Following up on posts by Iain and Henry below, my feelings were hurt yesterday to receive an email noting that a fellow with whom I just shared a podium — at the very same MSU — was defending his honor on a website called Michigan Liberal. Apparently someone indicated that possibly he and I were not evenly matched in our debate, prompting, well, this.
The event was interesting for a few reasons. First was what seemed to be my opponent’s fear — telegraphed in several emails to the Mackinac Center organizers — that I would get my hands on his slides and perform unnatural acts with them, like apply the acid test of truth. He insisted not only on running off of his own laptop, but his own projector, moving it on a dolly to the side when it was my turn to speak, then back again. It would be just like me to have some optical scanning device installed to capture the images.
So someone decided to videotape it. More of that soon, it’s been a busy month since.
Highlights included his demurrer about my citation of research indicating the correlation between solar activity and temperatures, claiming instead that Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen (who I did not mention, or cite) had repudiated his own work showing that the Sun appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change. This is a December 2007 talking point presumably lifted from the increasingly frantic Andrew Dessler, one extrapolated from misquoting Dr.Friis-Christensen, who had actually just reaffirmed his research in an October paper.
Most entertaining was the response to my showing this
and this
which prompted my opponent to leap to his feet and plead “No matter how many slides he shows you, it is too warming!”
Of course it is, dear.