Idiotic Comments of the day - Leigh Dayton (again)

Congratulations, Leigh - your second award (see the first here) for comparing the effect of a small amount of CO2 in the air to the effect of a small amount of cyanide gas in the air. And to cap it all, there's a "D-word" alert. With science writers like this, there's no hope. Here's the winning quote:

He [Ian Plimer] says that as there's less atmospheric CO2 than nitrogen or oxygen, a bit more won't make much difference. Doubters of the small fraction-big action effect should try surviving with a whiff of cyanide in the room.

In a snide and snarky little article entitled "Denialist ark a wobbly craft", Dayton attempts (and fails) to counter the arguments in Ian Plimer's book, Heaven and Earth. Firstly, as always, the ad hominems, so let's get them out of the way. Referring to Plimer's case against a bunch of creationists:

Federal Court judge Ronald Sackville ultimately ruled that although the minister had indeed made false and misleading claims, they were not made in the course of trade or commerce. Plimer won the publicity war but lost the case and the family home.

Plimer brings this, uh, rock-solid track record of fighting for facts to the hot-button topic du jour: global warming.

Then we move on to reasoned argument:

It's all a load of old codswallop. What on (heaven) and earth is Plimer thinking?

Gee, that's convinced me. Dayton then goes on to misrepresent the science set out in Plimer's book, and makes unsubstantiated claims without any reference to facts:

Given it's incontrovertible that since the Industrial Revolution the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased, it's wishful thinking to believe nothing significant will happen as a result. Yet Plimer does just that.

And of course, then backs unquestioningly the corrupt and politicised IPCC:

Plimer also wrongly claims that IPCC reports are based largely on computer modelling. Not so. Observational and paleoclimate data is also included. The idea is to learn from the past, assess the present and make the best possible predictions about future trends.

A dismal effort.

Read it here (if you can bear it).