Anthony Watts has posted a story about an Oregon State University instructor, Nickolas Drapela, who has been dismissed from his job. Watts hosts a lengthy piece (by Gordon Fulks) which accuses OSU of intolerance, raises the spectre of Lysenkoism, and suggests that Drapela was dismissed because “Drapela is an outspoken critic of the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, the official religion of the State of Oregon, the Oregon Democratic Party, and Governor John Kitzhaber“.

I’m not sure which is greater, the pity that the scientific issue of global warming has been so politicized by those who want to prevent us from doing anything about it, or the irony that one of their strategies is to accuse others of politicizing the issue. In a move I find almost incomprehensible, Watts also linked to a slide presentation by Drapela. It’s astounding.



What’s astounding is that it’s little more than a diatribe, accusing those who warn against the danger of global warming of perpetrating conspiracy and fraud for money and power. In my opinion, it might be the most paranoid such presentation I’ve ever seen. Drapela further accuses believers in man-made global warming of politicizing the issue, which really amounts to Drapela himself politicizing the issue.

What’s missing from Drapela’s slide show is anything like science, except for two of the last three slides. The 3rd-to-last simply states:

To support this idea we get the 2nd-to-last slide:

I was struck by this, because I’ve seen something very much like it before. The same idea was promoted in Martin Durkin’s “documentary” The Great Global Warming Swindle, which includes this graph:

Note that both Drapela’s, and Durkin’s, graphs fail to give solar-cycle data beyond about 1980.

When Durkin’s documentary was shown in Australia, he was interviewed by a reporter for ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) who asked why that was. The reporter wasn’t satisfied with Durkin’s answer, so he went and got the data for himself (a good idea). The Australian reporter added more recent data, and — lo and behold!

Evidently the “solar-cycle-length is causing global warming” theory can’t stand the light of day.

This is the kind of nonsense we have to put up with from those who oppose doing something to deal with the global warming problem. Thoroughly refuted “theories” are regurgitated again and again, like zombies, long after they’re dead. They’re used to excuse conspiracy/fraud accusations. If proponents of this nonsense are given the dismissal which, in my opinion, they deserve, Anthony Watts and others will treat as martyrs.

Just in case you’re wondering what was on the last slide, it’s the politicization of the solar-cycle-length “theory”: