Slashdot Mirror

Easy.

Extracting materials for and creating solar panels: There are some, but it's sort of like worrying about the CO2 release from the concrete used to build a nuclear plant as 'greenhouse gas emissions' for the electricity the nuclear plant produces. Over the life of the panel, said health related issues dwindle to relative insignificance. A solar panel is net healthier for humans than even 'clean' US combustion within the first year.

I'll make my own claim that the hospitals and medical facilities here benefit from their own cheaper energy sources and that has helped keep costs down

Let's assess:
First, yes, cheaper power does help keep medical costs down. I'd challenge you to find any source that shows that electricity is a significant expense for said medical facilities.
Second, a better way to look at it is balancing slightly cheaper household expenses and services, including medical, from cheaper power up against the extra expenses from the additional medical care.

In the case of coal power, it's often found that the external costs per kWh is actually DOUBLE that of the internal costs. So if you get $50 of electricity from coal, it's actually costing you $150. This translates to you, on average, getting one extra upper respiratory tract infection each year, plus a small chance of lung cancer or other serious illness that can lead to death.

Yes, it's actually cheaper to spend $100 on cleaner electricity in the first place.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...
Total 4,582MW from out of state coal.

That's twice the capacity of the old san onofre nuclear power plant.

You could have Googled this yourself but here are a few references:
http://winephysicssong.com/201...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

The fact that they agree with me on one point about my car has nothing to do with the quality of their study or whether or not "I agree with them".

All you have to do is quadruple your electricity prices

No. Coal is mostly being replaced with natural gas, which is cheaper than coal, and generates half the CO2. Gas moves in pipelines, which are cheaper and safer than the trains that carry coal. Gas turbines are more efficient than the steam turbines that coal plants use. Gas burns clean, and doesn't require the expensive pollution abatement equipment required by coal.

It no longer makes economic sense to build coal plants in America. Most new projects have been cancelled or suspended. Gas is cheaper and cleaner.

And yet it happened:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

You either didn't read the Forbes article you linked to, or you didn't comprehend it.

The article's author, James Taylor, claims that the survey conducted by the paper's researchers didn't ask the right question:

As is the case with other ‘surveys’ alleging an overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, the question surveyed had absolutely nothing to do with the issues of contention between global warming alarmists and global warming skeptics.

Taylor does also claim that the papers composing the data of phase I of the study were misclassified - but he relies solely on the analysis of "investigative journalists" at the crank site Popular Technology to support his position. Further, both Taylor and Popular Technology conveniently ignore the fact that phase II of the study had the authors of the papers self-classify.

As an aside, pointing to an opinion piece on Forbes written by James Taylor, a lawyer at the Heartland Institute, hardly lends weight to ANY argument. Mr. Taylor claims to be a "scientist by training" because "I successfully completed Ivy League atmospheric science courses". His employer, Heartland Institute, has likened climate scientists to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, murderer Charles Manson and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Also this notion that peer review catches all frauds is laughable:

snip

NOBODY said the peer review process is perfect. But as GP correctly states, it's the best we've got. You seem to think that just because some academic fraud exists, that it's therefore having a substantial impact on climate science. That's a pretty extraordinary claim...got anything to back it up?

As to your point about reading the abstracts. That's not enough. You need to actually have the study itself vetted. And peer review does not do that.

That's not what GP was saying. Jesus. Namarrgon is saying that before YOU or some other guy on the internet starts pontificating about this or that scientific research, YOU should at least read the abstract of said research. But since you're happy to rely on opinion pieces and pop science articles that are chock full of hyperbole and distortion, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Namarrgon's wise advice is falling on deaf ears. At least in your case.

And that is frequently what is going on.

According to who? You? On what credible data do you base that extraordinary claim? Another James Taylor opinion piece in Forbes?

Oops on 1. It was roughly 1980 when America started to emit more CO2 than Europe. Prior to that, Europe emitted more.

I stand by #2, based on the above. You can see that starting in 2008, America's emissions started dropping, and has continued since that time. More importantly, it will continue for the next 4 years, if not longer. And here is EIA saying that much more will close. And IER thinks that 72 GW of 321 GW of coal plants are going to shut down before 2020. Note that Coal plants account for about 3/4 of electricities CO2 emissions in America. Shutting down that 72 GW, which are the worst, will take out roughly 1/4 of that CO2 of Electricities CO2 emissions.

This data from Europe, shows that America's data starts in 1992 at 5.0. hits highest point was 2007 (5.9 billion tonnes) drops to 5.3 in 2013. Likewise, Eu28 data start in 1992 at 4.3 and then sits at it until 2007, where it also drops to 3.7.
Sadly, this article does not do justice to the amount of emissions that Europe kicks out, but the map in it shows how much is really coming out of Europe AND CHINA.

And as to 4 above, that stands on its own. Again, OCO2 shows how much China emits, which is far far more than is generally admitted since Chinese leaders are lying.

and you can look up 5 and 6, or even think about it. China's emissions from 1850 on, exceed America's total. And considering that China and Europe have been burning coal for multiple millennium as well as have been the most populated areas of the world for the last milenium, it makes sense that they account for the majority.

You do know that Anthony Watts is paid to lie and spew half truths on that site, right?

I'm pretty sure your cited source could be described the same way. Sad. Who to believe. http://www.groupsnoop.org/Cent...

