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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Charge of the Heat Brigade

A poem to honor the 4,000 "scientists" of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

With thanks to Iowa Hawk for inspiration and apologies to the brave lads of the Light Brigade.

Hide Decline, Hide Decline,
Hide Decline onward,
All in the valley of Consensus
Wrote the four thousand.
"Forward, the Heat Brigade!
Charge for the credits!" Gore said:
Into the valley of Consensus
Wrote the four thousand.


"Forward, the Heat Brigade!"
Was there a climatologist dismay'd?
Not tho' the warmists knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to cap and trade:
Into the valley of Consensus
Wrote the four thousand.


Denier to right of them,
Denier to left of them,
Denier in front of them
Fact check'd and FOIA'd;
Storm'd at with reason and logic,
Boldly they wrote and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Wrote the four thousand.


Flash'd all their models bare,
Flash'd as they pull'd stats from air,
Proxying the tree rings there,
Charging at Climategate, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the peer review
Right thro' the  media line they broke;
Hansen and Al Gore
Reel'd from the data dump
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they wrote back, but not
Not the four thousand.


Denier to right of them,
Denier to left of them,
Denier behind them
Fact check'd and FOIA'd;
Storm'd at with reason and logic,
While models and data fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Denial
Back from the mouth of actual Science,
All that was left of them,
Left of four thousand.


When can their consensus fade?
O the wild charges they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the models they made,
Honor the Heat Brigade,
Nobel four thousand.

UPDATE: Thank you to Mad Minerva for her kind words of approval.