society around the world would support James Delingpole`s views.

This is a self professed right wing extremist who swaggers around telling people that “he is always right” (a play on words that is meant to indicate his political ideology and his narcissistic self belief in what he writes).

James Delingpole’s contributions to human academia include such beautiful gems as, “365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy”, “Welcome To Obamaland: I’ve Seen Your Future And It Doesn’t Work”, and “How To Be Right”.

The ideology he represents

He is a self professed libertarian. For those of you that do not understand your political ideologies, libertarianism is a rather extremist belief that a completely unregulated market is better, and that governments suck. Its the opposite side of the coin to communism, and like communists, libertarians claim their system works “perfectly in theory”.

Right wing Libertarians tend to ignore main stream economic theory and make up their own (quickly debunked) economic theory mostly prostrated by astro turfed institutions such as the Mises Institute. They quote Von Mises like other people would quote baby Jesus.

It’s a faith based economic ideological system with absolutely no science and very little main stream economics to support it (in fact, most main stream science and economics contradict what libertarian economists have spammed us with).

Libertarianism is to economic theory what creationism is to evolutionary theory. It’s pseudo-scientific, pseudo-economic word play. It has absolutely no practical use (hence why the closest country we can see to being a truly libertarian society is Somalia.) The most respected example you have of a libertarian is Ron Paul… and even he is a right wing racist joke to the rest of the world.

Libertarianism is supported by corrupt billionaires that want more profit, less taxation and less regulation. One of the regulations they hate so much is climate change regulation. It affects their profits and bottom line. This is the reason why astro turfed organizations such as the American Tea Party and dishonest writers like James Delingpole (directly or indirectly) get paid for their dishonesty by billionaires like the Koch Brothers. If you read this last link I posted you will notice what the Koch brothers want, and what James writes are almost identical. Right down to the Obama and liberal hating.

A good example of a Libertarian and their war against liberals can be seen in the recent tragedy in Norway where the Libertarian Anders Behring Breivik went on a massive killing spree, specifically targeting modern social liberals and more heinously, targeting modern social liberal kids.

Anyways, tabloid headlines for people with below average IQ`s aside, let’s concentrate on his work that is relevant to this website. Here at the BCSS we keep a close eye on all news climate-related so we are able to keep a close eye on all the bullsh*tters out there.

The pseudoscience James Delingpole punts

I think the simplest way to sum up this whole section is to quote James Delingpole himself, ‘it is not my job’ to read peer reviewed papers”. Yup, the chap that is so critical of scientific publications and climate change science is too lazy and stupid to read the actual source documents.

James Delingpole has a massive opinion on climate change, but could not be bothered to actually read the research. One has to ask oneself what is the political motivation behind someone that they are willing to take such a strong stance on such an important issue such as climate change, but is unwilling or unable to actually read the science behind it. To any thinking man or woman this is an affront to intellectual honesty. For James Delingpole it is just another days work.

So we know that James Delingpole knows very little about science, but has a very strong opinion on science. Earlier on I referred to James as being narcissistic with his “always right” comment. This is further shown in how he treats climate change scientists. Amazingly, James Delingpole (who has absolutely no scientific training or background) seems to think it’s his place in the world to tell people who have dedicated their entire lives to the field that they are wrong and stupid (Yup, he called them stupid).

James Delingpole is so confident in his “always right” motto that he believes he knows more than every single respected national and international scientific body currently in existence (remember, this is the type of guy who wouldn’t know scientific work if it walked up to him and smacked him on the side of the head with a particle accelerator).

When recently asked about the scientific consensus by scientists on climate change his response was, “the very idea of a consensus is unscientific”. No sh*t Sherlock. It’s a political consensus because people like James Delingpole who have absolutely no knowledge on scientific theory (and who are primarily sponsored by large corporations that that don’t want their bottom line affected) have made normal science a massive political issue. It’s no longer a scientific issue, hence the consensus is not based on the scientific method but on political need to educate people people who are being confused by dishonest journalists like James.

The science on climate change is pretty settled.

1) We know the earth is warming (this has been verified by many independent studies… unfortunately the type that James is unable to read and understand).
2) We know that CO2 causes the earth to warm.
3) We know we are producing the majority of the CO2 causing the warming.

A couple of Scientific organizations that James believes he knows more than:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
U.S. Global Change Research Program
Arctic Council
International Arctic Science Committee
InterAcademy Council
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
Network of African Science Academies
Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Society of the United Kingdom
Polish Academy of Sciences
National Research Council (US)
American Association for the Advancement of Sciences
American Chemical Society
American Institute of Physics
American Physical Society[
European Physical Society
European Science Foundation
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
American Geophysical Union
American Society of Agronomy
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
Geological Society of American
Geological Society of London
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
National Association of Geoscience Teachers
American Meteorological Society
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
World Meteorological Organization
American Quaternary Association
International Union for Quaternary Research
American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Society for Microbiology
Australian Coral Reef Society
Institute of Biology (UK)
Society of American Foresters
The Wildlife Society (international)
American Academy of Pediatrics
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Medical Association
American Public Health Association
Australian Medical Association
World Federation of Public Health Associations
World Health Organization

I have listed just a handful of the thousands of respected academic institutions around the world that are part of the scientific consensus on climate change. Of course, our main man James Delingpole believes he knows more than all those pesky scientists. Even after he has admitted that he does not read their work.

Conclusion

It’s pretty clear that James Delingpole suffers from the Dunning–Kruger effect ([1]The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.) or is intentionally pushing a destructive political ideology for his own selfish interests.

A recent tweet on Twitter by our esteemed liar:

“”OMG. Just realised you actually edit that comedy, Warmist-shill, junk-science publication! Bye bye, you silly, deluded boy.“”

When you see James throwing around words like, “it’s junk science”, you know he has absolutely no clue about what he is talking about. Take James Delingpole as seriously as you would China discussing human rights, or Iran discussing constitutional democracy. James, by his own admissions, does not know or understand science, and would not be able to tell good science from junk science. He is a climate change troll, a liar, and a small hack for a sensationalist right-wing tabloid in the UK. I’ve honestly seen more integrity in a broadcast by Glenn Beck (another famous Libertarian) than I do from the work of James Delingpole.

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