The "cited source" isn't taking a position on a scientific paper or political policy. Merely on the source of funding ... there is no motive to lie and if they're lying, you can check their sources for the Heartland/Watts link. It is a Wikipedia page with sources. There is nothing to question.

I hate to break it to you but all of those links used as citiations at the bottom of groupsnoop's page don't go anywhere. There is no way to validate their sources! None of those links that work back up anything that groupsnoop is presenting on that page!

You do know that Anthony Watts is paid to lie and spew half truths on that site, right?

I'm pretty sure your cited source could be described the same way. Sad. Who to believe. http://www.groupsnoop.org/Cent...

There's a volcano under West Antarctica that might have something to do with it.

You do know that Anthony Watts is paid to lie and spew half truths on that site, right?

Have you seen the nasty things salt does to metals and plants? Yet you happily eat that every day.

Because people have eaten salt for millennia without negative effects.

How long have people been drinking benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene? Not to mention the substances that we don't know about that are in fracking fluid because they're "trade secrets".

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

I don't know where you got the idea that the only levels of these chemicals showing up around fracking sites are in the parts per trillion. Because it's not true:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

According to source in post and cross-referencing with member lists from the Marcellus Shale Coalition, five of the funders of Energy In Depth are board members on MSC while two others are associate members. That's an undeniable 7 of the listed 15 funders. Also, there is undoubtedly a large overlap and many relationships built amongst the funding companies through the even just the executive board of MSC, let alone the companies at large.

You do realize that the EPA would already regulate fracking if there were danger to ground water. Funny thing, but if the oil they are fracking for was anywhere near the water

You do realize that a simple google search would have confirmed that fracking fluids are already appearing in groundwater and posing a threat to health.

http://www.scientificamerican....

https://www.propublica.org/art...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

can you legitimize that accusation please?

Well, going down the list of signers http://www.vox.com/2015/4/16/8... I notice

GIlbert Ross, M.D.
President (Acting) and Executive Director
American Council on Science and Health

I am not completely for or against ACSH. Elizabeth Whelan, their founder, was an advocate for some issues I agreed with and some issues I disagreed with. I met Whelan a couple of times. I liked her. She was adding information about some controversial debates, and she was particularly useful in taking on some politically correct positions that had a weak science base. As I recall she was defending GM food, and also taking money from Monsanto.

Most admirably, she was taking on the cigarette industry when it was still a "controversy," especially in magazines that were getting a lot of cigarette advertising, notably almost all the major women's magazines.

But Whelan was also trying to round up "unrestricted" grants from industry to write supposedly unbiased or objective reports on major controversies. To her credit, they tried to give all the scientific evidence, although they seem to have run into problems with that.

The one I remember was their report on that fat substitute, Olestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... This was not a life-or-death issue, but olestra had a few side effects, the most noticeable of which was diarrhea. Procter & Gamble managed to get the FDA to allow them to refer to "diarrhea" by the euphemistic term, "loose stools," which I thought was misleading. At any rate, when I read that report I realized why you can't get an objective report sponsored by a corporation with a financial interest. Whelan couldn't even use straightforward language and arguments to defend olestra, because P&G's lawyers made them follow the FDA-approved wording.

Whelan's big disappointment was that the industry wouldn't support her (the way they do for the more partisan think tanks like the Manhattan Institute), so she gave up that economic model. I don't know where they get their money from now, but I assume they disclose it. In a way it's a shame, because Whelan failed because she was too honest (but not completely candid). Or to put it less flatteringly, you can't be a little bit of a prostitute.

But let's go to the signers at the top.

Henry I. Miller, M.D.
Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy
& Public Policy
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Scott W. Atlas, M.D.
David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Hoover did not deign to include its funding sources in the "About Us" section of its web site, and I'm not going to track it down. But as I recall, when Hoover was first created, the Stanford faculty complained that they were an independent institution using Stanford's name but without academic accountability to Standford, and they were funded by corporations that had a financial stake in some of the areas of their research.

Miller was one of the founding members of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which was founded by Philip Morris to challenge the evidence of harm from tobacco http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

I remember reading Miller's defenses of GM food. I happen to think that GM food is (probably, mostly) pretty safe. But if Miller believes in the free market, he ought to let consumers know which foods are GM and which aren't, so they can make their own free-market decisions. I don't know if Miller takes any money directly from those corporations. But the organizations he works for, like the Hoover Institution, ACSH, and ASSC, do. So that's where his paycheck ultimately comes from. So in that sense the parent's accusation is true.

Oz has

No, they're a right-wing think tank. Funded directly by the Kochs for about $900k, and DonorsTrust to the tune of $20m. One of the Kochs is even on their fucking council. Huge ties to ALEC. I don't even live in the US and I know all this, so the only conclusion I come to is that you're an idiot.

The fact that you're describing Christina "Equity Feminism" Hoff Sommers as a democrat and a liberal is incredible. She gets almost all of her play on right-wing websites and news sources. Go and have a check of the list of people who describe themselves as equity feminists, and see the incredible company she keeps.

Not to mention your use of "social justice warrior" marks you out as either a Men's Rights Activist, a Gamergater, or one of many similar groups that all have misogynist histories - all groups that have axes to grind against women and feminism, and for some reason hold up CHS as a 'feminist', despite her defense of toxic masculinity and her hatred of anything feminist introduced past 1960.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/do...

