How One Climate-Change Skeptic Has Profited From Corporate Interests

Lasrick writes Elected officials who want to block the EPA and legislation on climate change frequently refer to a handful of scientists who dispute anthropogenic climate change. One of scientists they quote most often is Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun's energy can largely explain recent global warming. Newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon has made a fortune from corporate interests. 'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work.' The Koch Brothers are cited as a source of Dr. Soon's funding.

Comments

disclosure

[ganjadude]

'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. Im a little curious if it is standard practice to not disclose this type of relationship. If it is, it is wrong. I see an ethics issue at hand

Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

Re:disclosure

[mbone]

'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. Im a little curious if it is standard practice to not disclose this type of relationship. If it is, it is wrong. I see an ethics issue at hand

  Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

Most of the scientists I know make a salary and that's it. A $ 100 honorarium (say for giving a talk to the public) is regarded as a big deal.

Re:disclosure

[Xylantiel]

Apparently you don't read many papers. It is very common, I daresay almost ubiquitous, for scientific papers to say "this work supported by X".

Re:disclosure

[wisnoskij]

Yes, but they get millions to conduct research. I doubt he took that $1.2 million home.

Re:disclosure

[TapeCutter]

The thousands of scientists who help compile the IPCC reports do it for free, none of them get a dime from the IPCC, at best they get their regular salary from their university. The IPCC has a $5-6M annual budget, most of it is spent on conference rooms and transport, there are a handful of full time admin staff. The IPCC accounts are published on their website for all to see. The money comes from individual nation states, last time I look there were about 130 nations on the donor list representing every colour of the political rainbow.

Most people in the climate science community will not be surprised that Soon was on the FF payroll.

Re:disclosure

[superwiz]

$100 honorarium is not a big deal. I've seen people wave it off with "donate it" just to avoid the paperwork.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

It is 100% unethical and against the publishing standards of scientific journals. Every reputable journal requires the disclosure of any financial incentives. Most will not publish a direct pay for manuscript and if there is a secondary incentive (eg it is related to research for which an investigator also has a spin off business) then that disclosure is published at the front of the authors page. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of lack of disclosure of financial incentives caused a retraction. This lack of disclosure is definitely NOT the norm.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is a bit of a double standard. If you and your research is paid for by academia no journal expects you to detail it."

Yeah bullshit. You're expected to cite your funding sources in the acknowledgements of all academic publications, and some funding orgs will get super pissed at you if you don't.

Re:disclosure

[fermion]

At the base it is disclosure. Papers should have a note of who is funding the research. Sometimes that funding is obfuscated because the money goes through shell non-profits. This is why government funding is so useful. But there is nothing wrong with independent funding, as long as it transparent. When Al Gore was big, he never hid his objective or funding. Likewise Green Peace and PETA are generally transparent. OTOH, when Philip Morris was trying to push cigarettes as healthy, most of their research was far from transparent.

This is interesting, because despite the diplomatic title of the post, many if not most researchers who are publishing against man made climate change are funded by people who are going to lose money, at least short term, if man made climate change becomes a political reality. To be sure the improvements to industrial processes are going to create a whole new class of very wealthy people, but those who will no innovate will be left behind.

Re:disclosure

[Geoffrey.landis]

The ethics violation isn't that he was paid by a corporation.
The ethics violation is in not disclosing it.

Re:disclosure

[ShanghaiBill]

Yes, but they get millions to conduct research. I doubt he took that $1.2 million home.

It still should have been disclosed, it was unethical for him fail to disclose it, and he certainly knew that. Science doesn't work without integrity.

Re:disclosure

[beelsebob]

Right, and then you're somewhat bound to give the "right" result, because otherwise they won't fund more research.

Hence the conflict of interest.

Re:disclosure

[wisnoskij]

I don't know about that. If you base your belief in the integrity of the scientist conducting the research instead of repeat-ability and peer review process, I think that is a little misguided. If you are saying that to trust hat a plane I am getting on will on not crash, I have to trust a series of hundreds of scientist's integrity, than I disagree. It does not matter what whit if one of them was an adulterer, a liar, or a thief, only if their processes were solid (as verified by peer review), and there experiments could suffer repetition by interested third parties.

