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Leaked Heartland Institute Documents Reveal Opposition To Science
New submitter bheerssen writes with an excerpt from an article by The Bad Astronomer: "The Heartland Institute — a self-described 'think tank' that actually serves in part as a way for climate change denialism to get funded — has a potentially embarrassing situation on their hands. Someone going by the handle 'Heartland Insider' has anonymously released quite a few of what are claimed to be internal documents from Heartland, revealing the Institute's strategies, funds, and much more."
At least one site has the documents in question.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will focus on providing a curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain--two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.
Wow, they didn't even bother to put the "science" in quotation marks. Guess they *really* never thought these documents would get out. Pretty dumb to use that kind of language, even in purely internal communications. About all they can say at this point is that it was a poorly-proofed typo (that they *meant* to say "bad science" or something). But even that would qualify as a Freudian slip of the fingers, methinks.
Even creepier is the way they capitalize "the Anonymous Donor." Makes me think of a guy petting a cat in a secret island compound somewhere.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Cue the climate change denials in 3...2...1...
Palm trees and 8
That's pretty much what FOX News will say.
Who am I kidding? FOX isn't going to run this at all.
bah.
They could try the old Scientology "These documents are copyrighted!" tact to stop people from posting them. But that presumes they've never heard of the Streisand Effect, and are stupid as hell.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Which means we should expect to see something along those lines...
Ha, you'll be lucky if *CNN* even runs it. They're way too busy showing important interviews with Whitney Houston's maid to fit such silly science news in.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We've all known these groups were anti-science. While seeing it spelled out on paper is amusing, and satisfying, I doubt that very many minds are going to be changed by this information. The people that populate and fund these groups ignore anything and everything that conflicts with their ideas as it is.
These people are used to the extreme mental acrobatics necessary to deny the reality right in front of them. This will be written off as "liberal lies and smear tactics" pretty much immediately. It's not so much that they believe the crap these groups spew, a lot of people simply take the opposite stance of their political opponents regardless. Since climate change is a "liberal" thing, it's all a lie, because all "liberals" are liars.
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.
Just to point out that the real incriminating evidence comes from the "2012 Climate Strategy" document that could be falsified. The other documents, like the budget, look pretty legit but the document you are citing is a page and a half. Wouldn't take much for me, someone who is ultra opposed to the Heartland Institute, to dream that up in a short afternoon with a six pack. I'm poking through the rest of them and am not finding the same sort of evidence. So it's possible that someone could have gotten their hands on a few legit documents (like the budget) and created this one and added it to the group. The metadata on the meeting agendas and such read "jbast" while the metadata on the climate strategy document reads "Joseph Bast." Entirely possible they were created two different ways but then why does the climate strategy document appear photoscanned? Is he photoscanning his own internal documents? Why? Or did someone want this to look legit, photoscan it and then write "Joseph Bast" as the author to make it look authentic?
I'm just pleading for people to exercise caution. I think that the best approach for this is to put forth questions towards Dr. Wojick about his funding and move forward with caution. This is the internet. This is an area where I require a lot of verification before I believe something. The climate strategy document is awful convenient and as someone who's use to corporate bullshit, I can tell you my manager could easily produce a 15 page document on our team's "vision" and "mission statements" or "strategy." Mostly to prove he's worth something but also because that just seems to be how they roll. Two pages can be made up and I would imagine the real thing would have a lot more fluff and a lot more boring in it. I'm not saying this document is a fake, I'm just urging everyone to exercise caution before you look like a rube.
My work here is dung.
Better to have your population ignorant, fearful and easily alarmed. Not only are they easily controlled, but pseudo-science is big business in this country. I wonder if their end goal is a fascist state, or if they're simply trying to preserve their economic advantage.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How did science get from this definition:
The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
... to the bastardized meaning used in the American media?
What happened America? You used to be cool.
Wait, NOW context matters? Where were you when your fellow "skeptics" (I put that term in quotes, because most of your fellows who call themselves that are lousy skeptics) were pulling out half-sentence quotes from emails to prove a vast and global conspiracy?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I don't know about that. If they considered Climate Change/Global Warming as not science it would seem they would refer it that way. Just like when someone tries to lump Intelligent Design as a science, I immediately have to correct them about that. ID is not science. At best it's conjecture; at worst it's religion trying to pass itself as science.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I used to butt heads with Jim Lakely on a small, multi-author politically slanted blog he contributed to. I was friends with him briefly on FB, but I couldn't take his near constant right-wing/libertarian rantings. By all accounts he's an intelligent guy, but he has some of the craziest ideas. He's a really good fit for that organization. When he got that job, the action at the blog dried up, which was unfortunate. I had a lot of fun debating there, as one of only about 3 active left-leaners.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Yes, well, when the shoe is on the other foot and all that...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Anybody able to find any internal clues to show that this info is real and not faked? It looks right, but I can't find any proof that this isn't a hoax.
The difference being that ID has maybe two or three actual scientists who work in fields related to biology backing it, and the most important one of those, Michael Behe, doesn't even publish peer reviewed articles that deal with his ID claims. AGW on the other hand, is widely accepted by most researchers in climatology and related fields, the debate being more about the degree of influence of human activity or the speed at which changes will occur.
In other words, it isn't the same thing at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2012/02/2011-global-sea-level-dropped-back-to-2008-levels/
2011 was an interesting year for the Earth’s oceans. The relative sea level (RSL) in 2011 was not only lower than 2010, it was also lower than 2009. All of the different satellite measurements agree with that, but perhaps even more interesting is that the European RSL measurement shows that the sea level in 2011 was even lower than it was back in 2005. That particular satellite shows that there has been almost no net change in the Earth’s sea level over the past 8 years.
All of the different measurements agree that the rate that the sea level is rising is not increasing. All of them show a steady decrease in the rate of sea level rise. This is the opposite of what the predictions were a decade ago for global warming. Of course such predictions are full of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) that is so typical of global warming articles, these include statements that 100 million people will be displaced soon because of sea level rise.
Now that the institute has lost the battle it was paid to fight, I mean that completely aligned with it's ideology, over the health risks of second hand smoke; it can now join in over the prevailing nonsense about AGW.
this is red hands evidence of private interests brainwashing people, and doing it through private whores who pose as 'science' institutions.
if you undermine and rationalize the impact of this, you serve their interests and justify them.
Read radical news here
The funny thing is these guys were chortling mightily at the release of the "Climategate" emails a couple of years ago.
Is this Alanis Morissette-ironic, or actual-ironic?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
I agree with you on why Climate Change is science and ID is not. In the context of the email, I would think that if the Heartland Institute did not consider Climate Change as science, they would have referred it as such. Of course we don't know what was in the mind of the author, but my reading is that they do consider it science but are opposed to it being taught. Thus they are anti-science in this regard.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The big argument about this being a "smoking gun" is one sentence, where someone typed "dissuading teachers from teaching science" instead of "dissuading teachers from teaching this lousy excuse for a science?"
With just 5 minutes scanning the documents, I saw that. And also the fact that Fred Singer is paid $60,000 per annum to "regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message." Now that's quite a bonus given that his employer is the University of Virginia. This isn't paying a professor to do research, this is paying a professor to do propaganda.
This is the real smoking gun. There are a handful of scientists worldwide that deny the AGW consensus. The question is why? The assumption used to be that they were handsomely paid to do it. That is now fact.
Greenpeace does a crapload of things other than things relating to climate change. This is far from a valid comparison - you might as well compare Greenpeace's budget to 'skeptic organisation' ExxonMobile's revenues of $486.429 billion.
Apparently, in the distant past, TV announcers in the USA would use the phrase "Film at 11" to mean that the film that was normally on at 10pm, after the 9pm news, would be an hour later tonight, as momentous events required an extra hour of news coverage. Hence the non-sarcastic use of "Film at 11" to mean "That's big news" and the sarcastic use meaning "That is not really news at all."
So far the only alleged issue is a single sentence
No, there is more in the article. E.g.: This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.
I wonder if their end goal is a fascist state, or if they're simply trying to preserve their economic advantage.
I'm sure they are simply a business making a living doing the bidding of whoever pays. You know. Like members of congress. I think it was Sam Houston that said in a letter to D.C., "Find me someone willing to clean up the streets and I'll find you someone willing to sell horse shit."
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Even if would take your explanation, what kind of mindset would shorten "this lousy excuse for a science" to "science"?
> On the other hand, the entire Heartland anti-AGW fund is smaller than the one bribe, er, "grant" paid to one NASA administrator, and a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the various government pro-AGW propaganda expenditures.
Taking into account the amount of factual results produce, I would say, the Heartland Institute receives a disproportionate amount of money.
Science, it works in the sense, that for example, that it allows us to produce rockets, which got us to the moon.
If the Heartland Institute produces something similar, then I would consider it putting it in the same league as a single NASA administrator.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
As a Brit reading this, I see it as deliberately trying to diminishing the capability of the US work force. How many great accomplishments would have been impossible if it were not for your nations commitment to science. To be able take the sum of the worlds knowledge and put a man on the moon is wonderful. China (or any other industrial nation) isn't going to put itself back into the dark ages and I'm sure they'll be happy to take advantage and will continue to invest in as much science as they can. /rant over.
So regardless of religion, at some point (or at what point does) the doctrine have a detrimental effect to a nation and become Anti-american or unpatriotic ?
I really hope British cynicism will keep such topics confined to awful daytime TV discussion shows and not in the real world.
Climate science indicates that the world is warming. Whether the globe is warming to human activity or excess flatulation from aardvarks is immaterial.
The best models indicate that the trend will continue. The best theoretic models predict that this will cause the polar ice caps to change: some cause it to melt, others to increase in size. Both outcomes are dire, massive increase in ocean levels resulting in New York becoming New Venice or a mile thick wall of ice rolling down over the Northern Hemisphere.
I'm a software engineer. I don't pretend to understand climatology, however I do know how to manage risk. When the evidence is pointing to a potential disaster, be it projects running late, major requirements being added at the last minute or something akin to the end of the world as we know it, I don't waste time with the "finger of blame". I ask, how do we mitigate the issue?
Since we don't know the root cause (or if there is even a single root cause), lets take action on all fronts and use this as an opportunity to make our lifestyles more sustainable and less impactful on the planet. Legislate lower vehicular emissions and mass transit use. Use incentives to get people to cycle or walk. Require companies to institute work-from-home plans. Slap taxes on pollution from industries to force them to reduce their emissions. Bar import of goods from countries that don't adhere to the global standard. Humans (and the companies they run) are adaptable, they'll find other work.
If we're wrong and global warming isn't actually happening, at least we'll have some positive outcomes. If we're right, maybe we can prevent a total catastrophe. Inaction, garners little or no benefit if human-caused GW isn't actually occurring, but will be a direct contributor to disaster if it is.
The Canadian fishing industry is a good example. Those folks who lost their jobs are hurting, but they are alive and there is some chance that the fishing will reopen. If GW is real, millions if not billions will die from starvation, be displaced into refugee camps as their towns are flooded or be impacted by regional conflicts as countries struggle to deal with the changing climate.
FTFA: "uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies. Heartland particularly celebrates the funding that it receives from the fossil fuel fortune being the Charles G. Koch Foundation."
Once again it comes down to Oil and Money with one organization steering the whole ship. Lessee... so the shopping list must look a bit like this:
[x] legal system pwned by koch
[x] judicial system pwned by koch
[x] polictical system pwned by koch
[ ] education sytsem pwned by koch
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Since some secular IT workers occupy positions of trust in superstitionist groups, and have the skill to leak information without getting busted (the Bradley Manning attention-whore model is not what to do!). they should consider doing so for the good of mankind.
IT workers can spy on superstitionists over time. Superstitionist political moves rely on hiding in the dark. IT folk can dump info (not from your own IP and don't forget MAC spoofing) into the light, and expose their machinations.
IT workers are taken for granted, their reach is considerable, and with malice and planning they can take the fight to the enemy. Don't forget to "follow the money".
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Wait, NOW context matters? Where were you when your fellow "skeptics"
Context always matters.
