Why Do Climate Change Contrarians Lie?

[The Magic Pudding]

The other criteria that Diethelm and McKee identify for denialism are more clear-cut. The real issue for me is that (if) there was a genuine case against a human influence on climate, why is so much based on fabrication, relying on the fact that most people lack the time, energy and background to check on even the most blatant of spurious claims. Specifically, why does Ian Plimer's book Heaven + Earth misrepresent the contents of dozens of his cited references? Why don't his fellow pseudo-sceptics explicitly dissociate themselves from this conduct?

Streamed audio - http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/pl ... 202011&p=1

mp3 - http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/ ... 110313.mp3

Transcript (a few typos when I looked) - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/s ... transcript

The Ockham's Razor page, it's been presenting interesting short programs since 1984. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/default.htm

Maybe they crave attention and it's easier to get attention being one of a few contrarians.

[fester30]

Reminds me of the 9-11 conspiracy theorists, specifically, the ones who say it wasn't an airliner that went into the Pentagon.  There were hundreds of witnesses who saw a plane fly into the building.  The conspiracy theorists choose the two or three that didn't get a good look, or didn't really know what they saw, or don't have the best eyesight, and put them in their books saying they were the only eye-witnesses.

[The Magic Pudding]

Contrarians do get to reward themselves with a smug, elevated self regard.  Seeing everyone else as fools, and only they and a select few individuals being able to distinguish reality. They always look like jerks being jerks to me though.