Re:disclosure

[blue trane]

The first thing conservatives usually say to discredit climate scientists is, they are in thrall to their funders. Now we know why; they're projecting.

Re: disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

On a polarized issue like climate change, there is money on either side of the table. Probably more for being pro-climate change.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. Im a little curious if it is standard practice to not disclose this type of relationship. If it is, it is wrong. I see an ethics issue at hand

  Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

Well I can't give you a breakdown of which scientists are getting paid by whom in all their works, however I can point at the period , policy related energy companies and administrations involved at the time period this was going on..

Bush - backing out of the Kyoto accord
Enron,- backed by the Bush administration
This guy- funded by the Koch Brothers to discount all this stuff.

Not super hard to figure out.. if you have an IQ over 20.

You know the drill.

Re:disclosure

[phantomfive]

Bullshit. Papers directly supported by funding/grants should, and usually do, thank/credit the sources. But just because someone funded you for one thing doesn't mean you have to disclose that in every paper you write that is remotely related.

Papers directly supported by funding/grants usually don't thank/credit sources (or maybe it's just so small that I never noticed it?).

Also, keep in mind that he got the $1.2M over the last decade

So.....$120k per year? That's not actually very much.

in 2004...that was back before "global warming" became "climate change".

'Climate change' and 'global warming' have been used interchangeably long before 2004.

Re:disclosure

[rs79]

"Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun's energy can largely explain recent global warming."

He's in good company here, this scientist in 2008, using the same hypothesis correctly predicts the awful and cold winters of 2013 and 2014 The IPCC discredited him, but they have never predicted anything correctly. In fact their model flew off the rails with 75% error after 35 years of refinement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
NASA, NOAA point out warming has stalled, no temperature has exceeded 1998's.

http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
http://insights.rs79.vrx.net/s...

"Since 2000, temperatures have been warmer than average, but they did not increase significantly. Data courtesy of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center." - climate.gov.

"Nearly every scientist that I know (IAAS) has a project on the side either studying the climate or cancer (preferably child cancer); this is what they must do in order to support their main research, since it probably has no funding."

Another Anonymous (why?) post on slashdot
http://news.slashdot.org/story...

'The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books — mine included — because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened," Lovelock said. "The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now," he said. "The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,"

"'I made a mistake'
As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.
Lovelock -- who has previously worked with NASA and discovered the presence of harmful chemicals (CFCs) in the atmosphere but not their effect on the ozone layer -- stressed that humanity should still “do our best to cut back on fossil fuel burning” and try to adapt to the coming changes.
Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the U.K.’s respected Met Office Hadley Centre, agreed Lovelock had been too alarmist with claims about people having to live in the Arctic by 2100.

And he also agreed with Lovelock that the rate of warming in recent years had been less than expected by the climate models."

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

You think it's warming? Show me your data that proves NASA wrong then.

You do understand that that "97%" was 73 guys getting a climate grant each, right? Not that consens ever equalled truth:

"97%+ of geologists agreed the continents were stable. It was Settled Science. Hundreds of research papers supported it. Overwhelming consensus. And wrong. And, oddly (not really, if you think about it a moment), it was not a geologist but a meteorologist, Alfred Wegener, who ultimately showed all the mutually agreeing geologists they had it all wrong; the continents move." - Dr. Michael K. Oliver"

Re:disclosure

[i.r.id10t]

"Here's 1.2 mil. We want you to tell us that it is possible that global warming is being caused by the sun"

A few months of well funded but blindly done research - ie, you know the answer to the question, what can we do to prove it? - and wallah! A paper. That is then submitted to a supposedly peer-reviewed journal, where of course no such review takes place (there have been several stories about that on /.).

So... are we shocked that the NRG Industry went shopping for the answer they wanted to hear? Are we shocked that a person who either needs to be top in their field or at least bringing in grants accepted a grant to do research? Are we shocked that a peer-reviewed journal is in fact not very often reviewd by the peers?

