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"Still, like I said, it's nice to see what we've all already suspected confirmed in writing. These guys are in the same league as Big Tobacco with their bullshit."

Same league? They're on the same *team*!

"Heartland also continues to collect money from Philip Morris parent company Altria as well as from the tobacco giant Reynolds American, while maintaining ongoing advocacy against policies related to smoking and health."
http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy

It's a blog, but it has a few more informative links in it: http://desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7817

In fact, Watts' claims that the surface temperature measurements were distorting the theory of AGW is specifically mentioned in this video and uncategorically proven wrong.

Here is one of the links on the page I provided that out Watts not just as a non-climatologist but as a non-scientist:

http://desmogblog.com/anthony-watts

Chemical additives are applied to tailor the injected material to the specific geological situation, protect the well, and improve its operation, though the injected fluid is approximately 98-99.5% percent water

So the problem of ground slippage (earthquakes) is just as big for this water injection proposal as it has already been for oil and gas frakking. And no, this is not "conjecture" any more - one company has already admitted that their frakking caused a series of small earthquakes, and more are under investigation. New Jersey banned it, as did France.

And why is that? Why should they jump out, in public, of their personal area of true expertise into something which is not their job?

Because they are jumping out in public now to advocate for various measures. I give you one Dr. Mann.

And then there are the nuts at the IPCC.

Of course, I think you are being rather disingenuous by retreating to the cover of objective science and claiming that they (you) are merely reporting the facts. It is plain to even the casual observer that Climate Science and schemes for fighting Global Warming are all part of the same group.

There is no separating the greater AGW community from the calls to impose limitations on CO2 through government policy that almost exclusively entail cut backs on energy use, rationing and taxes. Once you get past all the stupid sniping and name calling on Slashdot you inevitably find a call for these policies. Every major political figure/initiative I've heard of that is remotely related to AGW is sole focused on these kinds of policies. Maybe I missed the Nuclear Advancement and Energy Independence Act being introduce and discussed in a State of the Union addressed and Presidential speeches, but I doubt it.

And lastly, why wouldn't they? If, as Dr. Jones thinks, AGW is a threat to the world as we know it, why would he and his colleagues not all jump to endorse the one technology we have here and now that would do the most to mitigate CO2 emissions?

The following is taken from Desmogblog

  Spencer and the “Interfaith Stewardship Alliance”
Spencer is listed as a “scientific advisor” for an organization called the “Interfaith Stewardship Alliance” (ISA). According to their website, the ISA is “a coalition of religious leaders, clergy, theologians, scientists, academics, and other policy experts committed to bringing a proper and balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development.”

In July 2006, Spencer co-authored an ISA report refuting the work of another religious organization called the Evangelical Climate Initiative. The ISA report was titled A Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor: an Evangelical Response to Global Warming. Along with the report was a letter of endorsement signed by numerous representatives of various organizations, including 6 that have received a total of $2.32 million in donations from ExxonMobil over the last three years.

  Satellite Research Refuted

According to an August 12, 2005 New York Times article, Spencer, along with another well-known “skeptic,” John Christy, admitted they made a mistake in their satellite data research that they said demonstrated a cooling in the troposphere (the earth’s lowest layer of atmosphere). It turned out that the exact opposite was occurring and the troposphere was getting warmer.

“These papers should lay to rest once and for all the claims by John Christy and other global warming skeptics that a disagreement between tropospheric and surface temperature trends means that there are problems with surface temperature records or with climate models,” said Alan Robock, a meteorologist at Rutgers University.

  Spencer and the Heartland Institute

Spencer is listed as an author for the Heartland Institute, a US think tank that has received $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

The Heartland Institute has also received funding from Big Tobacco over the years and continues to make the claim that “anti-smoking advocates” are exaggerating the health threats of smoking.

Spencer and the George C. Marshall Institute

Spencer is listed as an “Expert” with the George C. Marshall Institute, a US think tank that has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Naomi Oreskes, who wrote Merchants of Doubt has quite a bit to say about the George C. Markshall Institute and their anti-science "scientific research."

The asshat who wrote the first study sited in TFA is a shill for ExxonMobil. The article hinges it's entire premis on the results of the second scholarly work which is a month old draft of an unpublished, unpeer-reviewed, unproven idea for an econometric model to analyze policy effects on on safety (translate: probably not even close to accurate). In fact, the article states as it's first line "Research confirms that increasing fuel economy standards does cost lives on the road.", as if this is proven fucking fact now. Stuff like this on slashdot makes me want to punch people in the face. Few bother to question or even read linked articles but love to go all modern jackass on meta shit that doesn't even have anything to do with the subject.

