The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science
quadrant.org.au
quadrant.org.au
The energy companies denying anthropomorphic climate change have much larger budgets and a vested interest in convincing everyone everything is fine, there's no need to change anything, so they can continue on with their current business model. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - after all the global climate change advocates have done a pretty good job of convincing everyone the climate is changing but what they haven't done is looked at whether the change will be net positive or net negative. The confirmation bias here is they appear to be only looking for the negative since it's assumed change is bad.
Finally, the author of this article forgot to mention one anecdote not supporting his claim - the link between smoking and cancer. The omission leads me to believe he has his own agenda he's pushing, or to be polite, has his own confirmation bias.
"huge range, from marginally beneficial to terrifyingly harmful, so it is hardly a consensus of danger, and if you look at the 'probability density functions' of climate sensitivity, they always cluster towards the lower end."
And he opposes people who will only countenance an extreme position, either being alarmist or denying everything.
He doesn't really seem to deviate much from that position throughout the article. I have a lot of sympathy for this - the probabilities density functions clustering towards the lower end isn't the most snappy of slogans but seems to be the truth unlike more extreme viewpoints.
It's pretty telling that these companies have spent well over 100 million in recent years for propaganda, and a grand total of ONE grant of 200K for scientific research.
And when that grant concluded global warming is real and anthropogenic, that was the end of industry funded research. Now it's nothing but propaganda.
I feel like this thread goes:
Original author: "Green movements with deep pockets have infiltrated science!"
Poster: "Yeah, but energy companies have even deeper pockets [so it's okay if people with obvious financial incentives to believe that climate change deserves drastic action are given gatekeeper positions in science.]"
Another poster: "Yeah, and check it out! The deep-pocketed energy companies don't even get involved with science!"
...
It shows to me that the fossil fuel lobby knows AGW is real, knows that if they hire any scientists to look at the issue, those scientists will once again confirm that AGW is real, and so they prefer to fund denialism.
That's the thing: you can have debates and disagreements, but physical reality does take sides.
[update]
You're a citizen. You can read the scientific papers on AGW regardless of whether they're used by the IPCC for their own papers.
Might I suggest you do that?
In fact, IPCC reports-- which are not science but political propaganda-- are the sum total of "science" that AGW proponents rely on when making their political claims (And their claim that "Science" agrees with them, which they think justifies calling anyone who disagrees with the hypothesis by the epithet of "denier")
- "forgotten" $1.2m in payments on disclosure forms (oops-a-daisy);
- referred to his papers as "deliverables" in correspondence with the energy companies
Notice that your argument is not science, but demonization.
Meanwhile every projection and prediction your side has made has failed to come to pass. And this has been going on for 20+ years!
You obviously have no idea what it is that Mann does, let alone how mining his email for a quote that can be misrepresented had one nothing to discredit him.
If you're going to attack someone based on stupid soundbites, you should at least use the ones that are up to date.
This kind of fact-twisting is on the level of the apocryphal Smathers campaign speech:
"Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert [pervert]? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism [necrophilia] with his sister-in-law and he has a sister who was once a thespian [lesbian] in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy [???]."
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_to...
Most generally, it is publishing damaging information about a person. In some jurisdictions, truth is an absolute defense to libel, in some other jurisdictions, truth is sometimes a defense (but not always).
I have good reason to believe that the insinuations against Dr. Wei Hock Soon are both damaging and false, and indeed, actionable. They are part of a campaign instigated since 1997 by one Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, to mob and harass Dr. Soon, isolate him by putting pressure on his employer to fire him, to cause sponsors to drop him, and destroy his reputation. Added to that, the stress from this attack is worsening his ill health.
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/defense-dr-willie...
>Contrary to media reports, the grants from “energy interests” used to support Dr. Soon’s research were solicited and received by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, not by Dr. Soon himself. The Smithsonian staff vetted and approved every grant and then kept about 40 percent of the total as a fee for acting as a fire wall between a donor and the researcher.
>Prior to conducting research on behalf of the Smithsonian, Dr. Soon would draw up a grant proposal that summarized the scientific questions he planned to research. Third-party entities interested in funding the research made their interest known to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian then vetted the research proposal and grant offers to ensure the research was scientifically proper and would not present any conflicts of interest. Only after conducting the vetting process did the Smithsonian authorize the research and the funding. The third-party funders wrote their checks directly to the Smithsonian, which was the grant recipient. The Smithsonian then distributed a portion of the grant money (usually a little more than half) to Dr. Soon as payment for his services
The term 'deliverables' mentioned in the offending comment above (which insinuates that Dr. Soon is 'delivering' scientific conclusions made to order) comes from the contract between the donors and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (not Dr. Soon), and refers to progress reports and early access to material in preparation for publication.
