Before people embrace Rush Limbaugh's endorsement of Climate Hustle, they should consider his last contribution to popular science.
In 2007, a non-existent article in a non-existent learned journal lured a shoal of denialist pundits onto the scientific rocks with pages of completely and spectacularly bogus equations, like:
4δ161x Λ³Жญ5,6,1,8Φ-4 = {(ΣΨ²Њyt3-14๖P9) x 49}/2β x ⅜kxgt-§
said to prove that 'benthic bacteria', not man-made CO2, cause global warming.
While scientists on all continents were laughing out loud at the parody, Limbaugh embraced his inner gibberish.
What made the episode richly comic was less Rush finding the spoof "very convincing ", and swallowing its references to fossils from the
"Miocene, Pliocene and Plasticine"
eras, than his refusing to disbelieve the wheeze even when his own science adviser told him it was a joke.
Limbaugh kicked the fiasco up a notch by ignoring the warnings of his own "expert climatologist here on staff." -- who else but Roy Spencer, who was obliged to issue this disclaimer--
TO: Listeners of Rush Limbaugh on Thursday, November 8, 2007FROM: Roy W. Spencer RE: GLOBAL WARMING STUDY HOAX"Yesterday (11/7/07), a "research study" was circulating on the internet which claimed to have found the "real" reason for global warming. Even though the hoax was quite elaborate, and the paper looked genuine, a little digging revealed that the authors, research center, and even the scientific journal the study was published in, did not exist. I sent an e-mail to Rush about the issue regarding the hoax, with a copy of the "research study." Unfortunately...he thought that I was calling global warming a hoax, rather than the study" --Roy W. Spencer
Despite Roy's tutelage , Rush also flunked atmospheric chemistry:
"This is the big news today, and this is oh-my-God big news. The atmospheric chemists... It now turns out -- and this is a story from the journal Nature.com. It turns out that a key chemical reaction that was part of the theory that manmade chemicals are causing destruction of stratospheric ozone has been found to be almost ten times weaker than assumed... these scientists are nevertheless circling the wagons around the Freon ban ...Yes, there are biased scientists out there "
Forget Ronald Reagan signing the Montreal Convention -Rush instead blamed ozone depletion on an Antarctic volcano, whose chlorine output he exaggerated by a factor of 10,000.