The report is a little big, heading toward 46 Megabytes, but I'm certain there is a typo in there that will allow you to refute the whole concept of AGW.

Have at it.

But wait! There's more!

Climate data online

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-w...

Paleoclimatology data

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-...

Probably what people are referring to in trying to say there has been no warming recently is the Monckton analysis:

http://www.climatedepot.com/20...

He's an interesting character, for those who like to talk about Mann's irascibility. He wants scientists to be Christian, (or other appropriate religion) and wants climate change supporters to wear Swastikas in order to identify them.

I only put that in here because deniers like to talk about Mann's personality, yet one of deniers biggest hero's is a hoot in his own right. But if he were correct, it doen't matter. Science is not right or wrong based on personality.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

But he's pretty well been debunked now.

http://transitionculture.org/2...

The online presentation is the link you want.

Here is a response to the movie "The Great global Warming Swindle" a movie about how global warming isn't. It's a little sarcastic and snarky, but you might understand that.

http://www.durangobill.com/Swi...

The first instance is telling. Altered graphics and ommission of data thatat doesn't agree with a conclusion. Omitting the last 20 years temperature data is plain and simple - fraud in the name of denialism.

Anyhow, these are sources you can readily access via the internet. If you need more, I can find them for you. But you have an exercise first. Just one, taken from the last link. Explain how omitting the 20 years of data to prove the average global temperature is not increasing is ethical and honest, and adequate proof or disproof of anything. Might as well just drop all of the high temps, re-average, and claim it's getting colder. Yet it is the deniers "trump card".

And this is why deniers bear a strong relation to creationists. The Monckhaven analysis is brought up time and again despite it being proven false. Not a whole lot unlike creationists continuing to cite the "humans walking with dinosaurs" fossil, or "the eye is so complex" arguments or polonium halos or variable speed of light, or even the grandaddy of them all "Humans did not evolve from Monkeys or Apes", which is true enough, but only because humans and apes and monkees evolved from some common ancestor a long long time ago.

Careful there. There's a ton of these sites pushing a particular special interest agenda (in particular, fed-soc.org is one of many fronts for the Koch brothers funded through the American Enterprise Institute). Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

Since they all exist to push a particular business interest through mindshare, it's almost impossible to figure out where the truth lies by the "facts" presented on these sites. In this case you can safely go out on a limb and assume that it's someone sympathetic to breaking down the TCPA.

Exactly. There is a reason the democrats did not push this forward when they had the Senate.

Nonsense. They did try and have tried multiple times in the past.

It's not me that hasn't looked at actual facts, it's you that doesn't grasp what the real costs of coal are.

Yes, the amount you pay directly for coal appears cheaper than wind, but unlike wind the amount you pay directly isn't anything close to the real actual costs of coal. This article explains some of the increased costs of coal that are buried into your taxes, medical insurance and so forth such that you don't realise what the real cost of coal you're paying actually is:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

There are countless studies that research the real costs of coal and the estimates vary, but all show coal as consistently more expensive than pretty much any other power source.

Nuclear would be far cheaper than coal if you could just dump the waste in someone's back garden and let them pick up the bill for their cancer, but for some reason coal is one of the few power sources allowed to get away with doing basically exactly this.

So when I say actual costs, I mean actual costs, not the up front direct costs on paper you've quoted- those have no relevance to the actual in practice cost of using coal as an energy source.

You may want to consider looking at the actual numbers. Natural energy creates far more skilled labour jobs than coal mining.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

Looking at employment only, the US would benefit more from building more windmills than to continue running coal mines. Again, only considering employment.

The externalized costs of coal are greater than the value of the electricity produced, mainly from the effects of pollution on health and agriculture. That's without any reference to climate change at all. http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

Clean(er) coal is still mostly an idea, not yet commercially implemented (at least when talking about carbon sequestration in the US). A pretty good article is at National Geographic. It mentions that there is a plant under construction in Kemper County, Mississippi, that should capture more than half of its CO2 emissions and redirect them to an oil field. The project has suffered from cost overruns and delays (new tech, not horribly surprising). Besides sequestration, there is work being done on "gassification" (turning coal into a gas and cleaning it before burning it) and improving the combustion process itself.

Of course, you still have to get the coal, which can be nasty (see mountaintop mining and this article about environment impacts of coal mining).

Even as we are trying to sequester half of the carbon we generate when generating power from coal, the permafrost is melting, and according to that article, this could release about 190 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

So, yeah, we can use coal better, but it will cost a lot of money, which probably isn't going to happen without regulation and, subsequently, the recovery of any investment via higher prices for energy. Higher energy prices will doubtless generating much gnashing of teeth during an economy that, at least in the US, seems stuck in a slow, very slow, recovery. With the US Congress very likely to go to a Republican majority next month, the chances of any kind of CO2 regulation are slim.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

California almond farms use 1.1 TRILLION gallons of water per year.

http://www.slate.com/articles/...

it would be interesting to learn more about the people involved and their backgrounds

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wik...

Here we go. a giant list.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wik...

you didnt debunk anything.

you just linked to another faulty denier site that has itself been proven wrong, and an article that trots out the same "warm period and "little ice age" misconceptions.
Roy Spencer is not a valid source.

