Which skeptic do you find the most and least tolerable?

A few times I've seen people compliment Jim Z for the quality of the content of his answers on Yahoo Answers.  One person even suggested that it would be nice if he participated on our discussion forum here.  This puzzles me a bit, because Jim's answers basically consist of "global warming is a scam, and I'm a geologist so I know!".  In a recent question I asked about whether we should continue to rely on fossil fuels (specifically coal power plants), Jim's response was

"You don't like coal precisely because it is available to us. With leftists, it is more about limiting our economy. You people won't be happy until we are shooting bow and arrows at... Wait, you won't let us do that anymore. You won't be happy unless we are back in the woods picking berries....Wait, that isn't allowed either. We might interfere with the mating habits of the Western Arroyo Toad. Why don't we all agree that you won't be happy period.

No other country would willingly discard its available energy resources but that is precisely what the left wants us to do. It isn't about global warming. It is about leftists political nonsense."

I mean come on, not only can the guy not agree that we shouldn't continue our reliance on coal and other fossil fuels, but his answer is nothing more than a paranoid political rant!

I can't say he's the least tolerable - I'll give that to Jello for his combination of stupid answers, cheating the voting system, impersonating others, abusing the reporting system, and the fact that the other deniers worship him.

I think the most tolerable is probably Eric C.  Although his source is usually some biased site like ICECAP, at least he tries to make scientific arguments, and his political rants are usually pretty minimal.  Plus as far as I can tell, he doesn't play games like Jello and James E and other deniers do.

Who are your most and least tolerable "skeptics"?  For those who don't participate on Yahoo Answers, feel free to chime in with examples of people you know who are skeptical of man-made global warming.

Yeah James E is right near the top because he really doesn't understand the science and thinks he really does.  I agree his links are utter garbage, and he always posts the same ones.

Ninga kid bugs me because I hate to see a young person so utterly closed-minded.  It's obvious he just sees it as an 'us vs. them' underdog kind of game.  And he worships idiots like Jello and James.  And his hypothetical questions like "would you wear a mask if it would stop global warming?" are just freaking stupid.  He's nowhere near the worst and certainly harmless, but also bugs me.

Jim z's whole argument is "we don't understand the science" and "climate has changed in the past".  He completely ignores the physics of the issue, and thinks he's allowed to because he's a geologist.  Apparently the laws of physics don't apply in the world of geology.

Haha nice.

Jello's username used to be "Mr. Jello".  Then one day out of the blue he changed it to "Dr. Jello", which is why I changed mine from  "Dana1981" to "Dana1981, Master of Science".  I figured if he was going to incorporate a fake doctorate into his username, I might as well incorporate my real degree into mine.

His answers have always been garbage.  He mostly relies on the argument that scientific predictions are no better than random guesses.  In terms of quality, his answers are among the worst in the denier camp.  Always have been (now that you mention peter.jungman, he's near the top of my worst denier list too).

However, he successfully cheated the voting system with multiple accounts to give himself a ton of best answers and become the 'top answerer' in global warming.  There were many questions where he had 20 best answer votes and nobody else had more than 2.  It was quite transparent.

The only reason the other deniers think so highly of him is because Jello is a fellow denier who's become the 'top answerer' in the section.  They don't really care how he did it, and they don't care how stupid his answers are.  To them it's all just a game.

The funny thing is he slowed down for a while and I think he stopped manipulating the voting system - at least as much as he had been.  It's quite possible that I've become the top answerer in the section, but YA hasn't updated the top 10 listing in probably almost a year now.  I don't know what the deal is with that.

Oh yeah Randall.  I don't know, he did just suddenly vanish.  Definitely don't miss him - especially since he was another of those who blocked everyone with a different perspective than his.  And to call his understanding of the science lacking would be a major understatement.

Oh I'd also like to add that Poncho Pete is emerging as a candidate for the worst denier award.  Not only does he constantly ask the same "question" about global warming being a myth because it's cold in freaking Winnipeg in the freaking winter (imagine that!), but it's also been explained to him that the temperatures he's citing are actually slightly above average, and that Winnipeg has a long-term warming trend.  So he

1. Doesn't understand the difference between weather and climate.
2. Refuses to learn the difference.
3. Asks the same "question" over and over again.
4. Denies the data which disproves his point anyway.

It doesn't get much worse than that.

Yeah so few deniers actually provide links.  James' are terrible, but he provides a bunch of them, which probably makes people less likely to click each one, but also makes it seem as though he's well-informed.  It's a clever tactic.  If people click the links, they're misinformed.  If they don't click the links, it still seems like he's speaking from an informed position.  And all he has to do is copy and paste the same links in each answer.

Oh so by the way, it appears that Randall's account has been suspended.  So perhaps he's given up, or perhaps he's still around under another ID.

Trevor left about a year ago.  I think he moved and was working on his new house out in the country or something like that, and just never came back to YA.

Bob last posted about a month ago.  He was using the Politics section a lot during the presidential election, but I think he got tired of the Global Warming section.

Hah yeah, I'm going on something like 2 years on YA now.  Back when I started I remember thinking 'these guys know so much more than me about the subject', but I learned a lot from guys like Trevor.  He was the best because he was actually doing climate science research and really good at explaining the science.  Very polite and patient too.  I miss having him around.

I've almost reached a burn out point on several occasions (especially when my account has been suspended), but I'm stubborn.  I don't want to let the deniers turn YA global warming into a propaganda misinformation site.  I agree having this site really helps, because it allows for real discussion when it's not possible on YA. 

Oh man that's rough because a columnist has a forum to say whatever he wants and you can't argue or do anything about it.  And a lot of people think it must be right because they read it in the newspaper!

I think when I was at one of those soccer games I'd have to demonstrate how to correctly kick a soccer ball and 'accidentally' kick the guy in the groin.

I think eric c is trying to make me reconsider my opinion of him.  He asked 2 recent "questions" where he obviously learned nothing from the answers, and I'm sure had no intention of learning anything.  But at least he's still trying to make scientific arguments.  It's just that he doesn't recognize what's a valid argument and what's baloney, and he wants the baloney to be true, so he believes it.

It's kind of frustrating when someone seems like they're trying to learn and understand, but in reality are only interested in denial arguments.

Well I think it's fairer to say there's no such thing as a long-term climate "skeptic" who's trying to learn and understand.  There are people who haven't researched much but read some "skeptic" garbage and start leaning toward being "skeptics", but are still willing to learn.

But those are true skeptics, whereas people like eric c are deniers.

And to be fair, there have been one or two deniers who have eventually changed their minds.  One I know of was named Sgt. Pepper I think, but later changed his username.  He was a denier, but never a very vehement one, and eventually came around to accept AGW and vanished from the YA global warming section.  Rare, but it happens every so often.

FYI, Mephistopheles, who claims to be Randall's friend, is likely Randall's new ID.

Hah yeah YA gets very repetetive.  You can count on a ton of "where's global warming?" questions during the winter.  And there's always the "is global warming real or a hoax?" questions.  And the deniers always ask the same dumb rhetorical questions like "when will people realize that global warming is a hoax?".  The rest of us try to keep it intersting by asking better questions, but this is definitely a better site for interesting climate change discussions, by far.

Are you on Yahoo Answers, quitenormal?

I still think eric c is the most tolerable, but he's been getting worse lately.  Though he did earn some brownie points because in an email, he mentioned that off the record, he thinks Jello is a joke.