In which the pond must heed the siren song of the Xmas Moorice ...

Yes, yes, the pond said farewell for the year, season's greetings, salutations, all that yadda yadda, and nattering "Ned" a most worthy and honourable place holder, but how could the pond ignore Moorice?

What's more, has the 357k Dame Groan drunk of the religion of global warming?

Why should she care if energy in the US is not only cheaper but much greener?  Who cares if it's greener? Only crackpot delusionals deep in the grip of a heretical religion, if Moorice, the world's greatest climate scientist (perhaps only with the exception of the Donald) is to be trusted.

Hang on, hang on, is Moorice calling Dame Groan a crackpot delusional bleeding heart, bleating about greener energy?

Of course the pond had to take note, of course the mad uncle had to be invited down from the attic to join in the seasonal festivities …

Um, yes, but is climate science really a religion?

Does that put Moorice in the position of a Grand Inquisitor, fiercely hunting out heretics so that they might be burnt at the stake? Doesn't that put Moorice's position as the world's greatest climate scientist in some doubt? Shouldn't he be hailed instead as the one true believer in the religion of Moorice the great?

As always, the pond reverted to a cartoon for light relief …

Now it will be noted that Moorice never actually gets down to the scientific business of debunking the science with his extensive field research and peer-reviewed papers, but prefers to sharpen his stakes, keep garlic and silver bullets handy, and so the pond likes to respond in kind to the Grand Inquisitor as he fervently searches out the heretics ...

Ah Richard Linzden …

In a 2001 profile in Newsweek, journalist Fred Guterl wrote that Lindzen "clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking." James Hansen recalls meeting Lindzen whilst testifying before the Vice President's Climate Task Force: "I considered asking Lindzen if he still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. He had been a witness for tobacco companies decades earlier, questioning the reliability of statistical connections between smoking and health problems. But I decided that would be too confrontational. When I met him at a later conference, I did ask that question, and was surprised by his response: He began rattling off all the problems with the data relating smoking to health problems, which was closely analogous to his views of climate data. (here).

There's a lot more fun to be had following the Linzden trail, as here, but now the pond must confess to some confusion.

You see, as a one-time Catholic, the pond understood Moorice rabbiting on like a Grand Inquisitor …you know, everything's a religion, and then there's Satanists, venial and mortal sins, thought crimes, delusions, black specks of soot on a white soul … and so on, all terribly scientific, and full of scientific terminology.

But how did Lenin get into it?

Wasn't Lenin an atheist? Yet suddenly it seems that it's the underlying Leninist manifesto, long denied by the left, that's been driving UN climate policy since whenever …

So everything's a religion … Leninism, climate science, the sun coming up in the morning, not forgetting devotional relativist thinking of the 'truth isn't truth' kind?

Io Saturnalia!

Never mind, expecting Moorice to keep his metaphors in a straight line is probably like expecting a headless chook on the way to the Xmas dinner party to talk sense …

Here, have another cartoon …

And now on with Moorice's deep love of dinkum true blue clean Oz coal oi, oi, oi, though really any kind of coal will do ...

Lucky children, and even luckier, Moorice has a very special Xmas gift for you …

And now to celebrate the way that Moorice stole the pond's Xmas preparation time, another cartoon ...

Put it another way, the lizards of Oz will explain to you why climate science denialism is the one true religion, and beautiful clean coal its wafer and wine all wrapped into one lovely chunk of carbon ...

Ah well, io Saturnalia! and felix sit annus novus all over again, but whenever there's a sign in the Batcave that Grand Inquisitor  Moorice has put out an urgent notice of unrepentant Leninists in the thrall of a religion, the pond will be ready to attend the inquisitorial tribunal to speak of fluent climate science denialism and a deep love of dinkum clean Oz coal …