Tree ring reliability: ( http://www.skepticalscience.co... ):

The divergence problem is a physical phenomenon - tree growth has slowed or declined in the last few decades, mostly in high northern latitudes. The divergence problem is unprecedented, unique to the last few decades, indicating its cause may be anthropogenic. The cause is likely to be a combination of local and global factors such as warming-induced drought and global dimming. Tree-ring proxy reconstructions are reliable before 1960, tracking closely with the instrumental record and other independent proxies.

Medieval Warm Period: ( http://www.skepticalscience.co... ) AND ( http://www.skepticalscience.co... ):

The Medieval Warm Period predominantly affected the North Atlantic and Europe, not the whole world. While the Medieval Warm Period saw unusually warm temperatures in some regions, globally the planet was cooler than current conditions.

The Little Ice Age: ( http://www.skepticalscience.co... ) AND ( http://www.skepticalscience.co... ):

The sceptical argument that current warming is a continuation of the same warming that ended the LIA is unlikely. There is a lack of evidence for a suitable forcing (e.g. the sun) and numerous correlations with known natural forcings that can account for the LIA itself, and the subsequent climate recovery. Taken in isolation, the LIA might cast doubt on the theory of climate change. Considered alongside the empirical evidence, model predictions and a century of scientific research into the climate, recovery from the LIA is not a plausible theory to explain the observed evidence and rate of global climate change.

As for Roy Spencer himself:
-He believes in the "global scientific conspiracy" ...a conspiracy involving tens of thousands of scientists, and perfect secrecy...
-He believes that they lie to make money off research grants" myths....cause theres just so much money to be made that way...as opposed to being on the payroll of a big oil company, like him.
-Oh, and he also believes that GW cant be happening....because God.

So ya...that's a "wonderful" source you have there.

http://www.desmogblog.com/roy-...
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014...
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/R...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

I would not accept Israeli Propaganda, distributed by Zionist organs like Wiesenthal. They have consistently conflated opposition to Zionist "slaughter and settle" policy with "antisemitism". They are an actor in the play - and received this "material" from the IDF itself. What is the budget and resource of the IDF for "cointelpro" style productions, vs. that of Hamas?

Thought so.

Donatella Rovera is a disinformation source, and well-known war propagandist, using the language and guise of Human Rights to justify military campaigns that target civilians and "regime change" as well as other International war crimes.

Several AI chapters connected with universities in the U.S. have been taken over by groups with their own agenda. Their interest is to block criticism of certain countries, and to create a false impression that AI favors their position. There have been instances where manipulators sent "news releases" using AI letterhead (of the local group) to push their agenda. On Oct. 2002, AI-London stated that it is not their business to censor these groups (statement by Donatella Rovera when she was asked about this).

In July 2, 2004, AI called for the suspension of weapons sales to
Sudan. On February 16, 2005 it called for a suspension of weapons
sales to Nepal. However, although AI has shown that while it is
willing to issue such calls regarding several countries, it is not
willing to request an embargo of weapons sales to Israel. Donatella
Rovera, the chief researcher on Israel-Palestine offered the following
explanation:

“The situations in Sudan and in Israel-Occupied Territories are
quite different and different norms of international law apply, which
do not make it possible to call for an arms embargos on either the
Israeli or the Palestinian side. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are
under Israeli military occupation (not the case for the Darfour region
in Sudan). Hence, certain provisions of international humanitarian
law, known as the laws of war (notably the 1907 Hague Convention and
the Fourth Geneva Convention) apply in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories (and not in the Darfour region).” (email
communication July 5, 2004).

AI is couching its double standards in dubious legalese, but consider
what Prof. Francis Boyle (Professor of International Law at Univ. of
Illinois Champaign) has to say about Rovera's statement:

This is total gibberish. When I was on the Board of Directors of
Amnesty International USA near the end of my second term in 1990-92,
we received the authority to call for an arms embargo against major
human rights violators, which Israel clearly qualified for at the time
and still does—even under United States domestic law. Of course
no one at AI was going to do so because pro-Israel supporters were
major funders of Amnesty International USA, which in turn was a major
funder of Amnesty International in London. He who pays the piper calls
the tune—especially at AIUSA Headquarters in New York and at AI
Headquarters in London.[4]
(http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij10132004.html)

Amnesty was hijacked by interests of the US Dept of State, and NATO governance, using grassroots efforts of its original vision to pervert the intention behind the organization's original foundation:

UNAC urges antiwar and community activists across the U.S. to condemn a sharp change in the direction and character of the campaigns of Amnesty International USA, especially since the hiring in January, 2012 of Suzanne Nossel as Executive Director. Nossel is a former State Department official and aide to former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrook. She coined the term “Smart Power,” w

No mistake here, Watts is absolutely a paid shill. He is a serial liar, and lying about that is no surprise.

right there in the source watch summary

Note here the actual claim here was that wind power hit energy payback well inside of a year. Conflating completely different things is a typically clueless and lazy activity I see in the climate change debate on all sides. Can't you step up your game? Or is the future of Earth just not that important to you?

Remember the thing I was explaining. "Similar claims". I wasn't addressing that particular claim, because it's far more important to communicate that Watts is a shithead who will engage in any lie he imagines he can get away with. There's no benefit of the doubt left to offer him. Absolute irredeemable fuckwit territory. I know ad hominem isn't a great reason to dismiss an argument, but Watts, in particular, is an someone who, if he wasn't fueling a bunch of idiots' confirmation bias, should have been run out of any debate ages ago, and it would be a bigger waste of time to examine this particular most recent lie and digest it, than to wait for an assessment someone whose trustworthiness is above "diagnosed compulsive liar" levels.

Yep, they're evil. No doubt in my mind. If anyone still has any doubts, I recommend looking at where Google spends its money, rather than listening to their PR and marketing departments, PR agencies (They hire A LOT of those), and generally spineless, fawning, sycophantic, advertising dependent mass media. The following list of recipients of substantial amounts of Google's money reads like a who's who of evil in the USA. Quoting from sourcewatch.org:

"Support for Conservative Groups

Google funds "politically-engaged trade associations and other tax-exempt groups" and "a number of independent third-party organizations whose federally-focused work intersects in some way with technology and Internet policy" that include:

        American Action Forum

        American Conservative Union

        American Enterprise Institute

        American Legislative Exchange Council

        Federalist Society

        Mercatus Center

        Heritage Foundation

        National Taxpayers Union

        Texas Public Policy Foundation

        U.S. Chamber of Commerce

        U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

        Washington Legal Foundation

Support for Conservative Politicians

In 2012 and 2013, Google Washington hosted fundraisers exclusively for conservative Republican U.S. Senators: John Barrasso, John Thune, Rand Paul, and James Inhofe."

Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

Nothing will change for the better until the system and the rules that govern it do, changes that are extremely unlikely to be made by elected officials.

By the way, the Tea Party is the very definition of a special interest group.

YOU ARE SQUEALING LIKE A STUCK PIG BECAUSE THE ACCUSATION IS TRUE.

(In normal conversational "voice" mode.) Let's look at a real world example. I know this is painful for you, because the truth hurts. It hurts even more when you have to leave Republican fantasy land, which you almost never do.

Let's take the very powerful and influential lobbying group, the US Chamber of Commerce. This is what I found when I asked Mr. Google the search terms "US Chamber Republican Democrat".

http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=US+Chamber+of+Commerce

Money Spent For or Against Candidates 2013-2014 Cycle

Total Independent Expenditures: $12,157,051

For Democrats: $0

Against Democrats: $1,412,500

For Republicans: $9,744,551

Against Republicans: $1,000,000

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce

...the New York Times reported in October 2010 that half of the Chamber's $140 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 big-money donors, many of whom enlisted the Chamber's help to fight political and public opinion battles on their behalf (such as opposing financial or healthcare reforms, or other regulations). The Chamber is "dominated by oil companies, pharmaceutical giants, automakers and other polluting industries," according to James Carter, executive director of the Green Chamber of Commerce.

...

The report, “The Gilded Chamber: Despite Claims of Representing Millions of Businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Gets Most of Its Money From Just 64 Donors,” analyzes the 1,619 contributions listed by the Chamber and its affiliate working against consumer access to courts, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), on their 2012 Form 990 tax returns. Just a tiny fraction of their donors account for most of their contributions, Public Citizen found.

The average reported contribution to the U.S. Chamber was $111,254, with the top 43 entities donating a combined $80.4 million.

“The U.S. Chamber is one of the largest conduits of dark money in the country, but it refuses to disclose its donors,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, where U.S. Chamber Watch is housed. “The American people deserve to know more about who’s influencing this powerful force in our politics. By looking at the size of the Chamber’s and ILR’s donations, we can learn a little more about what kinds of businesses they represent – seemingly, very large ones.”

So over here in the Real World big corporate interests are spending vast amounts of money to put "pro-business" (in reality pro-big business) politicians in office using untraceable money.

The Chamber is also a big players in the climate change denier network. (I'm tired of doing all this work for you, look it up yourself.)

So yes REPUBLICANS ARE WORKING FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE ULTRA RICH AND AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF EVERYONE ELSE. Glad I could explain that to you in your own language.

He also claims that he isn't actually paid by Heartland Institute.

Leaked internal documents from Heartand say differently. funding climate change deniers Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 a month), James Taylor who has written a lot about Climategate through his Forbes blog, and Anthony Watts ($90,000 for 2012) to challenge "warmist science essays that counter our own," including funding "external networks (such as WUWT [Watts Up With That?] and other groups capable of rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts)."

Also Watts is not a scientist. If they were really interested in obtaining an honest, accurate appraisal of the temperature data they should have hired someone who had actual experience or qualifications. But they didn't want an accurate rendering of the data, they simply wanted denial.

They extract the water locally, and add all the other chemicals required (anti-bacterials, lubricants, anti-foaming agents). They extract the water from the nearest underground source since the typical fracking operation requires three to four millions gallons of water. It would defeat the purpose of fracking if they had to burn fuel to transport water to extract fuel.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

Anthony Watts is in it for the sweet Heartland Institute dollars.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

If he gave a flying fuck about your health, he would at least ask where you live first to know if you live in one of the few areas that might benefit from global warming and won't get dragged into any wars or refugee crises.

