In my Beeville travelog, I promised that Zeke Hausfather would re-enter the narrative. Zeke, you’ll recall, was the first person to express doubts about the National Science Fair, Al Gore, national medal winners, astronauts, etc.

The question at hand is how the propagation of doubt works. How do the fake stories about climate propagate so effectively, and why are the real stories so much less effective at capturing the imagination? [more]

A minor but (perhaps sadly) amusing point regarding the Beeville hoax story.

Here are closeups of the stuff Julisa got along with the infamous letter, clipped from the photo taken by (and kindly provided to Irene by) Sarah Taylor of the Bee-Picayune.

This all explains the two logos on the letter. [more]

Regarding the Beeville hoax story:

Dear Michael,

Linda Slakey forwarded your message to me. We became aware of this
yesterday through an article in the Beeville, TX newspaper, and have
referred this matter to our Office of Inspector General.

The letter is not authentic, Linda had no knowledge of it, and it
amounts to fraudulent use of our name and logo. [more]

Readers may be aware of a recent controversy originating in Beeville, Texas, in which a fourth grader allegedly was awarded national honors for “Disproving Global Warming” in a science fair project.

Since, by Texas standards, this is local, my wife Irene and I drove to Beeville to investigate whether the implausible story holds any truth. [more]