Re:disclosure

[Strangely Familiar]

There are a bunch of people hearing about Dr. Soon's research on Fox News who have not been told the facts, and probably think he is a straight up scientist. They probably don't know the man Fox News calls a "Harvard Astrophysicist" (yes, I actually RTFA, and this is something in TFA) actually has a doctorate in aerospace engineering, not astrophysics. They probably don't know he gets no money from Harvard, a part time salary from the Smithsonian, and that most of his money comes from the fossil fuel industry. So, "Are we shocked" is not the right question at all. This kind of crap is like that junk science about autism and vaccines. Once that stuff gets out there, it is very difficult to get people to stop repeating it, even after it gets discredited. And this kind of disinformation has real-world consequences when people rely on it, including U.S. Senators making speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Re:disclosure

[Obfuscant]

Papers directly supported by funding/grants usually don't thank/credit sources (or maybe it's just so small that I never noticed it?).

Every paper I've ever seen in geosciences credits the public funding agency as part of the grant requirements. Not just "usually do", it's all do.

A paper funded by private sources will credit what is required by that source. Carnegie-Mellon, etc, usually do, but it isn't required. It's polite to do so as a way of saying "thanks". The fact that someone hasn't doesn't mean anything.

So.....$120k per year? That's not actually very much.

That's a pittance. It will cover salary and benefits for one researcher. It won't cover much in the way of travel.

Compare that to other grants that cover the salaries of five or six researchers and travel to conferences in Hawaii or Spain or other nice places...

This is another example of "if we can't discredit the science, discredit the scientist for being paid to do research." That ignores all the scientists who are part of the consensus who are also paid to do research. No, nobody is pocketing the loot, it just shows up as salary. Salary for research that means that the scientist doesn't have to be paid on state money so he doesn't have to teach or do other stuff that is attached to non-grant research salary. A stable source of funding means you can hire people and build a lab and build a reputation that helps get more money. The more people you pay, the higher your status. The more stuff you get from the University because your overhead fees benefit them, too.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

> NASA, NOAA point out warming has stalled, no temperature has exceeded 1998's.

You deniers have got to stop using that one.
By now, we've all figured out that any mention of 1998 is just cherry-picking at its worst.
All you do is identify yourself as a zero-knowledge shill that should be ignored.

Re:disclosure

[Strangely Familiar]

Papers directly supported by funding/grants usually don't thank/credit sources (or maybe it's just so small that I never noticed it?).

If I had mod points today, I'd say +5 informative. The rest of us had never read any papers before, or TFA, or any useful information linked in TFA like http://publicationethics.org/, and we were wondering what you thought.

So.....$120k per year? That's not actually very much.

I will repeat what you said to my friend the geology professor who doesn't take grants from the fossil fuel industry. I'm sure he will be persuaded by your considered opinion. I'm guessing the reason he doesn't take money from the fossil fuel industry is because he just can't be bothered with such trifling sums. The average salary in the US is more like $350k or $400k, IIRC. 120k is for total losers.

'Climate change' and 'global warming' have been used interchangeably long before 2004.

You were alive before 2004? What was it like?

Re: disclosure

[blue trane]

With all that private sector money piling up? Scientists who argue for climate change must be saints to resist the money jungle. Look how money has bought Congress; why haven't scientists all been bribed too?

Re:disclosure

[phantomfive]

I will repeat what you said to my friend the geology professor who doesn't take grants from the fossil fuel industry. I'm sure he will be persuaded by your considered opinion. I'm guessing the reason he doesn't take money from the fossil fuel industry is because he just can't be bothered with such trifling sums. The average salary in the US is more like $350k or $400k, IIRC. 120k is for total losers.

Calm down bro, ask your professor friend how much time he spends writing grants, and why he needs all that money. Research is expensive, it's not like the Kochs were letting him pocket it.

Re:disclosure

[houghi]

Are we shocked that a peer-reviewed journal is in fact not very often reviewd by the peers?