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And prior to TechFreedom, Berin Szoka was part of The Progress And ... Freedom ... Foundation, a "market-oriented think tank" that received funding from the telecommunications industry. From http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind... :

According to Common Cause.org, The Progress and Freedom Foundation’s list of corporate donors "reads like a who’s who list of the telecommunications industry. Telephone companies like AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon; technology companies like Microsoft and Intel; telecom trade associations like the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association; cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner; cell phone companies like T-Mobile and Sprint; and broadcasters like Clear Channel Communications and Viacom19 have all helped fill PFF’s coffers to the tune of a $3 million per year operating budget."

These organizations really shouldn't be considered "think tanks" at all. They're just avenues through which crony capitalists can affect legislators/policy and public opinion by leveraging their massive stores of wealth. This is not "free speech." This is free speech amplified by wealth, which is wrong. Without their contributors' backing, they would just be a bunch of noisy shmucks that no one listens to--just people like you and I.

It doesn't even matter whether or not people like Berin Szoka truly believe the bullshit that comes out of their mouths and onto paper/keyboards. In either case the only reason they're even given an ear is because there's a shitload of money backing them. This is not how a democracy should be run. Wealth should not determine the penetration of your message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism

Pretty much one or more of the above - it comes in different varieties. There are some flavors of denialism in Africa that claim the West even artificially created HIV to wipe out all black Africans.

Let’s see – you sister graduated at the top of her class and was a teacher? What is she doing now? And why are extrapolating from a single data point? That could be dangerous. But since you wanted evidence.

She's no longer on this plane of existence, but I get your point about small data sets.

The countries where pupils do best, such as Singapore, Finland and South Korea, draw all their teachers from the top third of the academic pool. In America three-quarters of teacher-training colleges accept students who graduate in the bottom half of their class.

http://www.economist.com/news/...

By the way, I have a pretty good idea what Special Ed teachers do, and I greatly appreciate what they do, but of the 40 or so that I have meet none of them graduated from the top of their class or from top schools. That’s my antidotal evidence.

Here's the problem: I looked up the group who did the "research" cited on that page, the National Council on Teacher Quality, and their credentials are shady at best. Some resources:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

An excerpt from the second link:

Several months ago, U.S. News & World Report announced that it planned to rank the nation’s schools of education and that it would do so with the assistance of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).

Since then, many institutions announced that they would not collaborate. Some felt that they had already been evaluated by other accrediting institutions like NCATE or TEAC; others objected to NCTQ’s methodology. As the debate rated, NCTQ told the dissenters that they would be rated whether they agreed or not, and if they didn’t cooperate, they would get a zero. The latest information that I have seen is that the ratings will appear this fall.

Rating schools as a zero because they refused to co-operate? Way to screw up your own results, NCTQ.

Wind power is on about par with peak energy generation like natural gas turbines, which is somewhere between 2x and 3x the cost of typical base load power like coal and nuclear. Solar power is so expensive, and variable (based on location, weather, usage, etc.) that it boggles my mind that any utility would even consider it. Then I recall all the subsidies from tax money spent on this nonsense that it starts to make sense to me again.

Coal, so far, has the negative externality of CO2 emissions (require carbon capture, and coal will need large capital expenditures and 25-40% more fuel for the same output) , and gets substantial subsidies of its own.

I'm in favor of more nuclear power too, but nuclear gets subsidies in the form of loan guarantees for plant construction and limitations on liability in the event of an accident.

You can't complain about subsidies for wind and solar when every other energy source has been subsidized for decades.

If you intend to engage in adult conversation, kindly cease your condescension.

Sorry about that, most of the links you have ever provided me with are full of tabloid ad-homs about "greedy scientists selling their soul", so I figured snaky catches your attention. ;)

Nothing below the above sarcastic apology is intended to be insulting / snarky / sarcastic / offensive / condescending. I have used "scare quotes" in places where I lack a more descriptive phrase.

Seriously Jane, why do you go to Senator James (coal state) Inhofe's propaganda site to read their interpretation of what "peer-reviewed and/or science-oriented journals" say about climate change? Why not go directly to where the cream of the climate science community hangs out ?

I know you pride yourself on being a skeptic and we've talked about self-skepticism before, so in all seriousness here's the challenge.

Take a random climate depot article about the AR5, take a random climate science article about the AR5. Pick out a few random contradictions between the two articles that can be resolved by checking the AR5. Let me know how you go, no need to respond here if you don't have the time right now, I will remember for next time we cross paths. In the spirit of non-snarkyness. I'm willing to spend an hour or so to do a similar self-assessment on my own claims if you can offer one that you think may help me see "the error of my ways".

Personally I think that if your not concerned about climate change and the current political response then you are simply not paying attention. So use the PRIMARY source Jane, it's more ardours than the myriad he-said-she-said sources but it will free your mind as it did mine in the mid 90's. When/if that happens you will understand why I (unintentionally) haunt your posts. There is no shame in ignorance or falling for corporate propaganda, however refusing to use basic research techniques such referring to primary sources to resolve apparent contradictions, is just another way of saying "wilfully ignorant".

Seriously, I was you in my early 20's, albeit with a different subject, when you try the exercise above your going to get pretty pissed at the people who have "brainwashed" you into doing their bidding. If you want a "mastermind propagandist" to focus you anger then Inhofe is the common thread that runs through the vast majority of links you have thrown at me. When you see one of their victims in the future you will want to shake them like I shake you every now and then (often without realising it's you before I hit submit). So here's a couple of obvious questions you might ask about me...

