Climate Prat of the Year award 2013. Posted by Pointman on October 12, 2013 · 51 Comments

UPDATED AGAIN and again!

How quickly time flies. It seems but twelve months since we last ran the competition but I suppose as we grow older, time appears to pass more rapidly. Sweet bird of youth etc etc. Anyway, a recent address by the almost beatified Bob Geldorf to a bunch of stunned school kids telling them that they were all going to be dead by the year 2030 reminded me of how vital and socially responsible it is to have a formal mechanism in place to highlight these people acting like world-class prats. After the one hit wonder’s pronouncement, I’ll bet his own kids are now more than a bit nervous about Mondays as well.

There’s definitely been an increase in them saying that sort of thing this year, probably because they feel their Earth goddess Gaia has abandoned them to us satanic barbarians swarming over the walls of Castle Dementia, swinging clubs of reason, humour and that darkest of all forces; real world data. They seem to be popping up everywhere like those rats, called rattus rattus I think, that brought the Black Death to Europe in the middle ages, except I suppose the correct taxonomy for them would have be prattus prattus and the come fully virused up with the Green Death.

Interestingly though, more that a few of the ratusi seem to be quietly abandoning ship this year. That shouldn’t necessarily exclude them from the competition and indeed, we’re expanding the competition to create a second but slightly less prestigious award for the most hypocritical deserter of that persuasion. It’s to be called the Prat Overboard Award. This award may be way too ahead of its time, since most of the likely candidates are just staying very quiet but I think it important to establish it now.

Like the Mikado, I’ve got my own little list of people edging out of the cult and back into rational society via a timeout sitting on the fence, now they’ve seen which way the wind is blowing. Over the next few years, I feel this might grow to a very significant award. They don’t think anyone has noticed them creeping towards the exit door but we’ve been watching them, so there’s no escape I’m afraid. We could even be looking at a double winner.

For you newbies to the competition, who might not know what a prat is, you can find my very informal description of the term here and a more formal definition here. You have to read both before you can vote and by the way, I will be checking up on you, so no climate scientist excuses like the dog ate my global warming / background reading will be accepted.

The Boss has told me I’ve got to be much more assertive this year because in her opinion, I let the whole damn thing get totally out of control last year. She’s of course right, she’s always right and when she’s right, she’s right and even when she’s wrong, she’s right anyway. She can be quite scary, so I always do what she says. Well, mostly. To be candid, I’d rather take on Nurse Ratched on one of her grumpy days.

The rules, what there are of them, are pretty much the same as last year’s. You can nominate up to five people for consideration by simply adding their names in a comment underneath this piece. At a certain point, probably after Christmas day, the committee will tally up the suggestions and the top five will appear in a voting list, enabling you to pick out your particular favourite. I think it best to close off the voting just prior to New Year’s day so we can announce the winner, a bit like Queen Lizer and her honours list.

As usual, we’re operating on a fairly liberal budget of four confederate dollars and some junk mail vouchers, unless big oil finally come through with some dosh, but going by past form, it’s back to supermarket coupons in terms of an award for the winner. On the plus side though, I’ve successfully grovelled Vladdie’s Mum, so we’ve got his services to do the voting software thingy or whatever it is he does so well.

Right, this year it’s going to be very business like. No sieges, no rabbits, no electoral fraud, no tunnel warfare, no vegemite and definitely no judicial entanglements. For once I’m going to be efficient.

Gimme your nominations and in the words of the immortal Del Boy Trotter, may the bestest prat win.

©Pointman

Update 1: You definitely can’t nominate organisations. We don’t want to go down the route of the IPCC where various prats are tarting themselves around as Nobel Prize winners. Can you imagine the chaos if every waste of good food hanger on of the whole of the IPCC were claiming to be Climate Prat of the Year 2013? We’re not going to let the Pratties get devalued like the Nobel Prize.

Update 2: Nominees so far added as a comment. Suzuki is pulling ahead of his fellow prats already.

Update 3: At the end of this week, we’ll close off nominations and voting can begin on the most suggested nominees. At the moment, what we’ve got is David Suzuki (12 votes), Stephan Lewandowsky (8), that hardy perennial Michael Mann (7), John “dodgy uniforms” Cook (6) and in joint fifth place Tim Flannery (5) and Dana Nuccitelli (5). On nominees for the Prat Overboard Award, we’ve only got three; George Monbiot, Gavin Schmidt and Mike Hulme. Given no significant change in the number of nominations, we’ll begin voting on them with a view to announcing a winner two weeks later. Make your closing nominations this week or lose them forever. May the best prat win.

Update 4: Nominations closed and voting begins. Since the Prat Overboard Prize only attracted three nominees, it’s not worth continuing with. I think it was a category too far ahead of its time.

Related articles by Pointman:

Announcing the inaugural Climate Prat of the Year Award.

Time to cull the prat nominations.

Ladiees and Gennulmen, we have a winnah!

Climate Alarmism and The Prat Principle.

Click for a list of other articles.