UPDATE 2/1/11: More news on the Koch Brothers
New information released by Greenpeace shows that various Koch foundations continued their anti-climate spending spree in 2009, and one of the largest recipients was the Cato Institute, where Pat Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies. The Koch brothers organized a strategy and fundraising retreat near Las Vegas last weekend, and protesters were on hand -- on land and in the air -- to shine a light on their activities. In tandem with the event, Sierra Club launched a new campaign to "dislike" the Koch Brothers.
Greenpeace USA's lead researcher Kert Davies just broke the story about a congressional investigation requested by Rep. Waxman that may finally put the climate denial machine under the microscope.
This by all reckoning is a real "climategate" - a genuinely scandalous story in which a scientist who testified before Congress hid the fact that he was funded largely by corporate interests. But will it get the same airplay that the now debunked "climategate" story enjoyed?
Maybe timing is everything. The hackers who broke into the computers of the University of East Anglia did so just weeks before the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. So when the denial machine went into overdrive the press fell for it hook, line and sinker. Despite several independent reviews exonerating the fundamental science, a number of newspaper retractions and various public apologies to people whose names were dragged through the mud, many people were left wondering whether climate change was really as much of a threat as it had been made out to be.
Compare that to the dog days of last summer. When much of the northern hemisphere was on vacation and concerns about climate tended more towards the cost of running an air conditioner, this far more explosive story barely escaped the blogosphere. Prominent climate skeptic Pat Michaels admitted on CNN that an estimated 40% of his funding came from petroleum industry sources:
In and of itself, this was hardly news. Desmogblog has revealed that since 1998 ExxonMobil has contributed $25 million to 35 anti-science nonprofits while oil giant Koch Industries has doled out more than $48 million to efforts that attack climate science.
Dr. Michaels, according to Rep. Waxman may have knowingly misled Congress into believing that only around 3% of his income came from the energy sector when he appeared before a congressional subcommittee hearing on the climate crisis the previous year. Waxman is now calling to have Michaels brought before the committee to clarify the sources of his funding.
In his letter to the new Republican Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Waxman points out that "Among the scientists who testified before this Committee on the issue of climate change in the last Congress, Dr. Michaels was the only one to dismiss the need to act on climate change."
I say it's time to give the skeptics a taste of their own medicine. Borrowing a term first tweeted by Andy Revkin of the New York Times, let's officially call this "Skepticgate" - a new synonym for the cynical, profit-motivated efforts of the Kochs and Exxons of the world to keep the public disinformed about the real and present dangers of unabated fossil fuel consumption.
Google "climategate" and you get 895,000 results. It's high time we expose the real "gate" in the room. So today I present a challenge:
How many results can we get on "Skepticgate" by the year's end?
Leave your thoughts, questions and comments about climate skeptics and what you think we can do to overcome their destructive influence on the media. If you've written blogs on the subject, please include the links below. And make sure to tweet about #skepticgate as this important story unfolds.
Follow Kelly Rigg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kellyrigg
http://climateaudit.org/2011/02/23/new-light-on-delete-any-emails/
Lets investigate all sides if you like. I'd like all the publically funded emails reviewed, the raw data disclosed and dissent allowed to participate as opposed to the idiotically politcally purged IPCC consensus building adventure of the last 25 years.
Why?
Co...rporations DO NOT have any national or state interest at hand, they will destroy any living creature existence if that brings PROFITS to them.
We need a resistance to the totalitarianism of corporations that the TEAPUBLICANS protect.
19 February 2011
by: George Lakoff
What Conservatives Really Want
Dedicated to the peaceful protesters in Wisconsin, February 19, 2011.
http://www.truth-out.org/what-conservatives-really-want67907
This is the outcome of years of rigorous religious training. Therefore, this denialism may be more about religion, and what the obedient flock are TOLD to believe, than what they might discover independently, on their own, in a free-thinking, unbiased manner.
Why is this point always ducked by alarmists?
Most climate scientists and scientists in related fields do scientific research but do not make specific policy recommendations or decisions. Perhaps you are confusing "most AGW scientists" with, for example, the National Academy of Sciences' strongly recommending that the AGW threat be effectively addressed. While the NAS is the most prestigious scientific body in the country and arguably on Earth, it is not comprised of "most AGW scientists".
In any event, trying to impugn the integrity and/or the validity of an entire scientific discipline because you don't like the scientific findings said scientific discipline arrives at is a classic form of science denial.
HTH.
