McIntyre Disappoints Denier Conference; doesn't call for jailing of scientists

onMay 18, 2010 @ 23:57 PDT

Mining Executive and blogger Steve McIntyre, the darling of so many climate change deniers, surely disapointed the assembled ICCC crowd in Chicago with his dry and relatively reasonable keynote address. The applause after McIntyre’s keynote address was significantly less than when he started because he didn’t call for Michael Mann and Phil Jones to go to jail.

Astronaut Harrison Schmidt (why is a former astronaut speaking at a climate conference?), who followed McIntyre, helped to steer the crowd back to the witch-hunt it was promised by conference organizers. Mark Sheppard, writing in the American Thinker, gave this account of Schmidt’s remark after McIntyre finished:

This is science, [Schmidt] retorted to a now cheering crowd, and if you want to play that game (tricks, non-disclosure, etc) then you can go somewhere else. To which more than a few in attendance added: “To Jail!”

I can think of no better analogy than the hilarious logic used by Monty Python’s King Arthur to impress an even more idiotic group of villagers, and magnificently prove that ‘she’s a witch!’.

McIntyre’s hour long keynote on the first night of the conference discussed the history of some rather dry tree ring data discussed in the East Anglia stolen email. He was welcomed with huge applause, but the crowd cooled over the course of this talk. As Sheppard said, “Steve stopped quite a bit short of passing judgment”. While McIntyre still perpetuated the myth that there is a scandal wrapped up in the emails stolen from East Anglia, this episode shows how the ravings of climate deniers hold no basis in reality.

Sheppard wasn’t too happy to hear McIntyre’s opinion on the recent attempts by VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to leverage himself into Michael Mann’s private email exchanges.

McIntyre even slammed Virginia Attorney General Ken Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation into Hockey Stick creator Michael Mann, describing Mann’s work as “diligently published” and Cussinelli’s as “abuse of administrative prerogative.” Not exactly what the crowd was hoping to hear from one its undeniable heroes.

Thank you, Steve McIntyre for this valuable insight into the level of discourse at the 4th annual denial-palooza, sponsored by all the oil companies’ favorite think tanks.

By Morgan Goodwin

Morgan Goodwin has been a passionate advocate for climate solutions since college, where he spent more time organizing than he did on classes. There, he was a Chinese major, student body co-president and one of the leaders of Thursday Night Group, the campus climate action group. Since graduating in 2008 , in no particular order, Morgan has worked on a community energy efficiency campaign in western Mass, co-directed NH SPROG for the SSC and worked on Power Vote in Cleveland. He spent two months travelling in China, meeting youth climate activists and learning about the solar hot water business. He worked on Long Island for a solar and wind company doing home evaluations and sales. And he spent the better part of 2009 in DC at the Avaaz Action Factory advocating for stronger DC policy in the lead-up to Copenhagen.

Morgan writes and conducts research for Desmogblog and supports the activism of several youth climate organizations. His writing has been published in the HuffingtonPost, SolveClimate, Watthead, and the The Climate Community. Morgan co-manages ItsGettingHotInHere.org, the largest single-issue youth blog in the world.