Rebutting Warmists:  Comment on a very hairy Dutchman

Richard Tol is a very skeptical man, an economist and rather  blunt, though not as blunt as I am.  I am sure we would enjoy drinking schnapps together, or maybe just beer.

But he seems not to have a clue about the type of dispassionate writing required for academic journals. Or perhaps dispassion deserts him when he is discussing fraud.

I am referring to his rebuttal of "Mr 97%" John Cook (2013) a rebuttal which was recently rejected by ERL.  ERL would always have found some reason to reject Richard's paper but Richard made it easy for them.  His paper was blatantly political and was full of speculation (about "fatigue", for instance).  ERL was right to reject it.  I would have sent it back for revision, however, as there was a lot of solid data in it that stood by itself as an effective rebuttal of the Cooker.  In my days writing for the academic journals I got about 40 critique articles published on politically loaded topics so I think I am a reasonable judge of what is required there.

Anthony Watts has put the paper up so you can judge for yourself. I am rather cross with Richard for spoiling the presentation of his basically sound work.  I would encourage him to delete the problem passages I mentioned and resubmit to another journal. Just the first paragraph of his paper would have sufficed as an introduction, for instance.  If properly done, the journal editor should not be able to guess the opinions of the author.

And when you have put up some statistics showing that the other guy is a complete fool, you don't say: "This guy is a complete fool".  You say:  "These discrepancies may be some cause for concern".

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).