If somebody tells you that context doesn't matter, then you should consider that that person probably is lying to you or at least isn't giving you the full truth. Whatever side they're on.
It's also not fair to beat somebody up over what somebody else who may or may not have similar beliefs said. If one person who supports cause X says something, and somebody else who supports cause X says something else -- that's not evidence of hypocrisy. It's evidence of disagreement, and if you really do think that everybody who supports cause X agrees on everything, the problem is with you, not them.
And yes, this is just one sentence. It could be exactly what they meant, or it could just be a miswording of things -- it certainly wouldn't be the first. One will have to look at context to figure out what they really meant.
By revelation of these emails, Fred Singer's respect in peer reviewed literature has dropped to slightly lower than the asshole liars who used to publish "peer reviewed" studies backed by tobacco companies claiming that tobacco smoke isn't related to cancer...
I wonder if their end goal is a fascist state, or if they're simply trying to preserve their economic advantage.
Same thing really - eventually the economic advantage is enough that it causes the masses to resent the privileged class, who then must enlist the power of the state to enforce its economic advantage (or else the masses will simply use force to recover the wealth currently going to the privileged class). The state, in turn, must then ignore the will of the people in favor of the corporations, and eventually a nucleus of pliant politicians and corporate overlords is running everything.
I am officially gone from
"I wonder if their end goal is a fascist state, or if they're simply trying to preserve their economic advantage."
Yes.
Wow, denier funding is peanuts. These documents contradict the constant claims of 'well funded climate denialism'. It shows they were never true, alarmists simply made them up.
For years I never really knew if deniers were well funded or not. Now I know they were never well funded.
Its the greenies who have been well funded all along.
Thank you Desmogblog. Nice work
I'm thinking you have no idea what science is. In fact, I'm not thinking at all. I think your post conclusively proves you have no idea what science is or what a scientific theory is. What did you do, quite school in grade 3?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The headline claims a revelation of "Opposition to Science", but the post itself only makes assertions about climate skepticism. If the writer really equates the two, he should try to calm down.
I bet if you said these documents come from "Anonymous" and that Assange licked them they would be on the front page of CNN.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
There's a funding topic that seems relevant to slashdot. Microsoft are one of the contributors. Whilst Microsoft are a scummy company I can't see AGW denial is particularly in their interests. Is this perhaps some employee donation matching scheme, or some other mechanism where an employees personal views have resulted in a donation to Heartland?
Somehow, I always manage to be impressed at how bad people are at reading noisy graphs and at computing trends.
By using the word "pseudoscience"? You're really bad at this.
That's certainly the way things are going. The police are more and more of a corporate army.
The most damning part of the climate strategy document wasn't the curriculum stuff, it was this:
In other words, they don't want a debate.
The budget document says that their key projects are (in order of funding): eliminating or reducing FDA approval requirements for new medicines, opposing the Wisconsin recall elections (i.e. anti-union activity), opposing global warming, supporting charter schools and the privatization of education, supporting fracking, and a couple of Chicago-specific items. The Wisconsin work goes by the name Operation Angry Badger, for no apparent reason.
The fundraising document is the most interesting, and describes an "Anonymous Donor" who once gave them half of their money but is now merely the largest donor. This donor is particularly interested in climate change, and has earmarked the majority of his donations for related projects.
There's a description of their anti-IPCC report project:
Again with the anonymous donors.
There's a long description of the anti-AGW curriculum project. It was proposed by a consultant who works with the Department of Energy, Dr. David Wojick. Wojick studies science education, and his knowledge of national test requirements and contacts in educational organizations are described as his key attributes. He is not described as a climate scientist.
Visit the
The fact is that this is terrorism by any other name. This is Charles Manson directing the activities of his Family. The Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and all the rest of the rogues gallery of Koch Instruments are effectively building a bomb - a bomb named inaction- that will kill every one of us and our children, and they are fully intent on setting that bomb off.
These individuals are a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States of America and they need to be dealt with within that defining context and no other. It is directly because of their actions that steps needed to preserve our civilization against catastrophic climate change have not been taken despite the fact they're well within our ability:
http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/
I understand that many reading this will not see advocating for provably suicidal policies and conspiring to influence society to take suicidal steps as a crime. To them I say- the definition of what is criminal does and must change because criminals adapt and change. The means they have to effect their ends change and the scope of devastation they can effect enlarges. The purpose of a system of laws is to protect society against the self chosen behaviour of criminals, whatever that behaviour may be. Criminals should not expect that they can evade justice by gaming the law.
It's criminals themselves who force society's and and decide what laws will come to exist. In a free society that seeks to protect the greatest freedom for each individual and which values liberty, the rule of law is by nature reactionary. But that cannot mean that society will permit criminals to leverage that permissive attitude into an act of world wide homicide.
There is ONE objective reality, not many. This conservative Post Modernist bullshit whereby YOU have YOUR reality but conservatives get THEIR OWN version of reality is cultural and planetary suicide.
There is ONE reality and human caused climate change is a fact of that reality.Continued inaction will lead directly to the extinction of civilization. Those are facts. Anyone advocating for that course of non-action is acting as a terrorist against everyone in every nation who is alive now or will be at all times forward.
That is a fact, not an opinion.
Remember, it really didn't matter that the Nazis "really believed" their load of scientific crap they used to justify their genocidal policies. We still prosecuted them in Nuremberg , then we found them guilty and then we hung them.
This is exactly what needs to be done with the individuals and funders of these denier organizations. No one cares if you *really believe* your bullshit or you know you're lying through your teeth. Neither does it matter that in your view your *rights* include to the *right* to yell "no fire!!" in a burning theater.
It's amusing to see that people who are attempting to implement policies which we know will lead to mass death on a scale which will dwarf the body count and social upheaval of WWII think they can get away with it because they've found a worm hole in the rule of law to squeeze through on the other side of which no one can touch them.
In Nuremberg, the Allies faced a similar problem. Because the victims of the Nazis were not enemy troops, the Geneva Convention did not apply.
Similarly because the victims were under Nazi rule at the time, they were subject to German law and no Nazi broke any German law.
This was the first thrust of the defense the Nazis raised- "hey, we broke no law..."
And what was the solution the Allies came up with in Nuremberg? We just made up- ex post facto- the crimes we decided the Nazis had committed- something we called Crimes Against Humanity .
Then we tried them for those crimes. Then we found them guilty. Then we hung them.
Before Nuremberg the concept of Crimes Agains
AGW has this.
You've just been living under a rock and not paying attention to the overwhelming number of papers confirming it.
I don't think most climatologists talk in terms of catastrophic climate change, so I'm going to call your last sentence a straw man. I realize that it's easier to attack Al Gore-style claims, but perhaps you should actually read what the scientists say, rather than what you seem to think they say.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Fair enough, especially on the hypocrisy part. It's not a guaranteed relationship, merely a heuristic I found fairly accurate in the past. I'm sure I'm tarring some people unfairly with that approach - but fortunately, it's not actual tar, and I'm quite happy to update my opinion in the cases where I'm shown to be wrong. But I found it to be pretty accurate if there's a lack of other information.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
1: WTF makes you think this represents even a small fraction of the money being spent. Spread it thin, compartmentalise funding into unconnected cells and it's so much easier to hide the real scale of the scheme. What works for terrorists works for corporations.
2: If the denial backers had to pay anything like as much as the actual research costs, they'd be spending it on mitigation tech and taking the profit later. Right now its still cheaper to stall anything that threatens their profits. Wrecking the planet is usually cheaper than not.
Make no mistake, the tech research solutions proposed 25 years ago would now be paying off, making billionaires of the successful implementers and giving the rest of us the energy we crave. Best of all that would be true whatever you believe about anthropogenic climate change. But crucially, dethroning any incumbent rich that declined to take part. That's why we're up shit creek now, their profit margin depended on no-one else taking their business and the cheapest solution was stalling change.
It's also not fair to beat somebody up over what somebody else who may or may not have similar beliefs said. If one person who supports cause X says something, and somebody else who supports cause X says something else -- that's not evidence of hypocrisy. It's evidence of disagreement, and if you really do think that everybody who supports cause X agrees on everything, the problem is with you, not them.
Yes, but it's not difficult to infer the original poster's belief, given his stated disdain for NASA administrators. I'd state that logically, it's more likely that the OP also originally derided the context counters to the anti-AGW attacks, as ignoring context was really the only viable attack against the NASA researchers in the first place.
...the debate being more about the degree of influence of human activity or the speed at which changes will occur.
Yes but some of the debate, and I think the more salient debate, is about what effect (if any) mitigation efforts will have and what they will cost. Some self-professed 'skeptics' dont take issue with GW or even AGW but more with the cost/benefit ratio, something that gets precious little rational discussion. Those who are skeptical of spending obscene amounts of money with at best fuzzy promises of any tangible results arent 'deniers' by any stretch no matter how convenient it is to label them as such. No matter which side of the debate you fall into we have to recognize and accept that the issue is an economic one, not a scientific one and not a religious one (and radical green-ism is certainly a religion). The only interesting voices in the debate (IMHO) are the economic skeptics on both sides that truly embrace workable cost-effective courses of action.
Looking past even economics, the 'debate' is also a sociological one, since at its core AGW comes down to this: how do we reverse humanity’s relentless pursuit of comfort.
The "heartland" institute's money trail leads back to the Koch-roaches (or their ilk) and their ongoing attempts to break up the USA into something more easily harvested and ruled? Just askin'
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I wonder if the Hearland is going to revise it's positionon the release of the so called "Climategate" emails.
"The release of these documents creates an opportunity for reporters, academics, politicians, and others who relied on the IPCC to form their opinions about global warming to stop and reconsider their position. The experts they trusted and quoted in the past have been caught red-handed plotting to conceal data, hide temperature trends that contradict their predictions, and keep critics from appearing in peer-reviewed journals. This is new and real evidence that they should examine and then comment on publicly."
I must have missed the link where they correct this and admit the entire Climategate "controversy" was proven false, and that no deliberate manipulation of data was actually found. I am sure they are still working on that release...
"But this one goes to 11!"
So... you would say you actually DON'T stand with child pornographers?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/1832205/against-online-surveillance-you-must-be-for-child-porn-says-legislator
One example: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/12/02/american-vs-international-news-time-and-newsweek/
Don't want to think., methodically manipulated by media, the people behind this sort of dis-information targeting children should be removed from any position of influence or power.
A generation of consumer cattle.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No, its not fact at all. Yes, SOME may have been paid to be deniers, but some were simply questioning the"science" (see what I did there?) behind AGW, as they still do.
Fred Singer is one of the top 3 denialists in the world. We now know he's paid $60,000 per annum to do propaganda. Not research. Propaganda.
As for getting paid, wasn't all that long ago that a respected researcher could get drummed out of the academy for denying agw
Be specific.
You are mistaken if you think this will be a problem for the Heartland Institute. With the crowd that they are interested in playing to, the denigration of science is a plus. For the hard-core tea baggers and the biblical literalists, science is the enemy. Science is a liberal plot to disprove everything that they KNOW is good and true. If the Heartland Institute plays up the "we hate science" agenda, and they get traction with publicity, just watch. They money will roll in.
Some of the mitigation fits with other looming problems; namely the end of cheap oil. Sooner or later (some say sooner, some say later) we're going to run out of cheap oil, and it isn't just energy that's going to take the hit. The value of long-chain hydrocarbons to a multitude of industrial, fabrication and industrial processes cannot be minimized. People don't seem to understand that it isn't just the price of a gallon of gas that will skyrocket, a large portion of the things that make the industrialized world go round will suddenly become much more expensive.
So, the potential mitigation of AGW and the solution to peak oil are the same. Stop using oil and other fossil fuels as fuels. The sooner the better. Invest in alternative energies, even if the costs are very high, because the costs when everyone finally agrees peak oil has been reached will be far worse in every possible way. There is every reason to begin to switch from a fossil fuel based economy, and no reason other than laziness and contempt for future generations to continue on the course we have chosen.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> "We've all known" is shorthand for "I'm always right and need no evidence or logic to support my position"; and that's anti-science.
