Tony Heller Resources



I value the right of free speech that we have in the United States, and it's a value that I cherish. Yet it is pretty much inarguable that one consequence of free speech is that obvious and deliberate misinformation and disinformation need to be protected along with truthful information. While there are limitations on our free speech (like laws against defamation), our current system even protects people against libel and slander lawsuits if the person making these claims is not credible enough to be taken seriously by rational people (a tactic used by Tim Ball to escape libel damages).  We can have whatever opinions we want, regardless how wrong they are or how insincere they are, and we can publicly advertise those opinions for others to read. 

The internet and social media has made it easier for people to advertise and promote those opinions to wider audiences, and technology has progressed to the point where many of these people can produce quality-looking content. So misinformation and disinformation can be visually indistinguishable from credible information. What this means (to me) is that there is a significant burden we all need to take for ourselves as we engage with information we find - the burden of skepticism. If we don't want to be misinformed, we simply have to check up on what we watch and read. It's the only way to keep ahead of the misinformation that sometimes seems to dominate areas where there is significant ideological debate. And this brings me to Tony Heller - the man who says that the above graph is the product of criminal fraud on the part of pretty much all climate scientists.

Since Heller is a blog/vlog phenomenon, you don't see many academic resources addressing his claim that just about everyone is lying about climate except him. Since his followers are generally blog readers, they tend to become blog commenters on other blogs. It can be difficult to have an online discussion without it being poisoned by some avid followers of his claims. So the blogosphere has responded, and there is no shortage of useful and credible information about Heller's tactics online. What I thought I would do here is collect those that I've found into one location so that people who are assaulted by Heller's claims can more easily find resources to help them understand what he's actually doing. Here's a catalog of what I've found so far. And yes, to be clear, we should check up on what these individuals say too. Even honest and informed bloggers can be mistaken.

1. Here’s an explanation from Tamino on how Tony Heller fakes his temperature graphs and misunderstands snow cover: 
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/usa-temperature-can-i-sucker-you/
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/tony-hellers-snow-job/

2. Here’s a set of three posts from Zeke Hausfather explaining how temperature averages and anomalies ought to be calculated, including dealing with issues like infilling, TOB adjustments, gridding, etc.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/how-not-to-calculate-temperature/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/how-not-to-calculate-temperatures-part-2/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/how-not-to-calculate-temperatures-part-3/
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/understanding-time-of-observation-bias/

3. Here’s a couple evaluations from Nick Stokes on adjustments, averaging and TOB. The second link shows how Heller misconstrues updates in the GISS dataset with data tampering
http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/ushcn-adjustments-averages-anomalies.html

I don't want to give the impression that this is just a debate between those who are proponents of climate science, and those who take a more contrarian stance on climate change. The Watts Up with That Blog is firmly in the contrarian camp, and even WUWT has parted ways with Tony Heller.

1. Here’s a couple posts by Anthony Watts. Heller made so many errors, and he obstinately refused to admit he was wrong. Long story short, Heller is no longer welcome there.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/25/on-denying-hockey-sticks-ushcn-data-and-all-that-part-1/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/how-not-to-calculate-temperature/#comment-130003

2. This appears to be the "precipitating" incident. Here’s Heller making a blunder about claiming it was so cold in Antarctica that CO2 was freezing on its surface, and refusing to admit he was dead wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/results-lab-experiment-regarding-co2-snow-in-antarctica-at-113%C2%B0f-80-5%C2%B0c-not-possible/
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/antarctica-gets-cold-enough-to-freeze-co2/

Heller's claims sometimes receive the attention of fact checkers. I've found the fact checking site "Climate Feedback" to be particularly good, written by people who are often published scientists in the field. Here are a couple factcheck articles I've found from them:

1. This explains Heller’s false claims that US temperatures have been cooling, and the warming of US temperatures is due to adjustments.
https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/hosted-by-former-australian-senator-tony-heller-repeats-false-claim-that-scientists-fake-the-warming-trend/

2. This explains Heller’s false claim that global warming a fabrication created by fraudulent temperature adjustments.
https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/nasa-did-not-create-global-warming-by-manipulating-data-tony-heller-steven-goddard/

And last but not least, there was three-part YouTube debate between Tony Heller and Peter Hadfield. To be fair, Peter Hadfield is frequently snarky, but he's for the most part good humored as well. I linked to the 6 videos (three from each) below:

Heller 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-zY0roNfw
Hadfield 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLjkLPnIPPw
Heller 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjdT-NdSoWM
Hadfield 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weQ-N4iymrQ
Heller 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XycF0uCuByQ
Hadfield 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5fncpSikwk

I plan to add to this list as I find more information. If you have found information that I've missed, please leave that information in the comments. I'm also going to label future posts about Tony Heller with his name, so any future posts about Heller's misinformation can be found here. 

Comments

  1. Phil ClarkeJune 13, 2022 at 3:21 PM

    As I pointed out over at FB, in his latest video [ https://youtu.be/2y1MPPprzX4?t=202 ] Heller refers to a graph from 1974 printed in the Des Moines Sunday Register (I know). It is labelled global surface air temperature and sourced to NCAR. It shows a distinct cooling from 1940 (isH) to 1970 (ish).

    Because the NOAA and other agency time series show no such rise, Heller concludes the data must have been tampered with.

    The deception here is the classic apples-to-oranges comparison. In 1974 the NCAR data was almost certainly land-only (I'm pretty sure ships logs were yet to be digitised and buoy readings were in their infancy). I went and got NASA's land only data and plotted them up, obviously they are not identical 5 decades later but the overall shapes are comparable and there is a distinct drop 1940-1970. Do the right comparison and there is no grounds for any allegations of fraud.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Scott SimmonsJune 14, 2022 at 2:08 PM

      Thanks. Given that discussion, i decided to post a summary of it here: https://woodromances.blogspot.com/2022/06/do-old-temperature-graphs-prove-that.html

      Delete

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