More Climate Misinformation From The Tribune-Review Editorial Board

I really don't want to have to do this (I'm on vacation, for Jebus' sake!) but here I am pointing out that there are THREE bits of Climate misinformation on the Trib's editorial page today - last two connected and the first an old reused bit of science denialist nonsense.

Let's go in order:

New scientific research suggests the Earth soon will enter a “solar minimum phase” — in 2019 or 2020 — that could signal the beginning of a mini Ice Age. The coming phase supposedly is signaled by a lack of any sunspot activity. Watch for Al Gore to start buying parka futures. [Bolding in Original.]

If this feels familiar, it is.  It's a cowplop warmed over (pun, get it??) from last December.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves - here's the reporting in the Daily Mail:

The sun is in the currently in its quietest period for more than a century.

For the second time this month, Vencore Weather claims the sun has gone into 'cue ball' mode, with images from Nasa showing no large visible sunspots on its surface.

Astronomers say this isn't unusual, and solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles, and we're currently in Cycle 24, which began in 2008.

However, if the current trend continues, then the Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned.

And so on.  The clue to knowing that we've seen this before is tucked away a few paragraphs later:

Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645, according to the results presented by Professor Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

There it is - the work of Valentina Zharkova. And that's what leads us back to the Trib of last December.

But let's take a different tack at this bit of nonscience.  From last July in Physics.org:

This month there's been a hoopla about a mini ice age, and unfortunately it tells us more about failures of science communication than the climate. Such failures can maintain the illusion of doubt and uncertainty, even when there's a scientific consensus that the world is warming.

The story starts benignly with a peer-reviewed paper and a presentation in early July by Professor Valentina Zharkova, from Northumbria University, at Britain's National Astronomy Meeting.

The paper presents a model for the sun's magnetic field and sunspots, which predicts a 60% fall in sunspot numbers when extrapolated to the 2030s. Crucially, the paper makes no mention of climate. [Emphasis added.]

In any event, the sun has been slightly cooling in the last few decades while the Earth's temperatures have still been going up:

Ask yourself this: given that the number of sunspots goes up and down in 11 year cycles and the temps have been more or less rising for a hundred years doesn't it mean that the two phenomena barely connected, if at all?

Now go look at what the Braintrust wrote.  See Braintrust mislead.  Silly Braintrust.

Then there's the other two cowplops - each balancing on the ongoing lawsuit against Exxon:

In other climate-clucker news, the Democrats' platform to be formally adopted in Philadelphia this month asks the Justice Department to prosecute climate change “deniers.” Perverting scientific inquiry and criminalizing free speech is called a “progressive Democratic value.” Good grief. [Bolding in Original.]

You'll note the mislead - we've seen this before from Scaife's braintrust.

While the braintrust repeats the lie, I can only repeat the truth: The lawsuit is not targeting climate denial, it's targeting corporate fraud.  Look at this subpoena from the lawsuit:

ExxonMobil is suspected to have engaged in, or be engaging in, conduct constituting a civil violation of the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 14 V.I.C. §605, by having engaged or engaging in conduct misrepresenting its knowledge of the likelihood that its products and activities have contributed and are continuing to contribute to Climate Change in order to defraud the Government of the United States Virgin Islands (''the Government") and consumers in the Virgin Islands, in violation of 14 V.I.C. § 834 (prohibiting obtaining money by false pretenses) and 14 V.I.C. § 551 (prohibiting conspiracy to obtain money by false pretenses ).

See that?  Exxon is charged with "...having engaged or engaging in conduct misrepresenting its knowledge of the likelihood that its products and activities have contributed and are continuing to contribute to Climate Change in order to defraud the Government...." not with simple climate change denial.

And anytime (which is to say, EVERYTIME) the Trib says otherwise, THEY ARE LYING TO YOU.