The Denier Press is alive with versions of a story from the UK, showing that old ships’ logs reported “a spell of rapid warming during the 1730s” – the implication being that if the earth warmed once by itself, it couldn’t possibly be doing so today with the help of 6.6 billion humans.

That said, Lewis Page at The Register bites back with the observation that sailors in the 1730 – a group that doesn’t include later record-keeping wizards like Admiral Nelson and Captain James Cook – didn’t generally use thermometers to record temperatures, so the log survey relies instead on “consistent language” of the time.

So, Fox News would have us question the current climate change theories of the best scientists the world has ever produced – using the most advanced equipment in human history – in favor of nearly 300-year-old scratchings by people neither trained, nor primarily concerned with climate.

Ahhhh, no.