Global Warming Dissenters Suppressed?

sycodon writes "Global Warming has become more than just a scientific issue and has been portrayed as nothing less than the End of the World by some. However, despite all the hoopla from Hollywood, Politicians and Science Bureaucrats, there is another side, but it's being suppressed according to Richard Lindzen, an Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. From the article: 'Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.'"

Comments

Lindzen apparently has no trouble securing funding

[stonedown]

According to a 1995 Harper's Magazine article, Lindzen had no trouble securing funding from fossil fuel interests.

Lindzen, for his part, charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled "Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus," was underwritten by OPEC.

Also, the Wall Street Journal opinion section is not exactly the place to go to find genuine scientific analysis. It's a propaganda mill for the same business interests which support Richard Lindzen. There is plenty of money for scientists willing to speak on behalf of big business, despite Lindzen's contrary and alarmist claims. It takes a special kind of courage to speak out on behalf of the downtrodden coal and oil industries.

Re:Freedom and Liberty

[SuperBanana]

Did you know Winston Churchill wasn't permitted to speak on the BBC (the State telecoms monopoly of the day ) between 1933 and 1939 because his views on Nazi Germany were considered too extreme?

Did you know that the Bush administration has barred climate researchers working for the government from speaking directly to the press? And that press releases, statements, or publicly released research on any climate matter must pass through the White House first, where they are essentially rewritten?

Maybe you should tune into 60 minutes more often.

---Piltz worked under the Clinton and Bush administrations. Each year, he helped write a report to Congress called "Our Changing Planet." Piltz says he is responsible for editing the report and sending a review draft to the White House.

Asked what happens, Piltz says: "It comes back with a large number of edits, handwritten on the hard copy by the chief-of-staff of the Council on Environmental Quality." Asked who the chief of staff is, Piltz says, "Phil Cooney." Piltz says Cooney is not a scientist. "He's a lawyer. He was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, before going into the White House," he says.

Cooney, the former oil industry lobbyist, became chief-of-staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Piltz says Cooney edited climate reports in his own hand. In one report, a line that said earth is undergoing rapid change becomes "may be undergoing change." "Uncertainty" becomes "significant remaining uncertainty." One line that says energy production contributes to warming was just crossed out.

"He was obviously passing it through a political screen," says Piltz. "He would put in the word potential or may or weaken or delete text that had to do with the likely consequence of climate change, pump up uncertainty language throughout." ----

Re:Blowing Hot Air

[Maxo-Texas]

I dont know... in my opinion, Real Climate has a pretty hard bias, and I've read more than once that they simply delete posts that they don't like/can't address.

RC is one resource for forming an opinion- but they seem a bit like using the Catholic Church as reference for deciding if Christ existed or not.

Facts are... Mars and other objects in the solar system are warming up too, there is correlation between the arms of the galaxy and past climate fluctuation, the climate -has- been hotter and colder than it is now without our doing anything and .... many experts were sure that we were going to have a new ice age only 30 years ago. Not all experts- and not all experts believe in global warming either.