Carr refutes Pat's latest disingenuous antics.

One of many disgustuingly disigenuous examples (Carr provides a link):

"Facts: Global surface temperature rose about three-fourths of a degree Celsius in the 20th century. U.S. corn yields quintupled.  Life expectancydoubled.  People got fat. Global warming didn’t cause all of this, but increased atmospheric carbon dioxide directly stimulated plant growth."

OMG. What the heck is going on at Forbes?  Someone (DeepClimate, John Mashey) ought to have a closer look....

Unfortunately Carr did not get everything quite right, but Pat's diatribe is crap regardless. That Einstein quote that Dikran shared with us comes to mind:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.

Has anyone got time to cobble together a take down of this latest BS?

You have provided another example of why we need to establish a direct working releationship with SourceWatch.

On the latest Heartland Conference: here's a nice article exposing denialist contradictions and bogus consensus polls

The use of fertilizer and pesticides amongst other innovations (higher mechanisation, manipulation of the plant gene pool amongst many) were the primary factors in increased yields. If the guy is saying CO2 is the main factor, then they are denying that technology has any impact on agriculture, so we may as well all go organic!

This is a good example of 'half truths and lies', as John recently wrote about.  Say that CO2 stimulates plant growth, but leave out the fact that it also increases heat waves, droughts, floods, etc. which are deliterious to plant growth.

A rebuttal to this (which would probably be a good idea) should involve discussion of the half truth tactic, a link to the 'CO2 is plant food' rebuttal, and a discussion as to why crop yields have actually increased on average (Carr gives a lot of good examples).  I'm not familiar enough with the subject to be comfortable doing the response though.

Also see Huffington Post's "Misuse of Food and Climate Data at Forbes"

<a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/misuse-of-food-and-climate-data_b_889042.html>by Peter Gleick.</a>

Thanks all.  Good to hear a couple of people ahve taken him to task.