Re: religion and politics
@cap'n
I have never met, nor spoken to the author but I don't believe he is a 'religious or political nut'.
What I do see, however, when looking through his past articles on climate change, is a common thread of presenting reports/quotes/stories/studies/criticisms that are clearly aimed at casting doubt.
FUD without the 'F', I suppose
This can bee seen in areas such as ice sheets:
- Antarctic glacier 'melted JUST as fast LONG before human carbon emissions'
- Hello Warsaw: Greenland ice loss will be OK 'even under extreme scenarios'
- Steady Antarctic ice growth 'limits confidence in climate predictions'
- Greenland ice SIMPLY WOULD NOT MELT in baking +8°C era 120k years ago
- Ice sheets may stabilise for centuries, regardless of warming
So, is the take-away that the ice is melting or that it isn't? Neither. Lewis' goal seems to be to throw as much contradictory information as he can and thereby cast uncertainty on those scientists who support the AGW line.
Similar is his reporting on sea levels: sea levels aren't rising; sea levels are rising but this is normal; sea levels are dropping; sea levels are rising but this is a good thing, etc... Likewise warming: the planet isn't warming; the plant is warming but it's due to solar cycles; actually, the planet is cooling; the planet is warming but it's a good thing (it'll help us avoid that looming ice age). And so on.
Again, I don't know Lewis and I can't speak intelligently about his mind or motives, but looking at his articles on this subject, the common thread is that he appears to support and promote any scientist or study or result (however narrow or minor) that contradicts or throws doubt onto the proposition that climate change is (at least partly) man-made and that such climate change is a bad thing.
To be fair, in many of his pieces he does at least attempt some degree of balance, but equally often he uses loaded language (such as calling AGW proponents 'alarmists') and 'poisons the well'. For example, in his article: SpaceShipOne man, Nobel boffins: DON'T PANIC on global warming, he felt compelled to inform readers that one of the dissenting 'warmist' scientists, Peter Gleick, proclaims bottled water as 'evil' but didn't see it as relevant that one of the 'eminent scientists' who contributed to the letter had previously claimed that two objects with different weights, sizes and aerodynamic properties (a petanque/boule/bocce ball and a tennis ball) would, if dropped from a tower, fall at the same speed and reach the ground at the same time*.
Sorry for the length and to Lewis, I don't mean any disrespect to you but I find your articles on military and related matters, such as your article about shooting down drones far more interesting and informative than your articles on climate change.
* - Any even half-way educated person knows that the critical condition for this to work is that the objects must be dropped in a vacuum, but, despite being corrected repeatedly, he stuck to his erroneous and demonstrably false statement.