Henry Payne doesn't understand a scientific phenomenon he thinks is a conspiracy

by: Eric B.

Fri Jul 20, 2012 at 10:13:15 AM EDT

As part of our ongoing series exploring whether Henry Payne, editorial doodler at the Detroit News and curator of Henry Payne's Museum of Half-Formed Thoughts, is a nutter of just stupid, we have his latest post on climate change. In the past, Payne has described climate change as a Bolshevik plot on the part of scientists and U.N. bureaucrats to enslave mankind. He's also described it as entirely invented by the media. What does he have to say about it this week?

"What the government has not mandated, the economy is doing on its own: emissions of global warming gases in the United States are down," thrills New York Times' reporter Matthew Wald. "In part, the Great Recession has been good for something."

Some might see sardonic humor. Henry Payne sees expression of personal values. This isn't the first time, or even the first time this month he's done it. A few weeks ago, he uncovered an AP science writer's not-so-secret agenda in reporting that most scientists buy into the theory of anthropogenic global warming ("'If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks,' wrote Borenstein, exploiting the warm weather to advance his political agenda ... "). Then, we learned that the AP is an Obama mouthpiece ("'An unrelenting President Barack Obama jabbed at Mitt Romney's record with a private equity firm in an ad Saturday that aimed to keep his rival on the defensive,' cheered the AP ...") because member newspapers picked up and ran a story about how the Obama campaign was pressing an attack over Willard's business history. Before that, the Detroit Free Press tipped its hand by reporting that Democrats opposed Republican-sponsored voter identification bills ("'Democrats viewed the measures as an attempt to suppress voter turnout, especially among minority and urban populations,' parroted the Detroit Free Press on Page A1 Wednesday.").In fact, it looks like kind of a fun game. Let's play with this story about honeybees.

"Like a scene from a horror movie, thousands of honey bees descended on downtown Stockholm on Friday the 13th, creating panic among people in the area," cheered Digital Journal reporter and bee apologist Martin Laine.

I for one welcome our new insect overlords. Let's get back to Payne's piece, where he writes the following.

Bad news? Better that a richer world endure inevitable temperatures with First World air conditioning than a poorer world that suffers inevitable temperatures in Third World shanties.

Is it possible that Henry Payne has for years written skeptically about a piece of science that he simply doesn't understand, that he is entirely unaware that the risk of global warming isn't warmer temperatures (like warmer winters), but of how adding that heat energy into what is a planetary energy transfer system will throw its mechanisms into disarray? Is it possible that he has written about this topic for years, and even peddled himself out as an expert for the Mackinac Center's traveling freakshow of climate deniers, and can't describe how the theory is supposed to work?