Some people are shocked when we learn that not all Open Source is not very often reviewd by the peers.

Re:disclosure

[phantomfive]

In the funding environment of the last 5+ years $120k/year is a fucking mountain of money.

He wasn't putting it all in his pocket, man.

Re:disclosure

[ClickOnThis]

You're expected to cite your funding sources in the acknowledgements of all academic publications, and some funding orgs will get super pissed at you if you don't.

It's common practice to cite not only the funding sources, but the actual grant numbers. The agencies may be supporting several areas of research, and they want to be sure the funding supported the area for which it was intended.

Re:disclosure

[ClickOnThis]

Most of those who work on the IPCC reports are also paid by their universities, their respective governments or from grants to do their individual research when they are not working on an assessment report.

TapeCutter already said that they get their salary from the university, and thus indirectly from governments and/or grants.

I hope you are not trying to make us believe that only 5-6 million dollars a year is spent on climate research.

TapeCutter did not say that. S/he didn't even imply it. You made a straw man, and a pretty sloppy one at that.

Re:disclosure

[Black Parrot]

Bullshit. Papers directly supported by funding/grants should, and usually do, thank/credit the sources. But just because someone funded you for one thing doesn't mean you have to disclose that in every paper you write that is remotely related.

Papers directly supported by funding/grants usually don't thank/credit sources (or maybe it's just so small that I never noticed it?).

It's de rigueur, and honest funding sources expect you to credit them.

In my field it's usually a paragraph right before the references cited. Sometimes there is also a Conflict of Interest statement, which I think is required by certain journals.

Re:disclosure

[cusco]

To be truthful I rather doubt the quality of science, there aren't many aeronautical engineers competent to do astrophysical research.

Re:disclosure

[riverat1]

He's in good company here, this scientist in 2008, using the same hypothesis correctly predicts the awful and cold winters of 2013 and 2014.

Did they predict it for the whole globe? If they did they were wrong. They were right if they only predicted it for Eastern North America.

Re:disclosure

[riverat1]

And the first thing liberals say is that scientists don't fake global warming data, because they're scientists.

And they're right. Scientists are smart enough to know that if they fake the data sooner or later someone will out them because there's an objective reality to what they're studying.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't like the link to mother jones?
There are hundreds of others that say the same thing, that was just the first that came up in google.
That your rebuttal is purely ad hominem in the truest sense of the word just shows how big of a useful idiot you are.

Re:disclosure

[TheRaven64]

Papers directly supported by funding/grants usually don't thank/credit sources (or maybe it's just so small that I never noticed it?).

Maybe you don't read the Acknowledgements section? Most funding agencies have some boilerplate that goes in there. For industrial funding, there's usually no requirement, but we typically put something along the lines of 'We gratefully acknowledge Google, Inc. for its sponsorship.' This usually helps a bit the next time that you ask them for money, because you can say 'look at the cool stuff that you funded last time!' and easily point out the relevant papers. If a company wants to sponsor work but not take the credit for doing so then we'd be a bit concerned about why.

Re:disclosure

[Karmashock]

Well said.

The irony of all these people damning voices in science for political reasons and then wondering why science has taken a back seat to politics is rather shocking.

The means are the end. The end result is the consequence of the process. The cause leads to the effect.

If people keep arguing against voices on this issue using political arguments then they can only win or lose using politics. If they restrained their arguments to scientific arguments then the resulting process would be a scientific one.

When you let politicians, lobbyists, and PR companies run the debate then no one should be surprised when the result is a political crap storm with little scientific value.

Re:disclosure

[TheRaven64]

I'm guessing the reason he doesn't take money from the fossil fuel industry is because he just can't be bothered with such trifling sums. The average salary in the US is more like $350k or $400k, IIRC. 120k is for total losers.

