Australian Climate Denial Think Tank Picks Cat Author and Moonman Ken Ring as Climate Expert

authordefault
on

Do you love cats and want to know what makes them tick?ย  Do you think climate change is a hoax being pushed as part of a eugenics plot?ย  Do you like rubber bandย magic?

If your answers to these questions are โ€œyes,โ€ย โ€œhell yeah,โ€ย and โ€œsometimes,โ€ then have I got the book for you? Hell yeah, Iย do.

Australian โ€œthink tank,โ€ the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), has launched a fundraising drive for its 2017 edition of the book Climate Change: The Facts.

The IPA is Australiaโ€™s biggest pusher of climate science denial and has assembled a conga-line of deniers and contrarians to write chapters for the upcomingย publication.

Of course, this isnโ€™t how the IPA describes it. Rather, the IPA says the book, edited by senior IPA fellow Jennifer Marohasy,ย โ€œbrings together contributions on the latest climate science from some of the worldโ€™s leading experts in theย field.โ€

Contributors include the likes of the Cato Instituteโ€™s Patrick Michaels, British peer Matt Ridley, political scientist and think tank boss Bjorn Lomborg, and writer Cliveย James.

But anyway, back to cats and rubber bandย magic.ย Why?

Paws forย Thought

Because another of the IPAโ€™s apparent โ€œleading expertsโ€ on climate change is New Zealandโ€™s Ken Ring โ€” a so-called โ€œlong range weather forecasterโ€ and former school magician who has written two, possibly three, books aboutย cats.ย 

In 1998’s Pawmistry: How to Read Your Catโ€™s Paws, Ring joined magician Paul Romhany to reveal the secrets of the lines on your catโ€™s paws. โ€œA broken heart line means your cat is in a period of adjustment,โ€ read the dustย jacket.

Now in the interests of fairness, I should say that back in 2011 when I checked with Ring about the book, he said he had written it โ€œas a jokeโ€ and the publishers at Penguin had made up a story about him uncovering a talent for reading paws at aย party.

At the time, I only knew about Pawmistry,ย but it turns out Ring has a whole litter tray of literary greatness (though none of it has to do with climateย science).ย 

There was a 2014 follow up to the โ€œrunaway bestsellerโ€ Pawmistry, calledย How Your Cat Chose You, which comes with a note that the book is โ€œa bit of funโ€ but that you โ€œmight learn somethingโ€ anyway.ย  Or you mightย not.

Thereโ€™s also Positive Affirmations for Cats,ย which appears to also be from the Ken Ring cattery.ย 

Ring teamed up again with Romhany (who seems to be doing pretty well) to write Rubber-Band Magic, in which the marketing people claim Ring was New Zealandโ€™s โ€œKING of rubber bandย magic.โ€

He worked with Romhany again for How To tell Anybodyโ€™s Personality By The Way They Laugh and Speak,ย which is a book about โ€ฆ oh, neverย mind.

Moonย Weather

These days though, Ring has left the world of rubber band magic and cat books to forge a career as a long-range weather forecaster. He is known as theย โ€œmoonman.โ€

Ring produces multiple โ€œweather almanacsโ€ for about $50 a pop, where he makes predictions about the weather based on the positions of the moon, the tidesย and planets and supposed cycles of weather events.ย His methods have no credibility withย meteorologists.

He sometimes gets on Australian TV and radio as a weather forecaster and, once, as a โ€œclimate expertโ€ which, by any credible measure, he absolutely is not. ย He claims CO2 can’t affect the climate because it can’tย rise in theย air.

When Ring was being challenged on my blog back in 2011, he made his personal views about climate change pretty clear.

โ€œThe eugenics agenda driven from the UN of the international global warmers, which is akin to the policies of Nazi Germany, which is to reduce human population by creating poverty by halting progress and discouraging economic development in underdeveloped countries is phenomenallyย disgusting.โ€

Thatโ€™s right.ย He went full Godwin.