Heartland Institute is hardly a credible organization. It seems to be a shill for big oil, etc. Here are some interesting articles about Mr. Spencer's institute: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/what-if-you-held-a-conference-and-no-real-scientists-came/ http://www.desmogblog.com/500-scientists-with-documented-doubts-about-the-heartland-institute

I'll grant you that MightyMartian referenced some common stereotypes of conservatives that aren't optimally conducive to bridging cultural and political barriers. But on the relevant facts, the corruption is all corporate. Al Gore has pediatric oral Bidenitis, sure, but what matters is influence on government policy and no environmentalist has the power and financial resources to bribe the tens of billions of dollars out of Congress, which the oil industry receives every year.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-22-fossil-fuel-subsidies-dwarf-clean-energy-subsidies-obama-wants

The only way environmentalists ever get any policy outcomes to go our way is by being absolutely right, having all the science on our side. And we have.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

About that 2% or 3%, they're really tenured professors who can't be fired, former scientists turned corporate shills.

http://www.desmogblog.com/lindzen-wipes-hands-clean-of-oil-and-gas

Lindzen has not done respectable work for some years; since he started taking oil and gas money, not coincidentally.

If you claim to be a skeptic then here's an experiment to judge the verasity of Anthony Watts claims. First plot the average temprature from all US weather stations, second plot the average temprature from the 70 US weather stations that surfacestations.org rates as "good" or "best". Compare the two plots, if Watts is correct the two plots will be significantly different.

Luckily NASA has already performed that experiment. Peter Sinclair created a youtube video detailing the experiment and the results (results appear ~5:10 mark). Apparently this contra-evidence annoyed Watts so much that he filed a false DCMA notice against it.

In other words if you don't like frauds, you should not be using Anthony Watts as a source.

I posted this on the CBC news website:

Okay, I'm going to try to do a bit of an analysis of Weaver's claim. Now, I am not a lawyer - I'm a writer, a researcher, a publisher, and I work part-time doing writing and editing for a faculty of law. So, any errors are my own.

This is essentially a far-reaching libel claim. This means that two things have to be proven: first, that the National Post made a deliberate misrepresentation; second, that the Post did so with malice - they did it specifically to cause harm. If both can't be proven, the claim doesn't stand in court.

So, Weaver is launching a two pronged attack here - the first is against the Post itself for certain articles. The second is against some of the posters commenting on those articles.

First, the National Post itself: this will become a battle of sources. If the Post defends itself on that one, it will attempt to demonstrate that Weaver did say those things, and he's actively trying to rewrite history. So, the Post will have to bring out original rough notes for the articles to back-date Weaver's comments. So long as they can do that, even if the Post did say something wrong, then they can demonstrate that the errors were not deliberate, and the libel claim will fail.

Second, the NP forum posts: this one strikes me as a boneheaded move, frankly. There is simply no way to prove that the forum posters made any deliberate misrepresentations. Even if some of the comments were vicious, there isn't any way to demonstrate that an anonymous voice on a forum was knowingly lying.

Finally, malice: again, another very difficult thing to prove. This would require a paper trail or somebody able to testify that there was a targeted attack. Right now, the claim itself has innuendo, but not a trail to prove an attack.

For those who want to take a close look of their own, the claim is at http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/andrew%20weaver%20statement%20of%20claim.pdf

Libel, for instance.

There's that circle again, that you love to spin around so much. Whee!

Conspiracy theories are circular. Evidence works in a straight line.

Yes, here's one example [eastangliaemails.com].

Peer review can be adversarial. The submitters work was not destroyed. They could have published on the internet, or rather, they probably sent their publication to a trade journal such as Energy & Environment. Hardly sinister.

What happened to the scientific method here where someone else challenges a theory and you explain why the challenge is wrong using facts, instead of Ad-Hominem attacks?

This is what happened..

There was scientific consensus in 1979. You cannot make an evidence based (straight-line) argument against AGW, because none exists. I *always* challenge skeptics to produce one, but once their references show the emptiness of their arguments, then out come the conspiracy theories.

All "skeptics" have is circular conspiracy.

Don't believe me? Fine a "top 10" argument list for why AGW is not happening, and I'll happily tear it apart, in a LOGICAL and EVIDENCE based discussion.

ignorance indeed:

(1) Greenland used to be green....
Actually it didn't, it was called GREENLand to lure people there...marketing in action. Or perhaps a translation error.

(2) Medieval Warm Period
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/medieval-warm-period-mwp/
2000 year temp graph

(3) Rome used to import ENGLISH wine
correlation vs causation

(4) Astronomers have been pointing out *forever* that Major and Minor Ice Ages are dependent on the precession and nutation of the Earth's orbit.
I don't dispute this. However, there is *no* proof of this causing the *rate* at which we are seeing change today. Something else is effecting the system that wasn't around previously...like us.

(5) http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf where proxy data shows the global warming folks are seriously out to lunch
The Heartland Institute? seriously? they are such a blatant shill for Big Oil and Big Business it's not funny.

The recent disclosures that some scientists may not have followed accepted processes for handling data (ignored more complete data sets for smaller data sets that better supported their ideas etc.) are serious things to investigate and rightly should be investigated. I don't know of any climate change proponents who disagree with that.