Not sure if this is true on the other side of the pond (though I'd be surprised if it isn't in the rough ballpark), It typically costs about double someone's salary to employ them in a university (office space / equipment, part salaries of admin staff, technicians, tax obligations and so on). That means that, assuming that the $120K/year is paid to him as research grants and not a gift, it allows him to pay a salary of about $60K/year. On our pay scales, that's near the top end of what we pay postdocs and the low end of what we pay lecturers (associate professors, I think, in US terminology). Any equipment that you might need for a particular project, plus travel expenses, are extra.

It's a nice amount to have, but it's not enough to fund a faculty member full time. If it's guaranteed funding over 10 years, then it's definitely worth chasing. If it's money that just turns up as a gift, that's great. If it's something that requires the normal grant application process, then it's probably less attractive than normal funding bodies.

Re:disclosure

[phantomfive]

Maybe you don't read the Acknowledgements section?

Yeah, that's possible. I'm actually kind of fascinated by how my cognition facilities have overlooked this.

Re:disclosure

[TheRaven64]

I've never seen a journal require that I cite my funding sources, but most grants require that you put some boilerplate that they provide in the acknowledgements containing both the funding body and the grant number. And it's usually a good thing to do, because if you want to ask the funding body for more money in the future then being able to point at a number of papers that were funded by them in the past is helpful in showing that you spend the money well.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that we can't just leave it up to the science in the public sphere. This guy's "science" has already been widely discredited and debunked through the scientific method, and yet it's still held up as evidence. It shouldn't be surprising therefore that people getting fed up of that then start attacking the scientist himself.

I'm also not sure why you're trying to equate typical funding from a public sector source with typical funding from a private sector source. They're not in any way equivalent.

For example, in the UK, Met Office climatologists have their job guaranteed no matter what the outcome of their research, they're paid by the public sector to give public sector entities a realistic view of what we might expect and want to plan for - there is no partisanship there, their jobs are guaranteed and they just need to be as accurate as possible regardless of what the actual outcome is.

Compare and contrast to an energy sector company, whether fossil fuel or green energy and if they fund research they do so because they want papers to hold up their viewpoint to protect their profits.

The Met Office worker can go to work and think "Great, I can just focus on the science, my job is secure regardless of what I find.". The energy sector worker goes to work and has to think "I better do all I can to give them the results I want, or else I might lose my funding".

Quite how you can place these two scenarios as equivalent I've no idea. They're very clearly not - funding source is an inherent indicator of whether there is any partisanship in a study. If the money has come from a source that just needs to know the facts without seeing any benefit from an outcome one way or the other then that research is far less tainted than if it's come from a source that has a vested profit interest in one outcome over the other.

This is basic stuff, I'm amazed on Slashdot anyone is even trying to argue it, much less mod such drivel up.

Re:disclosure

[itzly]

He's in good company here, this scientist in 2008, using the same hypothesis correctly predicts the awful and cold winters of 2013 and 2014

The winters of 2013 and 2014 were in the top-10 warmest. Not sure why you would refer to them as "awful and cold".

You think it's warming? Show me your data that proves NASA wrong then.

How about NASA's own data where they show it's warming ?

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/resea...

Re:disclosure

[abies]

Sometimes it is 'later' enough to influence entire generation of people in doing wrong or useless things. For example salt in food
http://www.scientificamerican....
One wrong study done in 70ties and entire generation of people were scared from using salt. Bluff was called 20 years later but it took _another_ 20 years to officially admit 70ties findings were completely wrong - and I suppose another 20 years are needed before 'salt if white death' people will finally die out.
I think similar thing (other direction) happened with tabacco.

Climate is complicated enough that it is not really an 'objective reality'. Given all the possibilities of handpicking data points and applying arbitrary correction factors, you can manipulate data in subtle ways, rather than blatantly fake it. And as it is complicated enough that normal people cannot really doublecheck data, we are left to believe the 'consensus'.

Re:disclosure

[sumdumass]

Science works by being able to validate and invalidate claims by redoing experiments and examining the data and results. Its the process that allows progress to happen.

Are we really having such a dificult time with his science that it can only be debunked by claims that have nothing to do with the science but financial gains the science might have brought someone?