It's not anti-science. It's Faith-Based Science.
Similarly there is a branch of Faith-Based Math. If you have enough faith, then 2+2=5.
This approach also works with funding of science programs. Legislators should pray more about their decisions. If God wants them to fund science and basic research programs, then He will give them a sign. In the meantime, think of the savings in the budget. If God wants us to think climate change is real, and caused by humans, then he will send us a sign -- such as major planetary ecological collapse, or something.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
This is the real smoking gun. There are a handful of scientists worldwide that deny the AGW consensus. The question is why? The assumption used to be that they were handsomely paid to do it. That is now fact.
That's a bit of a leap. We know at least one scientist is paid to do this, but all of them, or at least the vast majority? I don't know that this is enough of a smoking gun for that.
No.... the big argument, the smoking gun, is the preponderance of documents in which HI discusses hiding funds and controlling information channels.
It's depressing to have to say that this is situation normal when it comes to politics and legal matters. :-(
Cirby on the leaked Heartland Institute documents:
The big argument about this being a "smoking gun" is one sentence, where someone typed "dissuading teachers from teaching science" instead of "dissuading teachers from teaching this lousy excuse for a science?"
Pretty weak stuff, overall.
Cirby in 2009 about the leaked CRU documents:
It's even better - the source cited in the story above is the CRU (funny how "University of East Anglia" started being the source when everyone found out that CRU was more than a bit corrupt) - the same people who just got busted with all of that leaked data and incriminating emails just this week.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1453158&cid=30193346
Hypocrite.
Context always matters to everyone. Usually in the sense of "Does this part of a quote fit in the context of me proving my point?"
Somehow, I am always impressed at how the Warmists can so easily dismiss data that doesn't agree with their religion.
So, it's bullshit.
I can be paid to call Human-induced Climate Change a crock of shit? Sign me up! Can I also be paid to advocate that sugar is sweet and the sun is bright?
No, but you can be paid to say that excess sugar consumption has no health consequnes and that CFC's don't damage the Ozone layer.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Funny, though, with 486.429 BILLION, ExxonMobile apparently has only managed to funnel 6.5 million of that to defenders of science?
All that says is that it costs a lot more to research what is happening in the world than it does to come up with short sound bites to rubbish science, especially when you consider that those sound bites don't have to be accurate.
There aren't that many scientists denying AGW. Scientists from any field, of the order of 100. But climate scientists like Singer: a handful. And Singer isn't the only one on Heartland's payroll. He's just the one I chose to pull out.
Now, can you imagine the hay what would be made if anyone got evidence that Hansen from NASA was being paid by lobbyists to provide propaganda for AGW? That's a rough equivalent.
Relative to what? One particular coastline? Sand gets washed away you know.
Call me when you measure the average sea level relative to the center of the earth.
Oh look, your link is to a blog of someone selling a book. That would be fine, except he doesn't say where he got his data. There's no source. His charts and comments aren't backed up by anything. It would be interesting stuff, if I could give it an ounce of trust.
Knock yourself out buddy:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
respect in peer reviewed literature has dropped to slightly lower than the asshole liars who used to publish "peer reviewed" studies backed by tobacco companies claiming that tobacco smoke isn't related to cancer...
The Heartland Institute used to do that too.
Except they weren't on the "tobacco smoke isn't related to cancer" bandwagon
They jumped in later, when the claim was "second hand smoke is perfectly safe"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Oh, and just in case you want to save yourself the effort of re-reproducing the effort:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/1021/Climate-study-funded-in-part-by-conservative-group-confirms-global-warming
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So you're objecting to him calling Fox out specifically why? Me saying "Fox is a terrible propaganda machine" doesn't imply that I think MSNBC is solid journalism.
These people are no different than Young Earth Creationists (wouldn't be surprised if there was some overlap.). That is to say their views lead them to reject science rather than science informing their views. They should be learning to accommodate the science within their views. Denying reality leads to disaster.
Here's the thing instead of funding a campaign to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt, why don't they fund actual science? Left and right should be debating on what to do about human caused global warming and not whether or not it is happening.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
...people spending 6.5 million to defend science, while a handful of warmist organizations have budgets of nearly 500 million?
Defend science? Where do you get that from?
His effort will focus on providing a curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain--two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.
Some defence.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
To this day various science denialists claim that "smoking was thought to be HEALTHY until like the '80s! And look what happened!" when in fact it was known to be unhealthy since before WW2 and was never considered healthy by mainstream science.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Good point, I can't see MS having a stake in this. Unless they just don't want to give any more motivation to switch to more energy-efficient OSes and CPU architectures :-P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
the way i look at it, global warming is a political issue created by al gore..
Sorry, no.
Margret Thatcher talked about it long before Al Gore.
Helped organise the creation of the IPCC too.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I followed the link provided, and was immediately struck by the first graph in the header showing a dropping trend over 6,000 years and an arrow at the end where it rises a bit and the text "global warming part". Obviously this shows that by taking a very narrow view, an unscrupulous scientist can make it appear like it is getting warmer.
Now to the headline: 2011 Global Sea Level Dropped back to 2008 Levels. I would like to see those three years highlighted on the first graph. They are saying that they have proof that global warming is wrong by taking an extremely narrow view of the data. Seems a bit hypocritical to me.
But those aren't available (to my knowledge). One must wonder why.
The answer, since you are wondering why, is that you're an uneducated fool who didn't do the little bit of looking required. Thankfully, GameboyRMH has stepped up and provided you with links to explore.
You're right, I didn't notice that. Unfortunately, climate science has a good deal of lobbying tied up with it, across the spectrum. This is the first time I've seen an alleged attempt at silencing opposition from the non-AGW side, but unsurprising. If the documents are legitimate, then both sides are attempting to silence the other. This has no bearing on the science question. Science can be good or bad science, e.g. Mendelian genetics vs. Lysenkoism. This is my own speculation, but assuming the internal documents are legitimate, the reference to "teaching science" may have been internally understood as referring to bad science or pseudo-science. Being meant for internal use, this seems plausible. I'm not stating what the documents meant, only stating an alternative interpretation that requires actual research and analysis. Neither of the two articles attempt to verify the legitimacy of the documents and their interpretation of the material is entirely self-serving, failing to consider alternative possibilities. Serious-minded people should not draw any conclusions until an independent and non-ideological analysis of the documents has been conducted; multiple such analyses may reach different conclusions, but at least there would be a factual basis supported by evidence for doing so. Posting the story on /. before this had been done was premature, and only served as flamebait for people of differing views to shadowbox over shadowy and unverified charges. The issues are whether the documents are legitimate and untampered with or some form of hoax, and if legitimate the meaning of the word "science" in the sentence. Everything else, especially the scientific basis of AGW, is off-topic unproductive trolling.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
You're really comparing being given grants to do research that leads to peer reviewed papers with being paid to spin a specific line and suppress science?
Really?
And the denier camp likes to call those who listen to the vast majority of the scientific community on this one "faith based"...
Check your premises.
I was with you until the end... blaming inaction on laziness and contempt is a little disingenuous. There are a lot of factors supporting the status quo, human nature, political and corporate self-interest, ignorance, etc. I cant accept that anyone truly believes they can make a difference but wont, or that they choose not to because they have no regard for their children. But I otherwise agree in principle. In practice though Ive seen nothing Id consider credible that addresses macro renewable energy production. Sure, put a microhydro plant on the stream by my house, that helps me and maybe 3 other houses. But nothing is going to take 500 coal fired plants offline tomorrow at anything with even a passing nod to cost parity. Except nuclear, and I consider our complete failure to adopt clean safe reactor designs (PBR & IFR) as an indication that we are incapable of collectively acting rationally.
Fred Singer was actually one of those same people denying that smoking caused cancer.
It's the same asshole liars.
.
Since the sources in TFA are being slashdotted, I did a Google search for "heartland institute leak" to find other sources.
First Google ad? RSA Data Loss Prevention XD
http://i.imgur.com/tUgjG.jpg
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Replying to AC considered harmful.... oh well, here goes.
a lot of what's taken as science these days is just theory anyway.
"Science" is one of those tricky words that means different things to different people. In general, the idea is to formulate theories that predict as accurately as possible measurable aspects of reality. Over time, these theories are refined. "Fact" is a nearly unobtainable ideal, but theories can get pretty darned close given enough time and testing.
Climate theories are in a relatively early state along that asymptotic curve, but are getting better rapidly. Some people are discovering things they don't like as a result. Typical human behavior ensues.
WALSTIB!
That is the same point the post from which you are quoting out of context made.
Scientists paid to do propaganda for AGW? I've never come across any instance of that.
You can't compare grants into climate research (available to any scientist, no matter which side) with paid propaganda for the AGW denial lobby.
Well not unless AGW denial is a religion for you and you'll therefore twist the real world to suit your beliefs.
What?! Do you know this person you're replying to? Do you know for sure that he's a card carrying member of the denialist league? How do you know he didn't say something similar when that other stuff came out?
Assume much?! I hope you don't consider yourself to be a scientist or an engineer. Because from the sounds of it, you're more like a sports fan rooting for your team. Lean to think.
By revelation of these emails, Fred Singer's respect in peer reviewed literature has dropped to slightly lower than the asshole liars who used to publish "peer reviewed" studies backed by tobacco companies claiming that tobacco smoke isn't related to cancer...
Um... You do realize you're saying that "Fred Singer's respect in peer reviewed literature has dropped to slightly lower than Fred Singer," right?
Sort of like the Antithesis of David Suzuki, at least when he's (Suzuki) not blogging about "Organic" vodka.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Maybe climate change is happening, maybe it isn't. I don't think anyone really knows for certain. However, this is NOT an excuse to continue to burn fossil fuels and polluting our environment. Ultimately, fossil fuels are unsustainable as long term energy solutions. We need to look at hydrogren, solar, wind, and maybe even nuclear. Heartland Institute sounds suspiciously like a lobby group for the "clean" coal and oil industries, nothing more and nothing less. They have a vested interest in supporting their respective industries. This brings me to another point, "clean" coal, is bullshit! It is still a carbon based product being burned and since when does coal burn cleanly. Usually, burining coal results in a dark smoke that cannot possibly be good for the environment.
http://youtu.be/f8U_JveHS8E?t=54s
I ... once had a science teacher flat out tell us that she ... wasn't going to risk her job just so we could learn
It's actually data from three different satellites. (The much larger dataset from an earlier satellite is not included.) You can get information on how exactly the data is measured by searching for those satellite projects.
The data seems to actually be legitimate, although the period of observation is pretty short and the seasonal fluctuations are large compared to the trend they're measuring (which is why the larger dataset is useful). The European satellite's dataset is particularly short and suddenly substantially deviates from NASA's starting about two years ago.
(and radical green-ism is certainly a religion).
Yes, its name is "Bhuddism." The Bhuddists worship life.
cost/benefit ratio, something that gets precious little rational discussion. Those who are skeptical of spending obscene amounts of money with at best fuzzy promises of any tangible results arent 'deniers' by any stretch no matter how convenient it is to label them as such.
Yes, and that's another religion, the one most practiced in the US today. It's called "Mammonism."
If you are a mammonist, you will disagree with this statement -- there are things worth far more than money. If "money" is at the top of the list of things that matter to you, then I pity you.
Free Martian Whores!
So this was originally posted by desmogblog which got a hold of the documents. The guy who runs the blog wrote a book a while back all about the begginings of climate change denial. Its called "Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming" by James Hoggan with Richard Littlemore. Hogan is actually a pretty conservative entrapeneur but when he started digging he got a bit freaked out. Apparently Big Tobacco actually offered up its fake science institute to Big Oil to start creating doubt about climate change buy suggesting there was actual scientific debate about it.
Yes Cindy - there really is a fat white guy smoking a cigar and stroking his cat and laughing evilly.
Now if this were *real* science, one side or the other would be able to unequivocally silence the other with incontrivertable facts.
