Climate science – and perhaps the definition of science itself – is in for an update, thanks to the tireless work of tobacco and oil industry apologist, Dr. S. Fred Singer.

Singer and his current writing buddy, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery, have discovered an artful argument to prove that we don’t have to worry about climate change. Specifically, they found “t housands of museum paintings that portrayed sunnier skies during the Medieval Warming and more cloudiness during the Little Ice Age .”

Well, no wonder everyone is so nostalgic about Medieval times: the weather was better. Or, at the very least, the painters were more cheerful.

Faithful DeSmog readers will know from previous posts that Singer is happy to tell the most flagrant and easily disputed lies on behalf of his oily clients. Here’s a man who denied an oil-industry connection even while Exxon was citing him as a funding recipient on its own website. We also know that Exxon has funded the Hudson institute and that Avery has (coincidentally?) shifted his preoccupation from misrepresenting the cuddly nature of pesticides to propagating doubt about climate change.

We know that ever since the Oregon Petition, these clowns have been rustling up bogus lists of “scientists” who dispute the science behind climate change.

What we don’t know – what is, indeed, unknowable – is whether either Singer or Avery will ever develop a conscience, or even a passing sense of embarrassment.

As when waiting for North American governments to start taking this issue seriously, we live in hope.