It doesn't, however, change the other *vast* accumulated data that show a very marked divergence from historical norms at rates not seen previously.

The damage is done: nobody will believe ANY temperature data any more.

Wrong. People who have been deniers won't change their standpoint. People who believe the science will look through the fog of misinformation and come to the conclusion that while some of the emails are unsavory, the science hasn't changed because there was no fraud. Only a few that were undecided will be swayed. Others will become more active in exposing how the fossil fuel industry has been waging a PR campaign that includes lying and bad science as well as buying scientists and think tanks for decades. The net result will be that the truth comes out. Just like about tobacco. Or evolution, Or that the earth is round.

Oh and have a look at http://www.desmogblog.com/

That might not have been a "hack", see 'Stolen CRU emails: Who are the criminals behind the conspiracy theorists?' at http://www.desmogblog.com/stolen-cru-emails-who-are-criminals-behind-conspiracy-theorists

And your blind dismissal of anything based on the fact that it's posted on dKos makes you an irrational fool. Plain and simple.

Tell you what, genius. If you're afraid to visit dKos and fairly consider what's posted there, try these:

http://www.desmogblog.com/search/node/oregon%20petition

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

http://ezinearticles.com/?Debunking-the-Oregon-Petition-Project&id=1675285

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P8mlF8KT6I

Every one of the links above details what's wrong with the "petition". Or, if you lack the courage to visit anything that forces you to think, try the petition itself:

http://www.petitionproject.org/frequently_asked_questions.php

...where you can see 1) many of those on the petition are not scientists and 2) the petition mentions nothing about Al Gore.

I know, I know. Facts have a liberal bias. Sucks to be you.

From your own link, Dr Kiminori Itoh in his own words:

Tadashi and I are basically physical chemists familiar with environmental sciences, and not particularly specialized in climate science.

And in other people's words:

According to Google Scholar and Yokohama National University, Dr. Itoh has not published any work in the area of climate change in peer-reviewed science journals.

Maybe you missed step 2?

So that's what is happening to space science in the USA as the Bush term runs out. We are cannibalizing existing programs to study a mission that is unlikely to be funded. Yet another thing Bush has managed to screw up!

http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/the_australians_war_on_science_16.php

Yah, I know, typical liberal media, cirkular links, etc.

http://www.google.com/search?q=rocket+scientist+david+evans

Not a rocket scientist. Not a climatologist. Not a top anything. Average Windows programmer. Cashing in on "consulting" for think-tanks.

DeSmogBlog exists to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.

An overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world's climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. We know that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, we understand that the solutions are affordable.

Unfortunately, a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate. Using tricks and stunts that unsavory PR firms invented for the tobacco lobby, energy-industry contrarians are trying to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits. DeSmogBlog is here to cry foul - to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet.

The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates, one of Canada's leading public relations firms. By training a lawyer, by inclination a ski instructor and cyclist, Jim Hoggan believes that integrity and public relations should not be at odds - that a good public reputation generally flows from a record of responsible actions. His client list includes real estate development companies, high tech firms, pharmaceutical, forest industry giants, resorts and academic institutions. He is also a Board Member of the David Suzuki Foundation.

The DeSmogBlog team is especially grateful to our benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller, a firm that has been providing secure online transactions since 1999. John has been outspoken, uncompromising and courageous in challenging those who would muddy the climate change debate, and he has enabled and inspired the same standard on the blog.

Editorial Assistance on the blog is provided by renowned author Ross Gelbspan and by Richard Littlemore, an award-winning science and magazine writer, a speechwriter and a senior counsellor at Hoggan. Kevin Grandia oversees the project as a whole, Darren Barefoot manages the online aspects, and both make valuable contributions to content.

Kevin Grandia of DeSmog Blog has a "Play-by-Play" rebuttal to the movie, with links to support each point: http://www.desmogblog.com/a-global-warming-swindle -play-by-play

Best reading ever - a point by point description of his actual academic credentials (or rather lack thereof) - straight from a filing to the courts:

http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.co m/files/Johnson%20statement%20of%20defence.pdf

.

See, in particular, this account of his credentials. He's an emeritus prof. of geography, U Winnipeg, 1988-96; I haven't found his prior history, but he hasn't been an academic climatologist in the the last 20 years and most likely never was (if he were, why was his last professorship as an geographer?) He only published four peer-reviewed papers on climatology and the last was published at least 11 years ago. I can see no good reason for treating Ball as credible. The Independent article mentioned cites no sources beyond Ball; it is simply rumour, repackaged. Another version of this article appears in the Canada Free Press, a right-wing authoritarian rag which also published Ball's earlier claims; this appears to be the source.

Why was this run at all?

Nicely done; you fit most of the skeptics' standard and discredited talking points in 3 lines. And added a dash of standard logical fallacy as well.

You can go here, here, or here for more info.

In 2001, the scientists predicted temperature rises of between 1.4C and 5.8C on current levels by 2100, but better science has led them to adjust this to a narrower band of between 2C and 4.5C."