Only scientists are silenced by facts -- because they are (generally) interested in learning something. The inability to coolly examine counter-evidence is a sure sign of denial. This is actually an integral part of our political process, and goes way beyond the climate change debate.
Your assumptions on the human condition are plain wrong.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Those two groups tend to release real information without doctoring. These unknown groups with no track record, who knows?
"Hide the decline" is another out of context quote and "models that output hockey-stick graphs" is an oversimplification of what's going on. If you dig into either of those subjects in depth you'll find they aren't what climateaudit says they are.
If it is, then they have already won. I wonder how long they can hold it? I doubt if they can beat Marco's high score. Or even Hitler's.
Wikipedia has already been edited to reflect this little tidbit. Fast work.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Looking past even economics, the 'debate' is also a sociological one, since at its core AGW comes down to this: how do we reverse humanity’s relentless pursuit of comfort.
Oh bullshit! The question comes down to how can we assure our great grandchildren a similar level of comfort to the one we enjoy now rather than depleting the world of all of the resources necessary to achieve that comfort.
That's called false balance sir. All sides of an argument are not always valid and equal. That's the problem with the media today. Opposing arguments to accepted science the media so very often portray as equal in validity in the name of "balance." Such as this and many other manufactured controversies I can think of.
I see, so people making claims are not required to back them up or produce evidence now. That should make things easy on new PhDs. Now they don't have to give a "defense", they can just give an "assertion".
I must have missed the link where they correct this and admit the entire Climategate "controversy" was proven false, and that no deliberate manipulation of data was actually found. I am sure they are still working on that release...
I have met plenty of people who really believe that climate-gate was a smoking gun -- to the point that they cannot even read the complete emails, or the results of the many investigations.
And they think of themselves as perfectly logical, grounding everything in evidence and fact.
We are dealing with the inability of the mind to represent information that conflicts with beliefs. Try to imagine the bizarre thoughts that the people at the Heartland institute will be generating to "explain" all of this in their mind, so that they are the good guy.
The ring-leaders are almost always the most extreme -- and the only way to "correct" the discourse is to show just how ridiculous they are.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Give me the source code and raw, unadjusted measurement data so I can replicate these results.
This is such an obvious misdirection tactic. You will never replicate the results. Now that you've wasted everyone's time, you will just find some other minutia to pick one. For ever and ever.
Grow the fuck up.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
By revelation of these emails, Fred Singer's respect in peer reviewed literature has dropped to slightly lower than the asshole liars who used to publish "peer reviewed" studies backed by tobacco companies claiming that tobacco smoke isn't related to cancer...
btw, it was the same Fred Singer who backed studies by the tobacco companies claiming that tobacco is harmless. The same guy. Read "Merchants of Doubt" if you want to know more. It goes deeper then just AGW and tobacco.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
That's because of the availability heuristic and cognitive dissonance on your part. The real problem is with your mind not with PhDs. You have built yourself a self supporting bullshit machine that unrealistically weighs "facts" that support your preconceptions and discounts things that disagree with what you think. You saying that PhDs don't have to defend their ideas is the height of self incrimination. Do you have a PhD? I seriously doubt it.
In addition I see from your later posts that you bring up the whole "grant money" argument. This clearly identifies your as out of your mind. Just in case you missed the memo fossil fuel extraction is the MOST PROFITABLE endeavor in human history bar none. If you think that thousands of squabbling academics who's only ability to move up in their world is by gotcha and disproving each others ideas are going to magically join forces to create a false theory and data in order to what? Seriously what the fuck do they have to gain, grant money? What world do you live in? Grant money? The combined oil industry must make 100x all the academic grants in the US each quarter. You are so self deluded that is makes me wonder how you can operate a keyboard.
So - I guess that physics and astronomy are also pseudoscience. Because they cannot generate a model that will tell us when the next asteroid will hit the Earth.
Get the pitchforks and torches, and burn down the science departments!
Check your premises.
So, if we see them spending $1, then they're really spending $1,000,000 that we can't see? Why doesn't that hold for leftist environmentalist advocacy groups as well?
And apparently works even better for warmist organizations who can funnel involuntary taxpayer dollars, right? :)
Hand waving in the extreme. Cheap energy has brought us out of poverty and misery into the modern world. Focusing on cheap energy means we can help those who haven't made it to the 1st world standard of living up. Focusing on magical unicorn solar panels that can compete with something like natural gas only wastes resources.
Look, the point stands - if we're going to be horrified at the money spent by the Heartland Institute to advocate for its positions, we should be horrified by the money spent by the warmists as well (which is well over an order of magnitude greater).
Actually Algae might. 250000 gallons of oil per acre in the lab. Plus hydrocarbons are awesome as previously noted by all. We have the infrastructures and engines already. You see any type of production gain efficiency as you reduce the size e.g. Von Numman machines. But most people fail to notice that we have billions of years of nanotechnology research already done for us that the ultimate self replicating solar device is already out there and kicking ass. You cannot beat primary producers in the ecosystem. The food web is all about the bottom of the pyramid.
As to getting people to act rationally good luck with that.
It would be nice to think that, but as a species this is not how we've acted in the past. Ever. The history of life as we know it is about consuming resources. Its pretty much one of the definitions of 'life' (go look it up on wikipedia, its interesting). Actually on a reread I dont even see how your statement and mine are different? (And I plagiarized that line, from a Business Week review of "The Conundrum: Why Your Prius Wont Save You" (note Business Week didnt like it so much))
I have to call bullshit on what you think Buddhism is.
1. Buddhists don't worship anything, when asked he said he knew nothing about god and or the afterlife, believe what you will.
2. Buddhists are trying to relive pain.
a. Life is pain
b. Desire causes pain.
c. to end pain end desire.
d. don't be a dick
That's it. The rest is stain glass windows for the illiterate peasants. All Buddhists need, that and the middle path meaning split life and soul evenly and be realistic about the world we live in.
Fair enough, I'll accept your assertion that climate change will not be catastrophic for either humanity, or the world in general.
So, if climate change *isn't* going to be catastrophic, why should we worry about our CO2 emissions?
Yeah good point, I was thinking some of the large scale biofuels initiatives look good too, algae, switchgrass ethanol. But I lump that in with "not ready for prime time but Im 100% for continued R&D". But I think nuclear is ready today, and you can make just about anything else with enough electricity, including gasoline. And fresh water (in a nod to another SD article running today).
So you are then willing to concede that grant funding from conservative groups and oil companies is legitimate?
Grant funding for what? I repeat: there's a difference between grant funding for scientific research, and paying for propaganda.
No, there is nothing legitimate about oil companies funding the Heartland Institute in order to pay a University Professor to spout propaganda on the TV and other media.
If there was an example you could give of conservative or oil companies giving money for genuine scientific research, then provided it checks out as what you describe it as, there would be nothing wrong with it.
But it's hypothetical unless and until you can give that example. For now all we have is conservatives and oil companies paying lobbyists for propaganda. That we have evidence for.
Or are you just another hypocrite?
I tell you what's hypocritical. Someone who whines repeatedly about ad hominem, and then uses it himself to try and get the answer he wants.
Why on earth do you think the heartland institute comprises the entirity of skeptic funding?
Wow, you really can't read.
Let's try this again... GP said "You're really comparing being given grants to do research that leads to peer reviewed papers with being paid to spin a specific line and suppress science?"
Did you get it this time? Think really hard. You'll understand it eventually.
Just in case, let me spell it out for you. One side is paid to do research. The other side is paid to suppress research. It's not the "being paid" part that is being criticized here. Can you comprehend that?
Meh, what have future generations ever done for us?
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
For the love o Jeebus... on this very day Slashdot has an article taking about the fact that Nuclear Power plants in the US are having problems running at capacity because the RIVERS ARE TOO HOT... The National Forestry, is overhauling its long term timber estimates due to projected drought and wildfire in the Western United States, and the last 10 years match prior projections based on model of global climate change. There are islands in the south Pacific that are being evacuated because ocean levels are rendering them uninhabitable.
At what point do you concede that perhaps the word is getting warmer and that HUMAN BEINGS are the cause? When the asphalt in front of your home spontaneously combusts? When the squirrels in the trees melt like marshmallows? Never? The problem my friend, with stinking your head in the sand is that soon, your tail feathers are going to get singed. I know its hard. I understand you want to believe that human enterprise is inherently good. Visit a Superfund site. Get a clue, hell get two, they're small. Human beings are amazing wonderful beasts. They're also Machiavellian bastards, like most of the other primates on the planet. The only difference is we can actually appraise our actions and do something about the creepier ones. Continuing to mindlessly crap into an environment in collapse is something that demands we use our frontal lobes and not the magical thinking parts of our brains. Hence the science.
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/(1-15-2012)%202012%20Fundraising%20Plan.pdf
Sort of like James Hansen receiving $1,600,000 to promote global warming.
One side is providing grant money to research the issue and publish the findings. The other side is providing personal payments to publicly voice a specific opinion. One of these is science, one of them is not.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Seriously? You find $6.5 million possibly budgeted to skeptical defenders of science, and you expect me extrapolate that to equal the *billions* siphoned off by warmists and alarmists over the years?
Oh, and for the record, it looks like a bunch of those docs were doctored:
http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/15/heartland-institute-responds-stolen-and-fake-documents
What will you think of the "leakers" of these docs if the juiciest bits are falsified?
You don't know what AGW refers to, do you?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You mean like this:
It would be if it were actually true. But it's not.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf
So when called out, you've got nothing.
Which, like most things you read on the Heartland Institute funded WattUpWithThat blog, isn't true.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120130_CowardsPart2.pdf
See my sig (if the link still works).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Actually Algae might. 250000 gallons of oil per acre in the lab.
That number is useless unless you also define the amount of time as well.
For example - On one acre one can install about 750 kW worth of solar on an acre. The US ranges from about 5-8 kWh of sun a day depending on where you live, so that 750 kW solar farm will produce anywhere from 3.7 MWh to 6 MWh a day. That's about enough for 100-200 households depending on the house. It's also good for about 11,000 - 18,000 electric vehicle miles / day assuming your EV uses 1 kWh to go 3 miles.
How does biofuel from algae compare to that?
The Heartland Institute has posted a notice on their website that the doc the Guardian published is a fake:
One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.
We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake “climate strategy” memo and any quotations from the same, from their blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
Heartland also claims that some genuine documents were stolen and then altered.
So, do we have another Dan Rather Memogate here?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Actually, producing oil from algae looks very promising (especially with some exciting breakthroughs in bioreactors.) We could produce all the oil we need from an oil farm covering the land area of about half the state of New Mexico (by the way, with the help of several new desalination processes it should be possible to bring substantial new energy industries to the deserts of the south west.) This is particularly true with the increasing price of oil, which at this very moment is again on the rise.The $3 dollar gallon of gas is gone and isn't coming back. The $4 gallon is soon to join it. Every day I talk to friends who have hybrids and they are honestly smug as hell (and rightfully so.)
Expanded hydrothermal, pebble-bed nuclear with helium cooling, direct solar to hydrogen, the list of exciting new potential technologies is almost endless. The key is to create a national mandate, like getting to the moon. A nation that is 100% renewable energy within 10 years. More important, becoming the global leader of renewables and exporting our technology to the rest of the world. That's a winning strategy. It means of course telling the fossil fuel industry to get off its fat ass and move to the future. Tough, its time to bite the bullet before we're shot by it. This has ceased to be a wake-up call... its now more like a 3 alarm fire swiftly moving towards 4 alarm. Stop arguing against the future, nobody had a cow over the end of the buggy whip industry, they just all went out and got their new cars. Its time for this generation to get over gasoline. Whatever's coming next will be even better, just make it that way. One of the worst problems with spending your time living in the past, is that you lose any say about the shape of the future. All the interesting stuff is that way, over the horizon.
No, sorry, he was criticizing Fox news, not making a case for anything more complex. You're reading things that aren't there.
So google for a citation that shows you're not full of shit. WTF?
Free Martian Whores!