There is no new AGW branch of the government and no AGW taxes. There is no need to duck the non-existent.
IMAGINE that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world... Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses... who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed.. Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defense of the proposition that the Romans existed at all: a defense against an exhibition of ignorant prejudice that would make you weep if you weren’t too busy fighting it.
If my fantasy of the Latin teacher seems too wayward... The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire... they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents, and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word ‘evolution’ systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into ‘change over time’.
-- Dr. Richard Dawkins, in reference to the other major science-denier movement/scourge our time, evolution science denial
Skepticgate is a reasonable term. So why in the world was the title of this article "Revealing Climate Denialists...?" Why not "Revealing Climate Skeptics....?"
Calling any adult a "denialist" is extremely offensive and rude. This practice should be dropped.
I would suggest to the Republicans in Congress that they write into law that any government employee that refers to another American citizen as a "denialist" because of his views of climate issues have his research funding withdrawn. Public employees are supposed to have a code of conduct regarding their dealings with the public. Why such rude behavior is being tolerated by Congress is hard to understand.
Perhaps that will teach a few people to stop acting like schoolyard bullies.
And in other news a thief takes offense to being called a criminal.
Hey R2 speaking of your science denial:
1: Will you finally admit that the globe has statistically-significantly warmed over recent decades?
2: Will you finally stop denying that science denier opposition to the theory of evolution exists?
[ If you are still having trouble with Question 2 google "Discovery Institute". ]
Please finally answer; thanks.
Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine, Greenpeace March 2010
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/12/13/reclaim-the-cyber-commons/
You know what I think is offensive and rude? Spreading disinformation attacking the work of legitimate climatologists on behalf of the fossil fuel lobby and its lackeys in the GOP.
Yup.
And for those who are intentionally doing so it is also inexcusably mendacious - I don't know how these people live with themselves.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2011/3101369.htm
The next book I read after Merchants of Doubt. Thanks for the great link!
Per NASA and the NOAA 2010 is not a "near record year" but instead a record year - tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record.
HTH.
When the two men examined the original data from which this claim was derived – compiled by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and the Met Office’s Hadley Centre – it clearly showed 2010 as having been cooler than 2005 (and 1998) and equal to 2003. It emerged that, for the purposes of the press release, the data had been significantly adjusted.
Comparing the actual data for each year, from 2001 to 2010, with that given in the press release shows that for four years the original figure has been adjusted downwards. Only for 2010 was the data revised upwards, by the largest adjustment of all, allowing the Met Office to claim that 2010 was the hottest year of the decade.
when are you going to stop denying basic science including that downward IR exists, fumes?
you'll never understand climate science..
until you stop denying science.
Don't let these people manipulate; they are insulting everyone who would believe them with tactics that are so disrespectful of their audience. They hold people who might be confused by these tactics in contempt; that's why they willfully manipulate them.
Proof; how should we have taken the meaning of “2010 – a near record year”? As a "near" record maybe?
Modifying the official temperature record of the UK to support a political agenda is hardly a "minor detail" unless you are a denier of integrity of the scientific method, which apparently you are.
If you knew anything about science you'd know that manipulating data is correct standard scientific practice - it's an integral part proper science.
Also the Met Office's "near-record" conclusion about 2010 is more conservative than NASA's and the NOAA's - both of which concluded that 2010 was tied as the warmest year on record.
But the Uk's Met Office, NOAA, and NASA are ALL part of the Great Global Global Warming Conspiracy, right? [Deep sarcasm intended]
If this were a real scientific phenomenon, any bright young astrophysicist could be garnering a Nobel prize and the undying monetary gratitude of the fossil fuel industry by writing about it. But there is not enough data to give any scientist worth their salary heart palpitations. For instance, a year on Pluto takes 248 earth years. So what part of Pluto’s orbit is it in? How many observations have been made? How were they made? Occultations 14 years apart? Mars? Mar's temperature is highly dependent upon dust storms. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are. Can you tell us what part of the Martian dust storm cycle we are in now? Any recent review articles on this? Come back if you find one!
BTW, the rate at which the sun radiates energy is constantly monitored and it ain’t rising , so it's hard to say that is is causing warming here or on other planets..
People who deny the possibility of global warming often complain that there is not enough data to prove that humans can warm a planet. How amazing that they can deduce, with but a handful of observations of phenomenon on planets light-hours away from here, that humans are not warming the earth!
I know this sounds pretty silly, maybe that's my point.