Friday, May 30, 2008

You're Banned!!!!

A while ago I made a promise to myself not to comment on anymore of Poneke's climate change threads. Doing so had clearly become pointless. Poneke maintains a certainty of opinion completely unjustified by his or her understanding of climate science. And he or she just gets offended when you point out the errors in the posts.

Foolishly, though yesterday I commented again, lured in by a discussion of William Nordhaus and discounting (something that is worth discussing). Of course I couldn't resist the usual error correcting and, lo and behold, there I was - banging my head against a rock again.

So that does it. I'm banned! Or, at least, I'm banning myself. I know it's meant to work the other way in the blogosphere. But I really need to learn to focus my time on things constructive. And arguing with climate change deniers (as opposed to genuine sceptics, who might actually be swayed by evidence) achieves nothing.

[Update: Oh, it looks like Poneke has beaten me to the draw. My last comment on that thread (from last night) never made it out of his/her moderation queue. Assuming it didn't get deleted by accident, it would appear that Poneke is about as keen on me commenting on his/her website as I am. Which is great in the sense that it provides me with help in observing my ban. Not so good perhaps in what it reveals about Poneke, who claims to be opposed to any attempt to silence debate on climate change but possibly isn't so willing to apply the same approach to their blog.

This is fair enough, up to a point: freedom of speech is a society wide principle and people's blogs are their own property. They needn't give a platform to those they don't agree with. Nevertheless, given that my comment was neither abusive nor trolling - it was merely a response to Poneke's response to me - to disappear it with out any comment or acknowledgment just seems rather dishonest. Creating the impression that I had no response to Poneke's Homer Simpsonesque comeback on the subject of statistics.]

[Update 2: Anyone seeking a detailed critique of the Great Global Warming Swindle should have a look at this. Hat tip and thanks to George Darroch]

4 comments:

GZ said...

I've left a single post, pointing readers towards the numerous misrepresentations, and outright lies, in the "documentary". It is up to Poneke and readers to respond to this as they will.

Terence said...

Thanks George.

The response, I suspect, won't be considered...

Anonymous said...

Poneke has chosen not to post 2 of my comments recently I I'll take that as me being banned from his site.

Andrew W

Terence said...

...and what a particularly underhanded way of banning people.

all the more ironic because Poneke claims to just want open debate about climate change.

yeah right.