Of course, he could always sue, but we know why he'll never do so: the defendants would get discovery.
Prove it.
Prove they have spent that much on "propaganda" and that they have spent no more than 200k for research.
Now prove that the government has spent more on research, and that ALL of that research was of the "free inquiry" type (Eg: without a required outcome predetermined. Remember government has pressured scientists to reach certain conclusions, and journals have set out a particular hypothesis as fact for all articles, etc. Suppression of scientific inquiry is at a shocking level these days.)
Also, please tell me how much has been spent on propaganda by proponents of AGW.
I know just a few of Obama's and Gore's efforts alone were more than 200M (Obama spends 200M on a week long trip oversease-- every time he's gone overseas to promote the global warming theory he's spent more in propaganda than you claim the whole industry opposing him has.)
The 200K went to Richard Muller at Berkeley. I challenge you to find any other money. As for the $100M, here's $80M from one source, (freres Koch). The remaining $20M takes a bit more googling.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-an...
[update]
I love how I'm being challenged to prove a negative. If you can find any grant besides the Berkeley BEST grant, you will have disproved it. Go ahead and try.
And BTW, I have no downvotes. I've been "too fasted" myself.
Also, mister just-created-a-throwaway account, thanks for the down votes from you and your cronies.
It says a lot more than anything you've provided on this thread.
I'm not certain I really agree with either end of the spectrum.
Very likely, they're being too optimistic.
Al Gore invested a great deal of money in a carbon trading exchange that would have made him billions if the US Government had passed the legislation he was trying to get passed during the height of the "Inconvenient Truth" era.
The idea that only those with results that disagree with AGW have large budgets and vested interests is manifestly false.
And silly.
Edit: You can't have a discussion on hacker news of an intellectual nature because people use the down vote button to bury and silence those who disagree with their political dogma.
As a result, Hacker News, day by day, becomes more of an echo chamber, and as a result will likely end up like slashdot.
IS that what you want?
Are you really so insecure that you cannot tolerate well made arguments that you disagree with?
There are over 40 developed countries whose governments fund scientific research.
Several of them have heads of state who would love to find evidence against AGW: Canada and Australia come to mind. Angela Merkel would love to find evidence that the coal mining way of life in East Germany isn't a problem. (But she knows not to fight against scientific evidence.)
Our own government had a republican president not so long ago.
Again, if there was any avenue of scientific research that could find evidence against AGW, there would be money to fund it, be it from governments or corporations. Deniers have spent over 100M on propaganda in recent years. That's a lot of money that could have gone towards research if there was any to be done.
There was exactly one attempt to do that, with the grant given to Richard Muller at Berkeley. That blew up in the denier's faces, and they're never doing that again.
[update] "When you resort to calling people who disagree with your hypothesis "deniers" then..."
I am calling them deniers because they have ample funds with which to find evidence for their case, and they are refraining from doing so.
[update]
"Thanks for conceding that there are 40 governments putting money"
I did not say "40 governments putting money into the other side." I said "40 governments funding science." And as I pointed out, the governments of Australia and Canada would love to find evidence against AGW. And yet government funded scientists in both countries continue to find evidence for it. Our own government under George W. Bush would have loved to find evidence against AGW. And yet our scientists in NASA, NOAA, and academia, were finding evidence for it the entire time.
Thanks for conceding that there are 40 governments putting money into the other side-- which dismisses your absurd claims that industry as more money.
Please, stop insisting that your position has any validity, scientifically or politically.
It has no scientific credibility whatsoever. And the economic motivation is obvious in plain sight.
That's actually quite rational.
From a government policy perspective, what matters is the negatives, because it's the negatives that will require human action to cope.
The most notable example, of course, is rising sea levels as a result of melting polar ice and general thermal expansion, which threatens billions of people who live in coastal areas. Whether or not northern Canada turns into a breadbasket doesn't help a Malaysian or Miami resident when the land their homes are built on becomes the new seafloor.
Are you saying you believe that global average temperatures aren't increasing?
Or are you saying you believe they are, but we shouldn't do anything about it and just live with whatever consequences come our way?
Fundamentally I just don't understand your position.
If you genuinely believe global average temperatures aren't rising, well, there's not much to argue about. The evidence is in. Even the skeptics generally accept climate change is occurring, even if they don't agree about why. Holding a position that's objectively contrary to all current evidence is a position of faith rather than reason.
