More global warming blog wars

November 3, 2:03 PMEnvironmental Policy ExaminerThomas Fuller

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Those of you who are tired of seeing the bickering between the differing sides of the global warming debate might want to skip this--but others might be pleased to see that I have issues with people other than Joe Romm...

This article is 'inside baseball' stuff to pass the time while compiling the data from the survey. It concerns my interactions at another climate weblog called Deltoid. It is run by a certain Tim Lambert. Lambert emailed me a few days ago asking why I 'hate climate scientists.' He compared me to Senator Inhofe. I went over to his weblog and asked in the comments when Senator Inhofe had changed his policy positions to admit that global warming was real (as I definitely do) and started supporting Barack Obama's energy policy (which I definitely do).

Here are comments from Lambert and his crew. They conclude with something that I find a bit repellent--Lambert published an email I sent him in the comments without asking my permission.

• Tom is a nasty little toerag
  
  Does Tom Fuller have some kind of communication disorder?
  
  Fuller's name is hyphenated though.......Fuller - (expletive deleted by me)
  
  Frankly, I think you need to grow a pair.
  
  Civility is wasted on those who use it as a shield but not as their guide.

Lambert then posted part of an email I wrote--this is what he wrote:

The abuse from Fuller continues via email:
"If anything, my opinion today is that Pielke may have been unnecessarily gentle with you. Pielke wrote about minnows who see it as their sole job to trash someone's reputation via innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation. Seeing as that's what you and your fan club did to me yesterday, don't expect me to get angry at him--smells like truth to me."

He neglects to mention that this was a reply to an aggressive email from him. And this is what he left out: "Tim, after my experience at your blog yesterday, do you honestly think
I'm going to take it seriously when you think someone else is not
playing fair?"

Just for context's sake, here is my response to Lambert's first email:

"Thank you for writing, if only to express your displeasure with my
column. While I tend to agree with Roger Pielke Jr.'s policy
positions, and have said so repeatedly at Examiner.com, I don't
believe I have endorsed any attacks on you. Perhaps you can point me
to the column where you find the language I used that you consider
objectionable.

I'm not trying to put you off--because I regularly criticize Joe
Romm's Climate Progress and Real Climate, I try to pay attention to
what I write about other sites. I suspect--and certainly hope--that
you are conflating my 'endorsement' of his policy positions with some
comments he made about your site--was this in regard to his recent
posts about SuperFreakonomics?

However, if your objection is to my agreeing with Pielke's policy
positions over yours, I most probably do--although I'm not quite as
familiar with your writings as I am with CP and RC.

I am happy to continue this discussion with you, and if I have in any
way endorsed personal attacks on you, I will apologise in the same
forum where they appeared, as well as personally in an email."

So, my takeaway from all this is, we don't have to throw away basic rules of courtesy. Doing so doesn't seem to contribute to the discussion.