If exposing the climate deniers makes me a scumbag so be it

onJul 15, 2010 @ 14:48 PDT

What do you get when you cross a retired weatherman with a wannabe British aristocrat?

No wait, that’s not it.

A retired weatherman and a former political hack for Margaret Thatcher walk into a bar and the bartender tells them both that if they want a drink they have to stop pretending they’re experts in climate science.

Oh, and they should stop calling people (like me) a scumbag, it just makes them less attractive to the ladies at the bar than they already are.

Enough with the joke metaphors.

Someone sent along a post written by the puzzling Christopher Monckton – the guy with a penchant for high-brow verbiage and accusations of Nazi-facist activities. The post was on Anthony Watts’ blog – the retired weatherman and equally unqualified as a our Monckton when it comes to the science of climate change.

It looks as though Watts has taken to calling me a “scumbag.” Here’s the screenshot where “A” responds to one of his reader’s comments:

Watts should know that I go ballistic at least 10 times a day about something or other (today it was my coffee cup lid leaking every time I took a sip). As for me being a scumbag… well I would say to that, grow up.

It must be getting frustrating for the likes of Watts and Monckton to be sliding back into obscurity now that the climategate scandal has been determined by no less than three different inquiries to be nothing more than manufactured hot air.

Watts and Monckton have both been breathless activists when it comes to using the stolen emails to fit their conspiracy theories around climate change and now that they have been proven incorrect they must be feeling a little bit hurt.

At least for Watts it looks like that has taken the form of name-calling.

By Kevin Grandia

Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.