Slashdot Mirror
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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."
Not quite. Until pretty recently, say 5-10 years ago, 11 o' clock was the standard later time slot for local news broadcasts (the earlier time slot was usually 5:00 or 5:30). So, during prime time viewing it was common to have brief updates on developing situations or big news events, with "Film at 11" meaning that there would be a full report on the late news broadcast. Many local news organizations have moved their late broadcast up to 10:00 in the last few years, so this isn't so common. It became a bit of a joke because the news organizations started to always advertise/hype something that would be on the 11:00 news regardless of whether anything interesting or significant was actually happening; the more ominous the teaser the less likely it was to be anything significant. They still do this, but the disparate schedules different broadcasters have adopted in order to compete with each other means that there is no single time slot that is so widely used - could be anywhere between 9:00 and 11:30. That said, in my area at least, two of the three local news organizations still broadcast their late news show at 11:00; I think the other one broadcasts at 10:00 but I so rarely watch the news on any channel I'm not really sure.
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.
...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.
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
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.
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.
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.
So, it's bullshit.
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.
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
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 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.
.
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.
I ... once had a science teacher flat out tell us that she ... wasn't going to risk her job just so we could learn
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.