Why do I care if you or anyone else is "brainwashed" by corporate propaganda?
Why did I spend 30 minutes typing up this reply??

Simple succinct answer from "the greatest polymath of all time" - "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire.

I'm not immune to that law of human behaviour and neither are you, I have no other motive to convince you AGW is a problem other than my 3 grandkids will have to live with our collective decisions. I may "take the piss" every now and then but if you can manage to take a step back from the verbal duelling thing we have going, you might be able to see that I am a

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Climate_Depot
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
both are highly known as clime change deniers they are not reputable as you claim.

most real research is paywalled and/or sells books to fund their research above whatever grants they get. it is how academia works these are feel good stories for republicans to seed disinformation, as it takes all blame away from them.

even if the global warming is a result of the sun fusing higher density particles and not burning of fuels while deforestation there is still merit in finding ways to slow global warming. it's not 'shit we better burn all the coal we can before it all ignights and screws humanity'

part of that is because it took Murdoch longer to penetrate and take over enough of the Canadian media

Actually Rupert has been synonomous with Aussie/UK newspapers since he busted the Fleet St unions in the 80's. If there's a recent shift then the Aussie shift has been the slowest since Canada and the UK have had conservative governments for a while now, whilst we've only just flipped the government a couple of weeks ago. We also have coss-media rules, meaning that since Rupert controls most of the Aussie print media, he is automatically banned from owning a significant portion of radio or TV. Their main print rival is Fairfax (Age/SMH) who (surprisingly) gave their editorial vote to the conservatives this time around. The only significant publisher to give the left the thumbs up was (oddly) "Bussiness week".

We also have our own rat pack of rich independent miners headed up by the world's richest spoilt brat, Gina Reinheart. Rupert just prints whatever keeps his customers happy, and here in Oz independent miners are amoungst his biggest customers. For example "Australia's most popular column" is written by a mining shill who goes by the name of Andrew Bolt, sort of a right wing "shock jock" who can write with something other than a crayon. Murdoch doesn't actually agree with many of Bolt outrageous propoganda. Bolt is Gina's personal mouthpiece, Rupert keeps him on the payroll because Gina pays the bill. Gina loves him so much that she bought him his own Sunday show on channel 10. She also tried to buy herself a seat on the board of Fairfax but she failed the board's "character test".

...censors actually permit 'vitriolic criticism' of China's leaders and governmental policies but the censors crack down heavily on any move to get people physically mobilized to act on such criticism.

So. Am I to conclude from this observation that China has enacted the same essential policy as the United States of America?

The "Big Brother" societies have discovered that a "Free Press" can be managed to function as bread and circuses once did. This is the dictum: "You are free to say whatever you like, provided that you act withing the proscribed boundary."

Now is the time to sing "Barret Brown's Body".

That must be why anyone expressing skepticism towards global warming/climate change is labelled a "denier. Might as well be truthful and call them "heretic".".

I know I shouldn't feed the climate trolls, but here are some obvious facts
All climate scientists are skeptics.
Not all skeptics are climate scientists.
There are many politically powerful pseudo-skeptics in the field (AKA deniers) who deliberately misinform via various front groups and no-think tanks.
The only way to find the "truth" in all this is to stop talking in hyperbole and start studying the science of climate. Personally I've had an interest in the subject for almost 30yrs, very interesting stuff. It's based on the "hard sciences" and is an excellent example of how "the big picture" of Science has practically rewritten our understanding of our planet in my own lifetime. I was literally born before the term Earth sciences was coined.

He is an interesting character. He supports term limits. I've known of a couple of folks who supported term limits when they were first elected but, strangely, opted to be mostly silent on that topic when they decided to change their mind about said term limits. I am unable to recall the second person who claimed to be pro-term limits and then participated longer than they had initially indicated the limits should be but my own congress critter Susan Collins promised to only participate for two terms (twelve years) only to seek election a third time. What's disturbing is that she still won. "Yeah, so it turns out I have no principles and, worse, I'm a liar but vote for me!" It worked! Seriously! I'm not at all sure how we're going to affect meaningful change with the voters being the way they are.

If you're curious you can read about it here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Susan_Collins#Term_limits

Really though, I mean, yeah she is ultimately the one who is responsible for her behavior but at some point the onus is on the voters to properly vet the candidates, decide their own personal politics, and then vote accordingly. It is sad that people don't even invest the small amount of time it takes to familiarize yourself with the candidates and then to select one according to your own personal beliefs. Investing the time to see who is more closely aligned with your political beliefs is not exactly a difficult thing in today's information society.

Anyhow, back to Rand Paul...

He supports term limits and, as such, it will be interesting to watch him. I haven't invested even a little energy into finding one so I'm going off my memory which isn't that good to begin with BUT I'm unable to recall anyone specifically who actually has professed a belief in term limits and then limited themselves. I'm sure there are some who have. There must be, right? However, I can't think of anybody who has done so. I sort of recall reading about one who simply swapped houses when they had reached their "limit." A quick Google didn't indicate who that was, if it is a figment of my imagination, or if it even happened. I'm not going to invest more time in it at the moment as it isn't that important for the scope of this conversation. What is meaningful, for this conversation, is what the future holds for one Randal Paul and how well he intends to stick to his beliefs on term limits. We shall see...

