In this article in the Texas-based Energy Tribune, Dr. Tim Ball, lead spokesperson for the energy industry front group the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, says, “Current weather and climate changes are not outside long-term normal patterns.”

That’s just not true.

He says, “Recently, focus shifted from global warming to climate change because global temperatures have declined since 1998 while human addition of CO2 has increased, thus confounding the theory.”

Per the attached graph , it IS true that 1998 stands as the hottest year on record. But it’s hard to describe what has happened since as a “decline.”

Ball says that the whole theory of climate change – a theory endorsed by everyone from the Royal Society and the American Academies of Science to ExxonMobil – is part of a left-wing plot to de-industrialize society. Well, it’s interesting to see Alcoa Inc. (AA), BP America Inc. (BP), DuPont Co. (DD), Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), General Electric Co. (GE), and Duke Energy Corp. joining the “socialist plot” by calling for mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions .

It is difficult to address the nature of Ball’s arguments without straying into something that looks like an ad hominemattack. But when someone says things that are bizarre (the anti-industrial plot), misleading (the temperature decline) or demonstrably false (the normality of current weather or the details of Ball’s own academic credentials), it seems that someone should rise to shout him off the stage.