Where does this stop? I mean is some of Einsteins work invalid because corporate interests that benifited from his work might have paid for his dinner or something at some point in time? Or is it just the political manipulations rather than science involved?

Re:disclosure

[sumdumass]

Indeed it does. Just like the claims that nothing is peer reviewed in journals and whatever else you just rambled on about discredits the actual science without touching the science because you do not want to agree with the results has real world consequences.

The science will speak for itself. Character assasination to discredit science is not science at all. In fact, it makes it appear as if there is something to hide.

Re:disclosure

[itzly]

And as it is complicated enough that normal people cannot really doublecheck data, we are left to believe the 'consensus'.

No, because other scientists can double check the data.

Re:disclosure

[sumdumass]

Got any cites for that? I mean one that deal with science and no some basement dweller's blog or this tripe about funding sources.

I've never heard of him.

Re: disclosure

[drinkypoo]

Look how money has bought Congress; why haven't scientists all been bribed too?

Because congresscritters by definition are for sale. You aren't generally permitted to rise that high in government otherwise.

Re: disclosure

[prefec2]

In every poster, paper and talk we give the affiliation is specified which pays us. Furthermore, if the project is financed by a research fund, private company, the government or the EU, we must add a funded by clause to the publication. If the research project has a website, the funding is mentioned there too.

Re:disclosure

[drinkypoo]

The average salary in the US is more like $350k or $400k, IIRC. 120k is for total losers.

Not sure if this is true on the other side of the pond

It's only true here in the USA in a certain sense. The average salary might be 350 or 400k, but the median salary is what, 30k? 40 maybe? And that's only if you don't count the unemployed, which is more than a bit disingenuous. In fact, practically everyone in the USA is a total loser by GP's standard.

Re: disclosure

[bill.mcnew]

I'm getting rich investing in snow removal in Boston.

Re:disclosure

[TheRaven64]

I don't think you're replying to anything that I actually wrote, you're just attaching two unrelated sentence fragments...

Re:disclosure

[Eunuchswear]

You've never heard of Willy Soon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy

The "deal with science" bit is (among others) "On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late-20th Century Warmth", Eos, Volume 84, No. 27, 8 July 2003.

Re:disclosure

[abies]

Like they did for salt study? After 20 years and taking another 20 years to get that into public knowledge?
This is same as with open source. Fact that anybody can find bugs in open source program doesn't mean it doesn't have bugs.

Re:disclosure

[Mr D from 63]

actually has a doctorate in aerospace engineering, not astrophysics.

Do you really think if you asked a news reporter from any major news outlet if they could describe the difference between the two, they would be able to? Or 90% of the general public for that matter. Its not like one title gives him more credibility than the other in the eyes of most, so I think its an odd thing to focus on.

Re:disclosure

[Mr D from 63]

No, he wasn't taking home all that money. That is why the author used the word "accepted" because he knew it could be misconstrued as take home pay. A lot of folks here seem to jump to the conclusion that the author intended.

Re:disclosure

[Zero__Kelvin]

"This is another example of "if we can't discredit the science, discredit the scientist for being paid to do research."

It is exactly like that! ... with the sole exception that we don't have any difficulty discrediting the science, that is :-)

Re:disclosure

[disambiguated]

Honestly it is better that he doesn't, otherwise all the papers would simply be attacked ad hominem based on who pays the grants. You want to discredit his work, attack the science in it, not the funding for the science.

The same could be said about publishing the names of the researchers and the institutions they are associated with. That will affect how a paper is received much more than the source of funding will, but the paper should speak for itself whether published by a world-famous scientist at a prestigious university or a high school student working in his garage.

Unfortunately credibility matters. Most people (including scientists) are unable to judge most research entirely on its merit, so they rely on the opinions of those who can. But how do you judge their credibility? Even if the reviewers are completely fair and honest, the volume of research is too high to review everything. Some measure of credibility (e.g. a degree, or a recommendation) is necessary to even be considered. You could just publish everything without regard to its merit, but then how can you call that science? No matter how egalitarian your attitude, there is no escaping the need for credibility. The reputations of the scientists, institutions and journals, and the sources of their funding all help to establish credibility.

