This is a guest post from ClimateDenierRoundup crossposted from Daily Kos.

Last week we talked about a group in the UK who tried, but ultimately failed, to use a respected institution as the venue for a denial conference in an effort to drum up headlines.

Now the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is looking to try their luck at the same ploy — booking space at the Royal Society for a lecture from Matt “King Coal” Ridley.

In a statement published on New Scientist, the Royal Society defended its decision to rent out space to the GWPF.

The Society acknowledges that the science on climate is clear, says that it opposes efforts to misrepresent climate science, and has disagreed strongly with the GWPF before.

But the Society apparently thinks the GWPF has now accepted reality and is merely interested in discussing policies to address the climate problem. At least that’s the impression given by their last sentence: “If the GWPF use this opportunity to misrepresent the scientific evidence it would undermine the legitimacy of their views on policy responses to climate change.”

Except we already know there is no legitimacy to their views. The GWPF’s bias and blurring of fact and comment is why they had to spin off a lobbying arm of their non-profit. The same day the New Scientist story was published, the campaign (not educational charity) arm of the GWPF published a post suggesting that there’s a 10 year “pause” in Arctic sea ice melt, despite starting the post with a graph showing the clear decline in ice since 1978.

This arctic ice “pause” is obviously just natural variability, despite their claim that it might be a meaningful trend. This is ironic, given their claims that 2015’s record heat was just a natural variability, and not indicative of a meaningful trend.

Well, maybe not ironic, so much as a demonstration of Lewandowsky’s White Queen concept (discussed by Greg Laden too.)

Sadly, the Royal Society seems committed to allowing the GWPF to leech off of the august institution’s credibility. But perhaps the GWPF is so full of crap that the Royal Society can be convinced to give them the royal flush.

Main image: Lord Matt Ridley. Credit: Flickr/IAB UK