If you go here: Data Sources
You will find a link to Mann et al (1998/1999) which has the data and code that Michael Mann and his coauthors used in the original "Hockey Stick" graph. If you want the original raw data I think you'll have to go to the original papers that Mann got his data from.
Also, nice jumping to conclusions by guessing my "agenda" based on two lines. And you're guessing my politics, too? Get off your soapbox yourself, Captain Knowitall. I've claimed one fact, which as of 4:30pm ET is still accurate. FOX ain't said shit about it. They still might, in which case I'll be proven wrong and you, you my good sir or madam, will have been proven correct. That and $4 will get you a coffee at Starbucks. Yip de fucking doo. You win the internet.
Just to see if I was wrong already, I did a search of foxnews.com for "Heartland Institute" and found that they sure get a lot of mileage out of those fuckers, both the institute itself and articles by people who include the institute in their .sig. But no news on these documents (yet). I did the same search on CNN and saw fewer and older hits, but that might be because their search engine didn't respond well to the quotes and just searched for the individual terms (doing it on google with site:cnn.com showed that cnn relies on HI far less than FOX does). Props to FOX for having the better search engine.
I didn't search MSNBC - i have never watched them and quite frankly don't think of them at all.
Beyond that, do your own homework. Let me know when FOX covers it. Or don't. That's cool too. This is commentary, not science; unlike you (and FOX) I know which is which.
bah.
The sociological problem isn't comfort. Its having a talking head in a little box tell you what you need to get comfort. Worse because these things only gratify and virtually never satisfy, you have to get today's "Turd Neuvo" to maintain that 1 minute and 14 seconds of comfort. Pavlovian consumption as economic raison d'etre. We don't need this crap. There are DOZENS of nations that consume a tenth of what America consumes and THEY ARE HAPPIER than we are. They save more money than we do. They have better health than us. Their children are getting better educations. People, who among you can't see that obsessive hoarding and anorexia are the opposite ends of the same shitty stick?
This is that religion thing again. Grow a free mind, READ dammit!, Our appetite is not our best friend. Its time to take the profit motive out of living and breathing. I know I just committed the foulest of blasphemies and I'll be forced at gun point to say 1000 hail Wallstreets, but this little experiment in grotesque consumption has run its course and is bloody close to destroying everything we love. Just yesterday I heard they want to strip mine coal in Bryce National Park. That kind of says it all. Enough people. We're turning the world into a toilet. Its like some horrible existential scene from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", whatever you do, don't eat that last wafer thin mint.
Its time for us to elect representatives who aren't permanently attached to Corporate America's teat. Its time to muzzle Corporate America, and surgically separate them from state, while we're at it rescind their personhood, they've abused the privilege. Its time to teach our kids that they are responsible for the future, that it will only be as good or as bad as they make it, and we who are already here, should spend the rest of our ill begotten existences cleaning up the fscking mess we made, instead of viciously grubbing for more. So a little dignity please! Let's have a little compassion. Grow a pair, and demand that we put our attention to cleaning up the mess. That's a future worth having. That's a purpose worth living for. This knee jerk, pavlovian self satisfying, needs to come to a crashing halt now. It is so time to find out what's important, and let me be the first to let you know its not Axe Spray-on Deodorant, or minty fresh breath, or even the right feminine hygiene product. Perhaps then, we'll all discover the true nature of real comfort and lasing happiness. Being at home in our skins and being able to look in the mirror without shame, or the quiet self loathing at what little we've left our children.
The big argument about this being a "smoking gun" is one sentence, where someone typed "dissuading teachers from teaching science" instead of "dissuading teachers from teaching this lousy excuse for a science?"
Did you miss the other one that's in TFA? In my opinion, it's far more damning:
"Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as [Peter] Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own. This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out."
Rational skepticism my ass. They pretty much openly admit that they're running a propaganda campaign, not doing science.
Microsoft does indeed have a donation matching scheme for employees, and the list of organizations for which it matches such donations is very long and seemingly random. I've used to match my own donations to EFF, for example.
I don't think you have to go very far in to the "Globalist Conspiracy" theories to find out why Microsoft is funding this type of thing. Spend a bit of time on InfoWars and you will find lots of funny information linking "The Gates" and Microsoft to odd things.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Here's a little hint...
You give someone a grant... they go purchase a bunch of computers and test equipment and do this research thing for 1 to 10 years. They collect data, analyze results then publish peer reviewed papers. We call this science
The guys being paid by the oil companies, on the other hand, are doing little or no research, save looking for ways specifically to discredit the people (not the research) of those investigating climate change. So they bandy about opinions, assassinate character, lie, cheat and build grotesque fictions from whole cloth. So its not the funding. Its what's being done with the money. Science in one case, and corporate espionage in the other. Place your bets where you will, I'll take the science camp myself thanks..
See? This was *exactly* my point. When we talk in terms of economics instead of AGW alarmists & deniers, we collectively have good productive conversations like this one. I dont really care anymore about GW since there are plenty of perfectly good reasons to adopt new technologies without it. Oil, at least as the mainstay of energy production, doesnt make sense anymore, even if it isnt killing polar bears. Thanks Genda (and F34nor)!
At what point do you concede that perhaps the word is getting warmer and that HUMAN BEINGS are the cause? When the asphalt in front of your home spontaneously combusts? When the squirrels in the trees melt like marshmallows?
None of the those things have anything to do with the cause of the heat. Can you not tell the difference between cause and effect?
The main document is a fake and several others have been altered. Didn't see it in the discussion. Thought I'd mention it. http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/15/heartland-institute-responds-stolen-and-fake-documents
Actually, if you dig into the emails, and the data, and the programs, you will find they are EXACTLY what climateaudit said they were. Anyone saying they are 'out of context' is desperately trying to hide the real context that AGW is a fraud and always has been.
No... they are results of heat. The evidence is jumping up and biting you. I'm speaking about effect. If you want to talk cause, I'll be happy to show you a couple hundred sources of information from broadly diverse areas of research which create a virtually irrefutable conclusion to emerge. Human Beings are changing the global climate, through first order effects from greenhouse gases, and now growingly through second order effects from the liberation of huge amounts of CO2 and methane from melting permafrost and organic decomposition at high latitudes and ocean hydrides.
Better yet, you go out, hit the science journals, and I mean all kinds of different research. Oceanography, Microbiology, Biology, Geology and Geophysics, Archeology, Botany, Agricultural Science, Forest Management, Hydrology and Water Management. Then come back to me, Let me know what you found, The key is, go with an open mind, and stop trying to prove your point. You can't learn anything from a closed premise. Besides being bad science, it points to religion not informed inquiry.
There are islands in the south Pacific that are being evacuated because ocean levels are rendering them uninhabitable
Name one. The ocean levels have not risen in the past 10 years. No islands or ports or whatever has been evacuated due to rising sea levels.
There are a handful of scientists worldwide that deny the AGW consensus. The question is why? The assumption used to be that they were handsomely paid to do it. That is now fact.
Actually, there are near 20,000 scientists that deny AGW. And the only thing these documents prove (if you could someone exclude the faked data) is that skeptics only received a tiny drop in the bucket amount of money compared to the billions and billions received by the warmists.
I have sympathy with what you say, fine prose. But debate will move with the position taken by the organisations response of course. You cant plead for rumor and speculation to be shut down given the fact that this is how the world is these days. Unlike the world of our media sources which present a story as entertainment and move on to the next juicy titbit the online world takes a story and starts with the soundbite (which is all this story really is at the moment) and then follows it through the twists and turns of data to the fading echos. This is phillosophically not unlike that which the scientific method uses to reach a conclusion and it is good.
The "climategate affair" turnned out to be without substance, no one was found to be behaving badly or trying to mislead anyone, it mainly turned out to be nerds pissed off at being trolled. I agree this piece of information we are discussing could well turn out to be of minor importance in the understanding of what we should do about the climate question.
However it does raise the question about whether people with economic power are meddling with our world view in opposition to our individual interests for their own gain. This is a more important question than whether we should be taking precautions agains Bangladesh going underwater or propping up distasteful regimes who can sell us oil. For 40 years I bought into the idea that we had to fight a disgusting cold war against a Soviet regime that put people in gulags because of their resistance to a bad political system, a war that was poisonous to innocent developing countries. I put up with it because it felt right.But I dont think that I am going to sign up to a status quo that hands my life and that of my children, or the rest of the world over to the self interest of the super rich. Particularly after our cherished capitalist system hit the rocks with the rich taking the profit and leaving the tax payers to pay for the failed risk. Lets see how the story develops.
We are tired of silence, we will have openness in our political systems, we want evidence and facts and most of all we want to be able to take our own decisions just like democracy promised we could.
On this one I will go out on a limb and suggest that Anonymous might take an interest in this over the next few years, particularly as there are going to be a huge number of skilled, unemployed and very bored youngsters around. I dont think they are reading Heartlnnd sponsered blogs or watching Fox news, why would they?
Its different this time, they are online, they are smart and have a terrible sense of humor, bless em.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Actually, there are near 20,000 scientists that deny AGW.
A statement which is not true, and for which you have no evidence.
And the only thing these documents prove (if you could someone exclude the faked data) is that skeptics only received a tiny drop in the bucket amount of money compared to the billions and billions received by the warmists.
A statement which is not true, and for which you have no evidence.
Warmists insist that the science is settled. That kind of appeal to authority is anti-science,
Continue arguing with the people who only exist in your head.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Yes, it's an acronym for a term created by "skeptics" trying to find another sub-issue to pick on, along the same lines as "macro/micro-evolution."
Once the "it's not caused by man" argument is completely dead you'll move onto the "it's not bad" argument, then finally onto "I refuse to do anything about it, perhaps I'll move to North Dakota or live in a biodome." Most are already on "it's not bad," do try to keep up.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Some self-professed 'skeptics' dont take issue with GW or even AGW but more with the cost/benefit ratio, something that gets precious little rational discussion. Those who are skeptical of spending obscene amounts of money with at best fuzzy promises of any tangible results arent 'deniers' by any stretch no matter how convenient it is to label them as such.
I suspect most of them. They oppose the concept of AGW because they don't want to suffer financially. But they're not honest about that. They pretend the science isn't settled, rather than talking about their economic concerns. That's what makes them deniers. It's like children that don't want to go to bed will deny that it's 7:30pm.
I'm glad you raised it.
No matter which side of the debate you fall into we have to recognize and accept that the issue is an economic one, not a scientific one
Not at all. It's naive to imagine that everything is an economic question. There are too many things you can't put prices on. Extinction of species is obviously a bad thing, but how does it weigh up on a balance sheet? Even if you do, who's balance sheet? Do you imagine man has pre-eminence over all of nature? Because if you do that's quite a religious position in itself. And if you don't, then you agree that economics can't represent the problem. What's ice worth to a polar bear?
And then we've got the short-sightedness of economics. What time frame is todays economics relevant over. Does it matter much to us how people spent their money 500 years ago. What about 2000? And yet these are tiny amounts of time for the earth. We tend to be interested in, at most, 100 years. And that's because that's the top end of our life-span. And our individual lifespans are as nothing.
Once you get past the science, and you seem to agree that we have, then the questions are mostly moral. Not economic.
Economics certainly comes in to how we deal with the problem. It's certainly not the means by which we decide whether we deal with it.
I realize that it's easier to attack Al Gore-style claims, but perhaps you should actually read what the scientists say, rather than what you seem to think they say.
I keep trying to but it's always behind a paywall, so I'm really stuck with either journalist that in all reality don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and paid propagandists. Your basically trying to convince me to significantly change my life-style, but you want me to pay to see what your argument actually is even after I paid for the research to be done with my tax money. As the "Unprecedented" warming coincides so well with the "Great Dying of Thermometers". Ice cores have that odd cause and effect inversion, where the CO2 increases half a millennium after the temperature increase it caused, not unlike the dissolution of Resublimated Thiotimoline before the water is added so even that isn't that supportive of the "Unprecedented" part of the warming and let's face it the dendrochronology proxy for temperature is about as accurate as extispicy or crystallomancy. Not to mention that warming as a continuing trend isn't looking so certain either
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
What a surprise, he denies it. I guess if that's proof enough for you...