Skin Cancer Concerns Areย โ€œAlarmistโ€

But Ringโ€™s โ€œexpertiseโ€ doesnโ€™t stop at climate change, cats, rubber band magic, the weather, and Naziย ideology.

Ring is also happy to offer advice on skin cancerย prevention.ย 

His website has dismissed concerns about melanoma from sun exposure as โ€œalarmist brainwashing,โ€ย suggesting that โ€œmany are now realizing that many cases of skin cancer may caused [sic], not by the sun, but by the lotionsย themselves.โ€

Instead, recommends Ring, people should just use plain old coconut oil (donโ€™t do that, because coconut oil has an SPF factor of just eight when the American Academy of Dermatologyย recommends at leastย 30).

New Zealand happens to have some of the highest skin cancer rates on the planet โ€” higher even thanย Australia.

โ€œApart from the odd cut-out bits, after at least 50 sunny summers most of us still do not have terminal skin cancer,โ€ the article on Ringโ€™s website said (there was noย authorship).

Actually, skin cancer deaths in New Zealand have been rising in recent decades. About 350 New Zealanders died from skin cancer in 2013, according to the latest available governmentย statistics.

So, How About Thatย Weather?

But what about Ring’s expertise as a self-styledย weather (or climate) expert? Ring makes a lot of โ€œforecastsโ€ and produces annual almanacs for different areas, includingย Australia.

I thought I would check one of his interviews from late 2011, when he spoke to local ABC Radio on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.ย Ring gave several weather predictions which I have checked against rainfall data for the Sunshine Coast Airport.

Ring predicted there would be a โ€œdump of rainโ€ in the first three days of 2012. There was only 1.4 mm.ย Ring said there would be โ€œno more for three weeks,โ€ missing the 115 mm of rain that fell between January 16 andย 18.ย 

Ring predicted โ€œmain floodingโ€ between the 12 and 19 of March, which was actually relatively dry. March 5 and 6, outside Ringโ€™s โ€œmain floodingโ€ period,ย got 170 mm of rain. On March 23 there was 177 mm of rain, despite Ring saying that โ€œthe only dry period for the districtโ€ would be from March 22 toย 27.

Checking Ringโ€™s predictions against other weather stations in the Sunshine Coast region, such as coastal Noosaville or inland Mapleton, gaveย similar results. See NZ Sceptics,ย SillyBeliefsย and Gareth Renowden’sย Hot Topicย and On The Farm for other analysesย ofย Ring’sย โ€œpredictions.โ€

But let’s remember too that you can get more of Ring’s workย in the IPAโ€™s upcoming book, which is the third version of Climate Change: The Fcats [deliberateย typo].

The last version of the book was being sold by Canadian conservative and climate science denier Mark Steyn to help him pay for a libel defense.

Like previous versions, any Australian taxpayers donating to the book campaign can claim an equivalent taxย break.

Seems worth it, right, for all that purrfectly legitimateย expertise?

Main image: An array of Ken Ringโ€™s books, alongside the planned IPA publication Climate Change: Theย Facts.

Related Posts

on

One of the sponsors of the UK pavilion has worked with major polluters to help them extract more oil and gas.

One of the sponsors of the UK pavilion has worked with major polluters to help them extract more oil and gas.
on

The Heritage Foundationโ€™s Project 2025 blueprint proposes sweeping anti-climate policies.

The Heritage Foundationโ€™s Project 2025 blueprint proposes sweeping anti-climate policies.
on

This story was published in partnership with Gen Dread and a video version will be available online on November 16 as part of the Climate Consciousness Summit 2024, staged by the Pocket Project in...
on

Campaigners say the European Commission has โ€œcompletely embarrassed itselfโ€ by offering โ€œflimsy excusesโ€ for taking oil and gas lobbyists to the flagship summit.

Campaigners say the European Commission has โ€œcompletely embarrassed itselfโ€ by offering โ€œflimsy excusesโ€ for taking oil and gas lobbyists to the flagship summit.