When researchers publish bad science, their reputation suffers. Hopefully if a corporation or special interest group continues to fund bad science, the research they fund will also lose credibility and be met with increased skepticism. Eventually scientists won't want to risk their own reputation by accepting the money. But that can only work if the information is disclosed.

Even if the science is good, it is not unfair to be skeptical toward research funded by someone with an obvious stake in the outcome. Just getting a larger number of papers published on one side of a controversial issue gives that side the appearance of increased legitimacy. And grant money always has an effect on researchers even when the money supposedly comes with "no strings attached."

That's the problem with science, insofar as there is a problem: it's ultimately a social and political process done by fallible people. Established scientists and institutions have an unfair advantage and socially unpopular or inconvenient ideas can be suppressed, sometimes for generations. And it can be affected by money. (It's still far better than the alternatives.)

Re:disclosure

[Zero__Kelvin]

Hey, what do you know? Even though you are a variation of the 'citation required' weanie who is evidently incapable of using google you still got your citation!

Re:disclosure

[Capt.Albatross]

Let's not be naive: he is being paid to give the impression that doubt is more well-founded than it is, he knows it, and I hope you know it.

Re:disclosure

[Idarubicin]

Yes, but they get millions to conduct research. I doubt he took that $1.2 million home.

Hard to say, actually. My understanding is that his appointment was a "soft money" position, which means that he would have been entirely dependent on outside grants for all of his funding--including the salaries for himself and any staff or trainees. I wouldn't be surprised if $120K per year, less administrative overhead, doesn't even fully cover his own salary.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

your precious warmism sources consistently start THEIR charts in 1979, and if that isn't cherry-picking, nothing is.

That didn't seem right to me, so I did a google image search for "global temperature" and looked at the starting year of the graphs. They are (in the order returned by google): 1880, 1978, 1880, 1979, 1860, 1880, 1000, 1900, 1880, 1992, 1979, 1850, 2500BC, 0AD, 1880...

My admittedly lazy way of researching this doesn't seem to lend any support for your claim. In fact 1880 or so is a far more popular starting year and more importantly, it doesn't seem to matter to the overall point if the graph starts in 1880 or 1980. Where's the cherry picking?

Ironically if I make the search "warmism global temperature" instead, the starting years are 1880, 1880, 1880, 1880, 1880, 1950, 1950, 1880, 1880, 1979 (finally!), 1881, 1880, 1880, 1978...

Looks to me like everyone consistently uses 1880 for whatever reason (perhaps that's when we started recording data?) Also note: in spite of the fact that 1880 is so overwhelmingly popular -- these are different graphs.

Re: disclosure

[Attila Dimedici]

Let's see, it was not Fox News spreading the idea that vaccines cause autism. That was MSNBC. As to Saddam having WMDs, you apparently have not read the reports about ISIS using the WMDs which Saddam had stockpiled (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/14/isis-chemical-weapons-_n_5987106.html)

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

> Then try posting a REPUTABLE source. Mother Jones is a left-wing propaganda rag.

I'm sure it comforts you to believe that.
Despite having a point of view, they've got 100x more editorial integrity than that rando who cited his own damn blog.

Re: disclosure

[doppe1]

It is standard practice to put the funding agency in the acknowledgment section of scientific papers. That has been the case in every scientific paper I have ever written and read. Any paper that does not state the funding source should be rejected from journal. If it was falsely left off the paper should be retracted.

Re:disclosure

[friedmud]

You are obviously not a scientist.

If you have "blindly done research" and you're publishing in a reputable journal... then you'll get your ass handed to you if your science isn't correct (trust me: my ass still stings from some of the scathing reviews I've received on a few of my papers).

The funding agency DOES NOT MATTER... if proper peer review is undertaken. If the science is good... then the science is good... this isn't an opinion piece in the New York Times paid for by big oil...