If you accept that climate change is occurring, but that humans aren't the cause, and your argument is we should simply do nothing because OMG GOVERNMENT, well, again, there's not much to argue about. That's a fundamentally faith-based position as well, as it argues that the death and displacement of billions is better than governments empowered to offset those effects. I can't begin to even fathom that claim. It requires a distrust of government that I can't begin to comprehend... which has its irony, given it was the government that created the very medium upon which we're having this discussion.
I suppose the last option is that you're just a troll, but I'll be generous and assume that's not the case and that rational discourse is, in fact, possible.
For example, Wikipedia says that Bangladesh has 156 million people as of 2013, and that "most parts of Bangladesh are less than 12 m (39.4 ft) above sea level, and it is estimated that about 10% of the land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 1 m (3.28 ft)".
Do you think millions of people will be able to migrate elsewhere, a large share of them even to other countries, without causing a lot of social conflicts?
Just imagine all of those people want to immigrate to your country. What is the government going to do about that?
They claim that the oil and gas companies in the US would join them if the coal lobby wasn't so strong in the US.
Of course there are nutcases on the "believers" side just as there are on the "deniers" side. The difference is that the nutcases on the "deniers" side are actually mainstream in the political world. On the "believers" side, the fringe is ignored or tolerated, while the mainstream talk is measured and based on fact. On the "deniers" side there's nothing but fringe.
The web allowed me to get the data in a matter of seconds.
If your data is really hard numbers (and from sources not subject to the heat island effect) I'd guess you'd find no warming. (Well other than solar cycles, etc.)
Edit: Yes, yes, please down vote this comment talking about actual science stuff. Keep up the brigade. I'm not spamming, I'm just making points that make you unhappy because they disagree with your political dogma. I'm not sorry. You are being anti-intellectual.
Your anti-intellectualism doesn't shame me. It should shame you.
Download the data and run my script. It will be fun and "sciencey".
http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurem...
[EDIT] I don't have to the mod points to downvote anyone :)
The global warming proponents changed the name of the movement to "Climate Change" because, as the earth got cooler despite rising CO2 levels after the end of the recent solar maxima, it was undeniable that the plant wasn't warming. But you can't deny the climate is changing!
In fact, look at their use of the word "denier". Calling your opponents names-- and all the other demonization tactics you see in this thread-- tells you that they know their position is completely political and not scientific.
If the science was on their side, they wouldn't need to call people names (And censor those who disagree, which on this site means down voting into invisibility.)
Notice how this article barely made the front page, while the most spurious pro-global warming article makes it to the top 10. (not to mention anything about Basic Income or other pro-marxist propaganda.)
You can't really in this case. Both sides have iffy tactics. You really need to look at the scientific evidence.
Or you should consider your position to be blidingly, obviously wrong in the face or evidence.
Personally the article seems like a bunch of BS to me. The author is basically saying that climate scientists are wrong because they have been corrupted by the multi-billion dollar green industry. With out providing any evidence of corruption or any new scientific evidence against global warming. The author then adds a whole bunch of other distracting bits of information that don't really support his core thesis. For example specific climate change research that turned out to be flawed doesn't really make a difference since there's already a huge body of evidence stretching back over half a century. It's basically just a straw man argument.
I think that even AGW proponents know the science is not on their side-- they just don't care, because they want more government power over the economy.
Demonizing a substance created by your very breath easily leads to pretty much the ultimate in tyrannical power.
International organizations call it “climate change” because the effects are much broader than increased temperature, but also include changes to air and ocean currents, precipitation levels, sea level rise, and a rise in average global temperatures isn’t uniform over the globe.
The term “climate change” has been in use by scientists since the 50s, and the term “global warming” was introduced in Broeker’s 1975 paper “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/files/2009/10/broeckerglobalwar...
Both terms have been in wide use since that time. No one has abandoned the term “global warming”, which is still an apt description of the fundamental change.
Also, calling people denier is proof positive of my point. The down vote brigades are just icing on the cake.
You guys don't care about science, you reject the scientific method completely, and you rely on propaganda, demonization and silencing your critics.
If the science was on your side, why the need for such dishonesty?
But the news media isn't scientists, and from what I've found, they used Climate Change a long time ago, well before the media did.
And rightly so, when the overwhelmingly vast consensus, among scientists, is that the thing exists.
> I think that even AGW proponents know the science is not on their side
Outlandish claims require proof.
> they just don't care, because they want more government power over the economy.
as do global conspiracy theories involving the implicit cooperation of the entire scientific community and multiple governments.
> Demonizing a substance created by your very breath
This is not relevant to the discussion, at all.
Of the scientists who discovered the AGW problem, a substantial portion was made up of right wingers:
John Tyndall: British Tory. Svante Arrhenius: Swedish aristocrat and pro-marketeer. Charles Keeling: staunch Republican.
Those are the big names.