We are dealing with the inability of the mind to represent information that conflicts with beliefs.
No, the heartland institute are a pack amoral propagandists, who would gladly work to discredit motherhood for a pittance. This is the same bag of turds who supplied the same services to the tobacco industry in an attempt to discredit the causal link between smoking and cancer. Both campaigns (and similar efforts by another 50-odd loosely aligned lobby groups located on K street) have effectively generated enough FUD around AGW to delay action for the last couple of decades, which is exactly what they are paid for.
They know they have already lost the argument and are becoming more ludicrous in their claims in an attempt to drag the 'middle ground' towards them. I only hope that when the 'useful idiots' inevitably wake up to the FUD they will get angry at these shills and the CEO's who pay them, like they did with the tobacco CEO's 20yrs ago when their FUD was finally overpowered by logic and reason. But it's not going to be an overnight thing, in the next slashdot climate story useful idiots will still be abusing the messengers.
Of course if the press did it's job properly the constitutional right to knowingly publish propaganda under the guise of informed opinion would be far less harmful to others.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's rather more than denial. It takes the assumptions in the original accusations, one by one, and shows why they are wrong.
If he's lied in that correction, then the denial world could could very easily get him fired from NASA. But that hasn't happened.
Obviously you wish the accusations were true. But appear to be nothing more than wishful thinking from people that would like to discredit Hansen.
The evidence against Fred Singer on the other hand is unequivocal. He's salaried on the payroll of the Heartland Institute. $5000 per month = $60,000 per year.
The real "AGW alarmists" are those who say responding to global warming will destroy the economy, cost an insane amount of money and reduce us all to living an 18th century lifestyle if not a caveman lifestyle. Most people who are concerned about the effects of global warming are realistic enough to realize it will take 30-40 years to wean ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels and the sooner and more strongly we put our effort into that the better the ultimate result will be.
I have met plenty of people who really believe that climate-gate was a smoking gun -- to the point that they cannot even read the complete emails, or the results of the many investigations.
There are plenty of those right here on Slashdot, just like antivaxxers in the other thread. I shudder at the thought about what the non-technical crowd believes in. No wonder the country is in such a mess. Pink unicorns everywhere.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Of course if the press did it's job properly [youtube.com] the constitutional right to knowingly publish propaganda under the guise of informed opinion would be far less harmful to others.
The Marshall Institute, which grand-fathered in a lot of this stuff, decided to deal with the press issue with legal threats. (The same actors were involved in promoting the Star Wars program.) Naomi Oreskes has a great talk on the topic -- and a great book.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This is factually untrue and easily refuted. If this is how carefully you research all your science, I'm not surprised you're a denialist.
There is every reason to begin to switch from a fossil fuel based economy, and no reason other than laziness and contempt for future generations to continue on the course we have chosen.
There's also the possibility that present inaction is the best course of action. Recall the idea of "time-value". Benefits are generally better to have today than some point in the future. Similarly, costs are better to have some point in the future than today. What's the argument that the cost will be larger enough that it's better to deal with it today rather than later, when we're wealthier and more technologically capable of dealing with the problem?
I only wish.
http://www.thescienceisstillsettled.com/
More than happy to see you disclaim warmist shills like this as anti-science :)
The first person to talk about global warming from increased CO2 was Svante Arrhenius in 1896. Long before Al Gore was even born.
if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.
Nothing wrong with organic vodka, it's just that vodka is distilled so any difference between the two is just marketing hype.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I know you're just trolling or rabid, but actually (a) I'm a scientist and (b) it really has nothing with what I happen to think about various points in climate scientist. Everyone does it -- on the whole, readers are flat-out bad at assessing graphs and statistics, and writers are deceptive in creating them.
So if I get a grant from the church, do ten years of research on the motion of planetary bodies, and submit a paper postulating that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and submit it to a journal run by people receiving money from the same Church, that's science?
Further, if those same people received funding from the International Heretical Belief Society, does that make them wrong? No, science doesn't have anything to do with source of funds or collective agreement and everything to do with openness and repeatability. Current climate models don't pass that test. Without the ability to have a fair and open discussion MUCH LESS examine the models and the raw data, it isn't science. It's reading golden tablets out of a hat.
That very first thing you said was Ad Hominem:
"Right. So your real problem is not science at all, it's politics."
You've displayed it fully in your posts since. Free markets, sniping at Al Gore, pleas for libertarianism.
Oh look. I win. That was easy.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/24/case-closed-climategate-was-manufactured/
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Source codes:
http://drdobbs.com/windows/226700457 (2010)
http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=667 (2009)
Raw data:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20739-ok-climate-sceptics-heres-the-raw-data-you-wanted.html (July 28 2011)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/07/28/climategate-researchers-release-long-sought-raw-data-on-global-temperatures/
No need for a public apology for failing Google search.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
"Hide the decline" refers to the fact that some tree ring series stopped matching with temperature changes in the 1960's after having matched for the previous 100+ years. The speculation is that the change in tree rings had a lot to do with industrial pollution but I'm not aware that anyone has studied this intensely yet. Since they had good accurate data from actual thermometers then they just used that. The decline in tree ring data was openly and fully disclosed and discussed in the relevant peer reviewed papers. Nobody was hiding anything, just removing confusing and useless data from the graphs they made of it.
You're probably right. I try to be optimistic. The difference between humans and other species is we have the ability to look at the future with some understanding of what is likely to happen and even affect how the future turns out.
I agree.
Well, I think it can be more simply summed up as "act skillfully so as to avoid [bad] consequences". I put the "bad" in brackets because AFAICT (and I'm not an expert) there isn't really a distinction between good and bad consequences.
However, to say that "Buddhism is X" is really a misnomer. The dogma that we are used to seeing in most other religions doesn't really exist. While there are a set of principles, the rest is kind of deliberately left unstated. I once asked someone what I could read to understand Buddhism better and he directed me to a list of several hundred books all with different opinions.
My only real point here is that while I agree it is wrong to say that Buddhism worships life, it is true that there are Buddists who worship life and consider it an essential part of Buddhism.
Name a single bit of actual scientific research that Greenpeace funds.
Why should I? It was you who brought up the notion that Greenpeace does scientific research when you posted your ealier link which says that "Its 1,200-strong staff ranges from 'direct action' activists to scientific researchers." You can't use the fact that they pay for scientific researchers to denigrate the organisation, and then turn around to imply that they don't do scientific research!
Of course, Heartland pay scientists too. But you can bet that when the Greenpeace researchers publish anything it is under the Greenpeace banner. What's the bet that when the scientists bought by the Heartland Institute publish anything they neglect to mention their funding sources.
Tell you what, when you want to play the science game, come at me with your concise falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Your problem is that you think that global warming is just a single theory. It is actually made up of a lot of theories in a variety of scientific disciplines. It all began when people started wondering if all the CO2 we were emitting was increasing the levels in the atmosphere, and if that was true then it could raise the temperature. People did some tests and found that both of these things were true. People looked at all aspects of the CO2 cycle of emission and absorption and found the most credible reason for change was due to man's influence. The oceanographers wondered that if the CO2 levels were in fact increasing, then they should see ocean acidification - and it was so. The people drilling in the ice to look at the historical records agreed with the ones looking at tree rings. The people measuring the temperature on earth agreed with the ones doing it from satellites in space. The scientists published their math in the IPCC reports, and nobody has found any errors with it. The errors found in the IPCC reports were in the non-scientific impacts section (part 3 I believe).
At any stage along the way, someone could have discovered something that did not match the climate change theory and the whole thing would come down like a house of cards. But this has not happened. The theory is falsifiable because there are so many people doing different tests on this subject and they all keep coming up with the same conclusions.
Never seen that site before. Don't see any reason to revisit it.
Whose site is it?
Meanwhile, you are still changing the topic. Where do you see any evidence that the Heartland Institute are trying to defend science.
(P.S. Look at my sig you twit).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
As for getting paid, wasn't all that long ago that a respected researcher could get drummed out of the academy for denying agw,
Yet another lie.
Video or it didn't happen.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
See my sig (if the link still works).
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/8608-
What's the relevance? Svensmark wasn't "drummed out of the academy".
Maybe you have the wrong link?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
If the documents are legitimate, then both sides are attempting to silence the other.
Assuming they are legitimate, then don't show anything about the other side, that much should be clear.
Anyway, you can read these documents - there is no indication in there that anyone is looking to find out the truth. They might be convinced to know the truth and act in order to address an imagined imbalance, that's a possibility, I give you that. However they are not trying to further an open discussion - there is no such point in the agenda document. They are funded by a very small number of donors and they are trying to shape public discussion to the desires of these donors. There is nothing honest and nothing open about their activities, though it's possible that they are acting on the conviction they are right and that therefore the ends would justify the means for them.
It's not impossible that by accident they'd happen to latch on the correct side of the debate, but it's very unlikely. You can stumble into the truth, but stumbling is not a useful method for seeking it.
If there was an example you could give of conservative or oil companies giving money for genuine scientific research, then provided it checks out as what you describe it as, there would be nothing wrong with it.
Well, there is one example of this.
BEST.
Interesting how the research turned out. :-)
Don't bother talking to tmosley, he's a troll.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I wonder if the Hearland is going to revise it's positionon the release of the so called "Climategate" emails.
"The release of these documents creates an opportunity for reporters, academics, politicians, and others who relied on the IPCC to form their opinions about global warming to stop and reconsider their position. The experts they trusted and quoted in the past have been caught red-handed plotting to conceal data, hide temperature trends that contradict their predictions, and keep critics from appearing in peer-reviewed journals. This is new and real evidence that they should examine and then comment on publicly." .
Apparently it's different when it happens to them:
We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation.
http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/15/heartland-institute-responds-stolen-and-fake-documents
Watch this Heartland Institute video
C'mon, that's they're PR machine and you know it. They're hardly "scientific researchers".
Origin of that quote for you: http://www.rferl.org/content/environmental_group_greenpeace_turns_40/24329362.html
Cite a single peer reviewed paper funded by Greenpeace.
Here's your problem - each individual micro-theory in various scientific disciplines can be correct, without the combination of said theories leading to the conclusion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. CO2 can increase in the atmosphere, and in the oceans, and at temperatures, and all see increases, but *none* of that means that it was all because of man's CO2 emissions, *nor* that such changes will be harmful to mankind or the world. That's apocalyptic handwaving, and you know it.
Start with a falsifiable hypothesis that unifies all of the micro-hypotheses you see as underlying your position. What observations will convince you that those micro-hypotheses don't fit together in the way you suspect?
Can you do it? :)
Seriously? You don't see the defense of skepticism regarding the "settled science" of catastrophic (or heck, even slightly uncomfortable) anthropogenic global warming as a defense of science?
There's a reason why the skeptics are winning this argument, and it's not because of money - it's because they're *right*. The science isn't settled, human CO2 emissions are not a primary driver of climate, and we don't need to decarbonize our economy in order to avoid armageddon.
Ha! Those things have been in the news here and there for the past few years! You'd have to be a turtle not to have heard of those incidents! Video my ass.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I had quite a few interesting conversations with Bhuddists in Thailand, including some wearing orange robes. Call bullshit all you want, it isn't.
Free Martian Whores!
But you can bet that when the Greenpeace researchers publish anything it is under the Greenpeace banner.
Cite a single peer reviewed paper funded by Greenpeace.
Who mentioned peer review papers? I said "publish anything". You are merely trying to deflect the topic by redefining what I said. So let's cut through the crap.
When Greenpeace publishes anything (scientific or not), they do so using their name. They do not hide their agenda - their green ideals are in their name, for god sake!
Heartland Institute surreptitiously pays people to say what they want. When those people publish anything, it is not under the banner of Heartland Institute, but as Professor X of Blah University. They hide their ideals behind the names of other respectable institutions. It is deceitful.