I guess, if I were a betting man (and I am), that I'd expect him to either not stick to his professed beliefs in term limits or to find some way to weasel out of it by either running for the House or even not running for a session and then running in the following election. It isn't a personal thing or a statement about his political party, not at all, it is that I don't think humans are easily able to willfully rescind power.

This sort of confusion is what psuedo-skeptics are are taking advantage of when they claim an ice age was predicted in the 70's. Coal gives off (among other things), SO2, CO2 and soot. Sulfur causes cooling, acid rain, and deadly "pea soup fog", Soot causes warming, lowers albedo, and accelerates ice melt. CO2 causes warming and ocean acidification. Some of the soot and sulfur was cleaned up by various clean air acts in the 60's & 70's after the death toll from "pea soupers" in London and other European cities started getting difficult to ignore. Sulfur emissions (and acid rain) were dramatically 20 odd years ago when Regan instituted a cap and trade treaty on sulfur emissions, similar to those being proposed for CO2 (ironic, huh?).

Having said all that, climate scientists don't really talk about cooling or warming, they talk about +ve and -ve forcing and feedback, two forcings with different signs can indeed cancel each other out. To confuse matters further CO2 can be both a forcing (humans, volcanoes) and a feedback (melting permafrost, increased bushfires). Feedbacks have far more uncertainty associated with them than forcings. When everything is taken into account you can work out a figure called "climate sensitivity" (CS). The CS in models compares very well with the CS derived from geology and really hasn't changed that much since the 70's.

All this is just a sample of the complexity that adds up to ripe pickings for people who have no problem deliberately misinforming the public for personal gain.

More scientific publications whose abstracts reject global warming than say humans are primarily to blame for it:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/05/17/latest-97-consensus-study-goes-belly-up-study-found-more-scientific-publications-whose-abstracts-reject-global-warming-than-say-humans-are-primarily-to-blame-for-it/

Holy SHIT there are a lot of ACs, all of which have the same talking points and same writing style. I'd love to see ACs get a "hash" of their IP address or something so we can detect AC sockpuppetry.

Anyway. ClimateDepot is a global warming denier website ran by Marc Morano, a GOP operative working for Republican Sen. James Inhofe, and is funded by... wait for it... wait for it...

ExxonMobil, to the shock of absolutely noone.

In short, ClimateDepot is Astroturfing BULLSHIT designed to give GOP and Oil Industry Shills a place to link to to try and continue climate change denialism. It's not a valid source and by linking to it you show you're less than worthless -- you are actively harming the discussion by participating. Negative value.

Yeah... junkscience says that insurance premiums aren't going to go up, so that must be correct. After-all, the founder Milloy, was never involved in disinformation campaigns, for example, saying the there are no problems with tobacco.

And he isn paid to fight for big carbon, but I'm sure he's a man of science.

But what of his claim? What does the insurance industry have to say on the matter.

But I'm sure the skeptics are right. After-all, they're right about everything.

Where did you dig up that link? It's comedy gold! Successfully nailed every denialist cliche I could think of.

I'm gonna have to add this "Nongovernmental Planel (sic) on Climate Change" to my Humour feed for my morning chuckle.

Please, I don't deserve all the credit, thank H. Leighton Steward and coal baron Corbin Robertson. And from the looks of it, the Koch brothers somewhere up that chain ... did you know it's a 501(c)(3) and has a sibling (but separate!) ad-buying 501(c)(4) named CO2 is Green?

Don't forget that every year the coal industry in the US pumps out more radioactive material than has ever been released from US nuclear power plants, even if you include the 3 mile island minor incident.

Authoritative numbers for radiation release of a coal plant are hard to find, but here's what I found:

Coal plants release 330mCi per billion KWh Around 13MCi of radiation was released from TMI (mostly in the form of "harmless" noble gases.

So to figure out how many KwH of coal production that release was equivalent to:

13 x 10e6 Ci / 330 x 10e-3 Ci * 1 x 10e9 KWh = 3.9 x 10e16 Kwh

Coal plants generate 1 .5 million GWh or 1.5 x 10e6 * 10e9 = 1.5 x 10e15 Wh or 1.5 x 10e12 KWh

So the Three Mile Island release was equivalent to 3.9 x 10e16 Kwh / 1.5 x 10e12 KWh = 26,000 years worth of annual coat plant radiation release.

Most of TMI's radiation release was in the form of nobel gases that were said to be relatively harmless, only 13Ci of cancer causing Iodine-131 was released, so if you look only at the Iodine release, then the numbers are much smaller -- TMI's release was about .026 years (9.5 days) worth of coal fired power production.

Why do you focus on one "primary energy source" instead of using different sources? I want solar where appropriate, wind where appropriate, and geothermal where appropriate. I also want government to stop all energy subsidies.

That is my strongest reason for opposing large subsidies it -- it does not work in the large, and oh yeah, that complete unfairness of stealing from one person to subsidize another

Guess what? Someone above provided this , External Costs of Coal Plants, however I already have this: International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI). Energy Subsidies Favor Fossil Fuels Over Renewables. And of course there's this:
Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Coal and other fossil fuels are massively subsidized. As is nuclear power. Here's Rep Edward Markey bragging My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!' . Oops, it appears the video is not there now. At least it's not playing for me when it used to. In the video though he says coal, nuclear power, and corn based ethanol get Billions of dollars each in subsidies.

Falcon