Last week Mark Lynas accused Matt Ridley of climate denial. This appears to have been an allegation that popped unannounced into Lynas's head and found its way from there to his blog post without even a thought, let alone a cursory attempt at checking to see whether it was true or not. Shortly afterwards, Lynas was forced to retract the allegation and apologise.
And just in case anyone should think that this was just ignorance about the climate debate on Lynas's part, readers should be aware that he has known what a lukewarmer is for a long time.
Some months earlier he had accused Matt of writing a "fact-free" article about wind power. When he was provided with sources, he failed (to the best of my knowledge) to withdraw the allegation.
Today, Lynas has returned to the fray, accusing yours truly of "celebrating" the removal of Anne Glover from her role as Chief Scientific Adviser to the EU. Well, I think there are better ways of providing science advice on complex technical issues than through people whose expertise lies in other fields, but whether that amounts to celebrating Prof Glover's removal is a moot point. But Lynas, as now seems characteristic of the man, lobs in some unresearched bombs to try to liven things up.
But look – who else is celebrating the decision to abolish the European science advisor role? The climate sceptics, who hated Anne Glover’s equally accurate advice on the serious danger of climate change just as much as the greens hated her scientifically-accurate views on GMOs. It looks like Greenpeace has found itself with some uncomfortable but rather apt new bedfellows.
The link is to BH. I must say I have long had something of a soft spot for Prof Glover, who comes across as much more level-headed than many CSAs I could mention, but having searched through my work, I can only find one mention of her since she came to her post. This was when she referred to Antarctic sea ice as being in decline, which at the end of a steady 30-year increase would not normally be described as "accurate". Except by Mark Lynas perhaps.
aDissentient @EU_ScienceChief struggling to understand simple line graph arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IM… @esa
So I think we can say that I took a wry amusement of her scientifically inaccurate advice to the EU. Elsewhere in the BH archives you will find a commenter recommending a talk she had given. But of evidence that I or anyone else at BH hated anything about her work at all there is not a sign.
Is it just me or are we uncovering a worrying tendency in Mark Lynas's work?
