Encounters with the radical wing of AGW

I chanced on a Web site about climate change through a link at a blog that I pay a lot of attention to. It's Climate Progress and the guru is Joe Romm. After running through some links, I found a posting from December that included the following two items:

So for all the deniers and delayers touting the coolest year of the decade (if the decade starts in 2001) meme, I stand by my offer to bet $1000 that the decade from 2010 to 2019 will be warmer than the decade from 2000 to 2009. I’ll even give you 2-to-1 odds or spot you 0.1°C. And I’ll even agree to use the HadCRUT3 global mean surface temperature data set (but, no, I can’t agree to use the satellite data, since it covers parts of the atmosphere that are projected to cool).

Any takers?

And later, "JR" made a response to "Charlie":

Lots of things tweak warming, but barring another major volcano soon, the next decade is certainly likely to be above 0.25°C warmer than this decade.

So I posted a comment, and JR replied:

"“Denier” is a loaded word, bringing to mind the phrase “holocaust denier.” A good many of us are simply skeptical. The physics looks promising and it’s possible to dismiss the less than stellar correlation between CO2 and global temperature as noise, but there is an awfully poor signal-to-noise ratio here for the sort of pompous dogmatism that I read.

I’m not a physicist but I’ve got a good grip on math and I’d be quite willing to take up the offer of a $1000 bet on the second decade versus the first that was proposed back in December. I posted that response to what I then discovered was a December posting, so probably nobody has noticed. I’ll repeat it.

In December, the statement was made that it was “certainly likely” that the second decade would be warmer by .25 C than the first. I’d be happy to take that as a bet, $1000 straight up odds. It seems that $1000 is an acceptable amount to risk, and the statement implies that the odds strongly favor the hotter temperature. If that’s the case, this should be acceptable. If it isn’t, the statement should be withdrawn.

[JR: You deniers kill me -- or at least future generations. That statement was never made -- to clarify, you wrote "I'd be quite willing to take up the offer of a $1000 bet on the second decade versus the first that was proposed back in December." That statement of yours refers to a bet offer that was never made. I just can't waste time with people who misstate what is easily read on this blog.

Since you all think it's cooling, then the fair bet is whether the next decade (starting in 2010) will be warmer than this one. I'll bet $1000 it is and I'll give you 2-to-1 odds, and I'll even give you the Hadley data, even though the NASA data is probably more accurate. I'll also give you a straight up $1000 bet that the next decade will be 0.1°C warmer, with an extra $100 to the winner for each 0.01°C above or below that. If that isn't acceptable, you really should stop with your disinformation spreading.]"

You do not see part of the exchange, because I immediately responded that I was challenging him to bet at .25C, not that he had done so. He suppressed my comment and edited his own, reiterating that I was suggesting that he had already made the bet.

So I responded again, and so did he:

"JR, since you are now editing my posts before anyone gets to see what I say, this is probably a waste of time, but let me make myself unamiguously clear. You said in December that you would take a bet based on the second decade versus the first. You offered to wager $1000. In the same post, you said that it was “certainly likely” (with the caveat about a volcano) that the rise would be at least .25 C.

I don’t intend to take your bet as offered. I’m just saying that if you have $1000 to risk and think this is an odds on proposition, why aren’t you accepting it?

[JR: Shame on you. Let me make myself unambiguously clear. You are banned. I offered two wagers for deniers. Later on, I made a statement that I believe it is certainly likely that the rise next decade would be 0.25 C warmer than this one. The fact that you refuse to take a two-to-one bet that the next decade will be warmer than this one, or an even money bet that the next decade will be 0.1°C warmer than this, but are fabricating a claim that I offered a wager that the next decade would be 0.25 °C than this one, which is of course beyond the very upper end of recent decadal warming or most GCM predictions -- is proof that you are conceding that the planet is warming much faster than the models suggested and that your denial-oriented posts are pure B.S. Please go elsewhere to post comments. I'm only interested in people here who actually believe what they are posting, even if it is crap.]"

I said once, I thought, and then clarified twice that I did not claim that he had already made the bet, only that he should. For this he restates for the third time that I have misrepresented him and so he bans me.

It certainly seems that climateprogress.org is interested in "deniers," as they call all who disagree with them, but only the idiots. There are plenty of idiots who don't believe in AGW and if you're selective, you can swat away the straw men that they set up by the dozen.

However, when someone calls you on the fact that you have both said that a .25C rise is "certainly likely" and later that it is higher than even his most supportive science claims, he kicks me off the site. I think even Rush Limbaugh, someone I personally loath, has more integrity.