So you might try to make a big deal of how much money they have compared to other organisations, but it is how they use their money that is important. In Heartland's case, they are buying credability and a notion of impartiality by paying prominent anti-AGW mouthpieces. And if they are willing to do that, perhaps they also use their money to pay shills to flood social networking sites with their agenda.
It makes you wonder. Correction. It makes me wonder.
Ha! Those things have been in the news here and there for the past few years! You'd have to be a turtle not to have heard of those incidents! Video my ass.
"When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging" -- Rogers, Will
Yes, there have been so many cases you can't even cite one.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Seriously? You don't see the defense of skepticism regarding the "settled science" of catastrophic (or heck, even slightly uncomfortable) anthropogenic global warming as a defense of science?
No, I don't see heartland doing that. (I gave you an out, you didn't take it - the closest those clowns ever go to science was inviting Scott Denning to the "Restoring the Scientific Method" laugh in. Watch it. Learn.).
There's a reason why the skeptics are winning this argument, [...]
Ding! Game over. There is no "argument" to "win".
See ya.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/01/12/22506/ http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/nov_2000/christ_gnostic.htm http://www.jewlicious.com/2010/10/fired-for-questioning-evolution-and-human-caused-global-warming-gavriel-avital/ http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5ef55aa3-802a-23ad-4ce4-89c4f49995d2 http://www.solopassion.com/node/2291 Took me two seconds to find these. Seems you have indeed been living under a rock. I am not finding videos for you. I have enough to do right now.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Boy, you really didn't grasp what I was saying. You asked, "At what point do you concede that perhaps the word is getting warmer and that HUMAN BEINGS are the cause? When the asphalt in front of your home spontaneously combusts? When the squirrels in the trees melt like marshmallows?"
Asphalt combusting and squirrels melting would cause someone to concede that "the world is getting warmer" but wouldn't cause someone to concede that "HUMAN BEINGS are the cause." The fact that you can't seem to distinguish between the two in your own mind is quite telling.
And that's different from Greenpeace surreptitiously paying people to say what they want...how?
Wait, wait, so maybe Heartland has been waging a PR campaign like Greenpeace, except with an order of magnitude *less* money?
Really?
Were you under the impression that the Heartland institute didn't have a PR goal? Are you under the impression that Greenpeace doesn't have a PR goal?
Look, some special interest group having an opinion on AGW, either way, and deciding to put money to support those that agree with you, is par for the course. Worse, though, is the public money funneled from unsuspecting taxpayers to push a certain agenda...and you'll have to admit that lays firmly on the warmist side of the debate.
Gee, that's just what fundamentalist christians say about the literal infallibility of the KJV bible :)
Look, you want to play science, start off with your falsifiable hypothesis statement (whatever position you'd like to take). You want to declare that "there is no argument", and that "the science is settled", you just go ahead and keep preaching to the choir in the Church of Global Warming :)
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/01/12/22506/
A Bush apointee fired by Al Gore from the Office of Energy research. Quelle Horreur! He kept his job in "academe".
"Happer is chair of the board of directors at the George C. Marshall Institute." so he didn't have any trouble finding a new job either.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/nov_2000/christ_gnostic.htm
Who was drummed out of what?
http://www.jewlicious.com/2010/10/fired-for-questioning-evolution-and-human-caused-global-warming-gavriel-avital/
This guy is an evolution denier. He lost his job as "chief scientist of the Israeli education ministry". I can't imagine how he got it.
But no mention of him being drummed out of "the academy".
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5ef55aa3-802a-23ad-4ce4-89c4f49995d2
Hey, it's Happer again. Padding your references?
http://www.solopassion.com/node/2291
I'll have to ask Eve Kay about this. Who was drummed out of what?
Took me two seconds to find these
Really? You didn't have them bookmarked?
Seems you have indeed been living under a rock. I am not finding videos for you. I have enough to do right now.
I don't know who's under a rock, but you seem to have found a couple of slimy things that should stay there. Happer, Avital. Ugh.
Nobody being drummed out of academe though.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Idiot.
Science is not won with "argument" or "debate". There are no "sides". It is not "won" or "lost".
No, sorry. You are not (only) an idiot. You are a troll.
Get back under your bridge.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Actually, Galileo might have a different opinion :)
But if you want to be specific, hypotheses are debated, argued, and can "win" or "lose" depending on observations. As there is no falsifiable hypothesis statement of "something bad is going to happen if we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere" (or none that you've bothered to state), it's simply not science, it's apocalyptic hand-waving.
How's that for grinding your bones? :)
Heartland Institute surreptitiously pays people to say what they want.
And that's different from Greenpeace surreptitiously paying people to say what they want...how?
The difference is that Heartland Institute have just been caught out doing this exact practice, whereas Greenpeace has not. You just made up the allegation about Greenpeace. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they are doing this, and there is no reason for them to hide away like that. Heatland had to manufacture some tame scientists to even attempt to look slightly credible. Greenpeace argues a point that mirrors what the overwhelming majority of scientists say.
Wait, wait, so maybe Heartland has been waging a PR campaign like Greenpeace, except with an order of magnitude *less* money? Really?
Why not? They are doing quite a good job of it too. I have been monitoring the local news outlets in my area and there has been barely a mention of this story. Contrast this with the hysteria surrounding the so called Climategate emails, and it appears that somebody was doing a good PR job of keeping that scandal in the public eye. Remember that Heartland has a lot of experience planting anti-scientific FUD in the public forums from back in the day when they were doing it for the tobacco companies.
Were you under the impression that the Heartland institute didn't have a PR goal? Are you under the impression that Greenpeace doesn't have a PR goal?
I did state in my post that they each had their own agenda, but that doesn't make them equals. Judge them by how underhanded and deceptive they are.
What? Really? You think that Greenpeace simply doesn't get anonymous donations, and then parcels that out to people who agree with their policy positions? Wow.
That's because the *real* story is "Global Warming activists forge documents to discredit Heartland", and the MSM doesn't want to give that any play :)
Okay, exactly what is underhanded and deceptive about funding skeptical climate curriculum, or more access to climate data? Be specific.
What? Really? You think that Greenpeace simply doesn't get anonymous donations, and then parcels that out to people who agree with their policy positions? Wow.
And you do think that? Why? Do you have any specifics? Any evidence? Or are you just telling lies to make it seem like Greenpeace is as bad as Heartland?
That's because the *real* story is "Global Warming activists forge documents to discredit Heartland", and the MSM doesn't want to give that any play :)
Really? One document of the bunch was supposedly forged. And who was it that made that claim? It was Heartland Institute itself. It won't tell anyone what bits are forged though. Hardly damning evidence of forgery. Surely you can see that this lacks credibility?
So out of all the revelations about this matter (most of which has been confirmed by other sources), why is it that the one part that you think is the most important is the one unspecific and unsubstantiated claim made by Heartland themselves?
Okay, exactly what is underhanded and deceptive about funding skeptical climate curriculum, or more access to climate data? Be specific.
Why are you asking me that? I have never brought up that topic at all. It is obvious that I was talking about the secret payments to people who work in respectable institutions to use their authority to push Heartland's agenda. This makes it appear that there is a dissent in the scientific community where there is none.
Now maybe the recipients would have still made the same claims about climate change without Heartland's money. If so, why did they need to be paid in the first place. If nothing else, it makes them seem to be corrupt.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/2007/05/let-greenpeace-live-up-to-standard-it.html
"I just eye-balled Greenpeace's list, and they appear to list about 800 donors. It looks like about 100 (and 3 of the 14 big gifts) of those are anonymous. "
It's been independently verified as a forgery by several sources, but here's a particularly well done one:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/heartland-memo-looking-faker-by-the-minute/253276/
And note, this is by a *believer* in bad human global warming:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/
"I should also probably note that I disagree pretty strenuously with Heartland's position on global warming. I not only believe that anthropogenic global warming is happening, but also support stiff carbon or source fuels taxes in order to combat it."
The problem here is that the documents that are legitimate aren't damning, and the one document that has even the slightest scent of malfeasance was *forged*. Imagine for a moment if with the release of the climategate emails, it was found that "hide the decline" was a forged entry!
The story here is that because bad human global warming believers aren't winning the argument, they're resorting to dirty tricks. Nothing undermines their position more than their need to forge caricatures of their opponents in order to make points.
And you do think that? Why? Do you have any specifics? Any evidence?
http://www.nationalcenter.org/2007/05/let-greenpeace-live-up-to-standard-it.html
Bloody hell! You have done it again. This is yet another example of your constant use of misdirection. All along I have been complaining about Heartland's secret payments to scientists to spruik for the institute under the credentials of the scientists' own instutitions. Your response is not to deny that this happens, but the claim that Greenpeace does it too (which if true would not exonerate Heartland, but merely mean that we had two organisations to condem). Let's have a look at what you have said:
1. And that's different from Greenpeace surreptitiously paying people to say what they want...how?
When pressed on this claim, you then morphed it into:
2. What? Really? You think that Greenpeace simply doesn't get anonymous donations, and then parcels that out to people who agree with their policy positions? Wow.
So when pressed again to provide evidence of this accusation you completely ignore the topic of discussion and "prove" the inconsequential addition that you had inserted into your claim about whether Greenpeace accepts anonymous donations. Did you think that I would not notice that you had changed the topic? That I would forget that we had been talking about Greenpeace corrupting scientists like Heartland Institute did? The fact that I didn't believe your original allegation should not have been a source of surprise for you, considering that you yourself cannot back it up with any evidence!
It's been independently verified as a forgery by several sources, but here's a particularly well done one:
I'm afraid that those links were not any verification of forgery, but complete guesswork. How is it evidence of fakery because one of the PDFs was generated in a different location than the others and by a different method? I would be more suspicious if they were all made by the same person in the same way. How is it evidence of fakery that every fact has been verified as true? How is it evidence that that the style is different? The document was probably only meant to be seen in the board meeting, and was not intended to be kept on record. The fact that it was a discussion document would also explain why it was "too short" or that there was no identifying information (not required if it was to be handed out in person).
Now I am not going to say that the document isn't a forgery. But it seems strange that you are so happy to accept the rather flimsy "evidence" to prove that it is, and yet completely dismiss the details that have been verified as true (even verified by some of the recipients of the secret payments). This is either wishful thinking on your part that Heartland have done no wrong, or it is an attempt at misdirection away from the revelations of the documents.
Considering how you have shown a pattern towards this kind of misdirection in your postings, I am fairly confident that it is the latter. This would make you either a "true believer" who has his eyes covered or a shill for the organisation.
Ahem. *What* secret payments? Nothing in Fakegate shows any sort of secret payments whatsoever. Anonymous donors, yes. Secret payments? I mean, maybe if you found a secret payment to someone like say, Michael Mann, or Hansen, and they miraculously changed their mind on bad human global warming, you'd have something to write home about, but seriously, secret payments?
Put another way, does Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club, have a public accounting of all the money they've ever funneled to a scientist favorable of their views?
Really, you're going to deny the clear forensic evidence, the same way people deny the past 15 years have had increasing CO2 without the predicted increase in global average temperature? :)
But it it also seems you won't accept that it clearly is.
Tell you what, when they find the guy with the Epson scanner on the west coast that forged the document, and pillory him appropriately, we'll both raise a toast to well performed guesswork :)
We see this with politicians. Sontoram wants to limit the rewards of lawsuits, but when his wife injured her back and blamed a doctor, he was right there to request an inordinate amount of money. We see it with Gingrich now. He is lying as much if not more than anyone else in the presidential campaign, but what does he want to do, Sue. He can't take the attacks and defend himself like a man. He has to hid behind the threat of jurisprudence.
The fact i when consumer or employee is injured by the powerful, they are expected to bend over and take it. But when the powerful and often conservative are even inconvenienced, they feel they have been mortally wounded. I mean everyone knows that such people have been chosen by god to lead a guided life, and who would dare to deny them their special privileges.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Had to look up Heartland, then was annoyed I'd forgotten. Columnist George Monbiot wanted to do his journalistic due-diligence before touting an opinion on climate change and tracked down the sources of all the anti-GW statements he could find. He kept coming back to a small number of institutes that received money from the oil and coal industries -and many of them already had a record of touting that tobacco doesn't cause cancer, going back decades. Heartland, as the wikipedia reminded me, was one of them.
I noted the term "The AGW crowd" in comments here. Well said. I couldn't believe climate change stuff for years, until about 2004 - because by then, the "AGW crowd" was such a very, very LARGE crowd of very eminent, earnest people who were NOT getting money from large industries. Yup, I accepted "argument from authority", because I didn't have time to do my own climatology research...just like I accept argument from authority about medicine from research physicians that are not getting paid by large companies. (Which many are.)
yeah, classical Streisand Effect here
Climate denialists panaoid delusion number3 , all climate scintisits are corrputed by money.
You do know how stupid thyat makes you sound dont you?
Sorry not stupid fucking delusional is a better fit.
These days I dont even bother to debate denialists, they are simply not interested in finding facts that dont suit their preconcieved view. Dont waste your time with them guys. This is a classic example where they have been caught out absolutely, but out come the same lies and deception methods they always use.
Microsoft clarified later: they gave $60k worth of free donated software, which they regularly do for 501(c)3s who ask. They're not taking sides; you ask, they give. There was no cash contribution, and they don't appear to have done any due diligence. They do, however, get to take it off their taxes.
I love it when people try to be two different people in a thread. It's so transparent.
You're not a scientist. That's the bottom line. The process of science is the process you're attempting to engage in - the process of posing alternative theories, evaluating hypotheses and rejecting them.
The thing you can't accept, because you either aren't going to are haven't yet grown out of your fundamental narcissism which leads you to believe you can adjudicate this matter meaningfully, is that you're fundamentally incapable of determining truth in this technical matter and yet, it will impact your life enormously.
That's how it is. You don't get to decide what happens in the larger part of your life.
Being an adult means coming to terms with that fact and accepting that it's not just true, but also proper and moral. It means giving up just so stories- "alternative explanations" in this case- which are just fairy tales and projections of what you wish were true, and instead facing facts, including the fact of your own limitations to understand things.
Well you're just completely wrong. Buddhism is simply a method for reliving pain by erasing desire. That's it. If I was grading a paper and that was your definition I would give you a F and ask you if you had bothered to do any reading at all and advise you that even religious studies requires something other than self involved navel gazing. I would also try to impress on you that just because some "followers" of a "religion" do something hat activity doesn't magically progress back upstream and change inviolate rules set down by the founder, as much as that may piss off the Pashtuns. .
What you are describing (with the choice thing) is somewhat closer to the Tao (but you're still not right) and so you may be confusing Buddhism with Zen which is a combination of the two. As to the nature worship you are just confusing the religion that was native to India before Buddhism which is called Hinduism or what you are talking about his more Tantra. Or you watch a lot Japanese movies and are thinking about Shino, so still totally wrong.
Greater vehicle, lesser vehicle, discuss. e.g. Tibetan Buddhism is awesome but contains VERY little Buddhism and a lot of Bon. Yes I've been there and Thailand too. As my Yoga teacher once said the Indians could only be aesthetic so long before they got bored and had to start draping flowers on things again. Just because followers think things does not effect the basic message. E.g. I have never met a Christian who behaved in anyway I think Jesus would approve of in any way. Just because Calvin wanted to have a get into Heaven card despite being rich does change the parable of Divas. Buddism is really simple, Don't want don't suffer. The rest, as I said is the stained glass windows for the illiterate peasants.
Sorry, not to say they don't DEEPLY respect nature but worship is the wrong word with in the correct intention of the framer. Most people are not cut out for Nirvana as is clearly indicated by the world we live in.
Well you're just completely wrong. Buddhism is simply a method for reliving pain by erasing desire. That's it. If I was grading a paper and that was your definition I would give you a F and ask you if you had bothered to do any reading at all and advise you that even religious studies requires something other than self involved navel gazing. I would also try to impress on you that just because some "followers" of a "religion" do something hat activity doesn't magically progress back upstream and change inviolate rules set down by the founder, as much as that may piss off the Pashtuns.
Assuming you're trying to find out the "right" version of a religion. For someone who studies religion as a social phenomenon, it's usually more interesting what people believe and do in practice.
What you are describing (with the choice thing) is somewhat closer to the Tao (but you're still not right) and so you may be confusing Buddhism with Zen which is a combination of the two.
The "choice thing" (Dharma) was inherited from Hinduism by both Buddhism and Taoism, although it works differently. In all three religions, it's a universal law of cause and effect that drives people's destinies. In Buddhism, it's called Karma, and is more about intention or desire than choice; bad intentions lead to suffering, and good intentions lead to freedom from suffering. The ultimate goal is, as you write, to be free of karma by being free of all desires. Buddha (Siddharta Gautama) mentions Karma on many occasions.
As to the nature worship you are just confusing the religion that was native to India before Buddhism which is called Hinduism or what you are talking about his more Tantra. Or you watch a lot Japanese movies and are thinking about Shino, so still totally wrong.
For an outsider, the respect for life seen in many Buddhists may be confused with nature worship. For example, Buddhist monks in India tend to be vegetarians, and carry with them a sieve so they don't accidentally swallow an insect with their drinking water.
This is, of course, different from nature worship, since monks don't pray to the insects; they simply avoid hurting them in order to improve their own karma.
I don't like people that repeat lies easily proven to be false.
I'm not a denialist, but you should get your facts straight and not give weight to the denialist claims that we are "alarmists". Saying islands are being evacuated because the sea level has risen just over an inch in the last 10 years sounds alarmist to me. If they are being evacuated it is more likely that they are sinking due to changes in the crust and mantle.
250000 sounds like a theoretical number to me. 8 hours per day of the sun directly overhead gives you a theoretical 8 kwh of energy in 1 square meter. 5 days gives you the energy content of a gallon of gasoline. That's roughly 70 gallons per year (I assume 1 year), or about 300,000 gallons per acre. That's a theoretical maximum, the sun doesn't sit overhead. Have they figured out how to get the gasoline out of the water yet without using huge amounts of energy?
So if I get a grant from the church, do ten years of research on the motion of planetary bodies, and submit a paper postulating that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and submit it to a journal run by people receiving money from the same Church, that's science?
If you do it right, yes, that's science. It may be factually wrong, but it's still science.
I think he meant the people he's met, rather than the people running the media show. My interpretation of his words was "I know people who won't even read the emails, yet hold up the emails as a smoking gun and believe they're acting on evidence; those people have an inability to represent information about themselves to themselves when it conflicts with their self-image."
StoneCypher is Full of BS
These two things are in conflict. If Mr. Behe doesn't publish to peer review, he isn't a scientist.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
You seem to have confused people being frustrated with you on Slashdot for using ignorance as a basis for loud skepticism with scientists doing the underlying work.
Slashdotters who are annoyed with you and who do not choose to spend hours doing the footwork that is actually your responsibility - that is, the research to validate your skepticism - do not in any way undermine the science.
The validity of the science is not determined on grounds of whether an average Joe has chosen to spoon-feed it to you.
Listen, I know it feels great to think you're smarter than everybody else, but let's be clear about something, here: you've never even tried to read one of these models. If you did try, you'd find out that you couldn't.
Just like you're skeptical of climate science, we're skeptical of you. The difference, of course, is that we're looking at measurements, and you aren't. We're measuring your scientific competency with everything you say (and there's no hockey stick.) You're just saying "this isn't valid because you aren't required to back it up to me or provide evidence; how easy that eight year degree with three defenses must be."
I mean, you really seem to believe that getting a PhD is easy, and yet you still seem to expect to be taken seriously in your other evaluations of things.
So have fun, tmosley. See how each time someone responds, it's the first and the last, and yet you keep going?
It's because you're barking at crowds that barely recognize your existence to feel smart, and the crowd is responding with a series of drive-by "that isn't how science works, you loon"s.
And I'm sure you interpret that as a series of defeated haters that you're knocking down, one by one.
It's sad: if someone with the dedication that you have towards steering change wasn't so laughably retarded at science, they could do some real good.
Maybe ask a third grader why nobody takes you seriously, one of these days. It's fixable.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Er.
Cognitive dissonance is the physical pain that comes from a person being unable to resolve the failure of a deeply held belief system. It's not a fancy way to call someone wrong. Please stop using phrases you don't understand.
One example of cognitive dissonance that's fairly common is the context in which the phrase was coined: doomsday cults. In the 1950s, there was a UFO cult which expected the planet to be wiped out on a specific date at a specific time by alien visitors. For around 12 hours they were able to get by on excuses like time zones and miscalculations, but as the next day took on, quite a few of the members started facing very real physical pain, as they realized that this thing they'd thrown away the last several years of their lives on wasn't going to happen.
They couldn't face that the Earth hadn't been wiped out. It was like not seeing the sun rise the next day, or having the world suddenly go black and white, or gravity ending: not the "oh well, I guess that's that" reaction that most people expect, but rather "something's terribly, terribly wrong, this shouldn't be possible."
A psychiatrist investigated the cult, and when he became convinced that the pain was the result of psychological rebalance, rather than the poison everyone insisted it was, he started looking into other cases. Religious folk get this. Delusional people get this. Cultists get this. People in areas where science is still today what we'd call superstition get this. (This was Leon Festinger, and you can read about it a bunch of places, but his book "When Prophecy Fails" is a great place to start.)
Similarly, "self incrimination" means "I've made a criminal of myself," namely admission of a crime. You go on to accuse the man of being out of his mind for having a poor belief system, and then you invent a story about his believing it's about grant money and lambast him at length for it.
I'm particularly fond of "Just in case you missed the memo fossil fuel extraction is the MOST PROFITABLE endeavor in human history bar none." This isn't even close to true, of course: the United States, world's largest consumer of fossil fuels, currently imports about $360 billion of fossil fuels annually. This is almost as much as California spent building houses in the worst part of the housing market bust. Oil's profit line is high, but not exorbitantly so: it's currently about eighteen percent, as compared to Apple's 61%. Neither the market cap nor the profit per dollar (nor the profit cap, for that matter) justify this hilariously false claim.
You may be confused by that Exxon is among the world's largest companies. It's a little like how Apple is one of the world's largest computer manufacturers: the Mac market is tiny compared to the PC market, but the vendors involved in the PC market are frequent and small ("highly pulverized,") whereas there's really only one Mac vendor.
Which leads me back to the hilariously self referential
I mean sure, he's also a crank, but dude, you are really, really over-reacting.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
You just exhibit your ignorance. Temperatures are still rising, the science now says hurricane numbers don't necessarily change, just the strength may change and 2 years of non-rising sea level is meaningless.
Oooh, busted.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/
What did you do, quite school in grade 3?
Really?
Ya know what? I was wrong. FOX did cover this after all. Of course, they put their own spin on it. They didn't cover the documents, they covered the theft of the documents. The docs themselves get covered, but not after lavishing column-inches on the ethical lapse of an environmental scientist, and how dangerous this is to the donors of the Heartland Institute.
bah.
Cognitive dissonance is the difference between held beliefs and actions. When there is a difference (dissonance) the pain leads you to change your beliefs to match your actions, unless you had an overwhelming benefit. It is easier to think you were right all along then admit you don't know what you're talking about. You are using a facet of the theory as the definition. In fact the only difference between cults and religion in abnormal psychology is that cults use cognitive dissonance for recruitment.
The grant money comment came from me clicking on his name and reading later posts with directly reference the grant money argument. I know they weren't in the parent post.
According to Malcolm Gladwells' book 'Outliers' more than half of the richest people in history made their money from fossil fuel extraction. You can probably include a great deal of the rail road and the industrial revolution in as well as they are all directly a result of coal and hydrocarbons. You can't have railroads without coal or diesel, in fact you can now include all plastics, technology, most medicine, and farming as well, all totally dependent on fossil fuels. If you can imagine an off the grid fab made without plastic, backup generators, or hydrocarbons derived from oil I am sure Intel will give you a equity position ah but you can't. Our whole world undeniably is enabled by oil.