Re:disclosure

[Coryoth]

I'm guessing the reason he doesn't take money from the fossil fuel industry is because he just can't be bothered with such trifling sums. The average salary in the US is more like $350k or $400k, IIRC. 120k is for total losers.

I can only presume your talking about research grants combined with salary, despite saying "The average salary" because otherwise you are simply flat wrong. The average salary for (full) professors in the US is $98,974.

Re:disclosure

[blue trane]

Is your point that the salt science was influenced by grant money? Was there a big, rich anti-salt lobby that wanted to destroy salt companies?

My point is that when conservatives attack the motivations of climate change scientists as being motivated by a desire to get grants, they are using an ad hominem argument against the scientists as persons, not against the science itself. I think the reason conservatives make the argument so readily, that climate change science is merely a ploy to get funding, because they are so used to thinking about money in their own lives. Money is their prime motivator, so it must be everyone's. If a scientist says something you don't like, it must be because someone paid them to say it.

That's why the GOP funds astroturfers. It knows its arguments don't stand on their own, it has to pay people to make them popular.

So when the GOP sees climate change scientists making arguments they don't agree with, they immediately want to pay others to say what they want. And then they attack the scientists they haven't bought, as having been bought by the other side.

The solution is to fund all science. Science is fundamentally opposed to profit-motivation. That's very hard for conservatives to contemplate, that anything can or should be separated from profit motivation. So when a scientist says something they don't like, they attack his profit motivation.

NOTE: I had a much more succint post that made my point in a couple lines, but slashdot crashed Chrome and I could only come up with this long rambling recreation.

Re:disclosure

[riverat1]

Climate is complicated enough that it is not really an 'objective reality'.

Complication doesn't change the fact that there's objective reality. It just makes it harder to find.

Re:disclosure

[penguinoid]

Yes, it was no surprise he had other ethical problems. It was only a question of how Soon it would get found out.

Re:disclosure

[penguinoid]

Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

Indeed. It's always nice to know who to thank for some research, and also whether there is potential for systematic bias in the experimental setup (ie, the scientist is also part of the experiment, and not immune to preferring one result or another due to financial or personal considerations -- also why double-blind studies exist). Hiding a conflict of interest is not only bad ethics, but also bad science. There are many ways to deal with bias, but pretending it's not there ain't one of them.

Re:disclosure

[Maxo-Texas]

1880 is a starting date because that's when the formal data starts.

If you google for it, you can find a site with all the data available from measuring stations and you can see an analyze the actual data and see 1880 is the oldest formal data.

The average global temperature has fluctuated massively without matching co2 components (esp around 1945 and 1970).

I'm pretty sure that the average global temperature was the highest ever in 2014.

If real, I don't think we will take action in time to stop the bad side effects of global warming (mainly coastl flooding- and some island nations uninhabitable).

However, we can take small cost effective measures (that even save us money) like using LED bulbs (payoff in 6 months- huge energy savings), enforcing higher full standards and lower pollution standards. Politically- unless india and china are on board, the entire thing is a non-starter. China is going to pollute enormously for at least two more generations. India is likely to as well.

So a cost effective way for preparing is to say new construction needs to be 3 feet higher than it currently is near the coast. Then in a hundred years, if the flooding actually happens, we'll be ready. We should not tear everything down and rebuild- that's crazy costly.

Re:disclosure

[neilo_1701D]

Is your point that the salt science was influenced by grant money? Was there a big, rich anti-salt lobby that wanted to destroy salt companies?

There doesn't have to be an anti-anything lobby for fraudulent research to take place. Good old Noble Cause will suffice. Have you heard of Debendox, marketed as Bendectin in the US?

Back in 1961, Dr William McBride wrote about a large number of birth defects in children whose mother was prescribed Thalidomide. He showed that Thalidomide messes up the DNA of dividing cells (which makes it an ideal candidate as an anti-cancer drug, but that's another story). Flushed with funds, grants and awards, he set up Foundation 41to investigate birth defects.

In 1981, he published a paper claiming that Debendox caused birth defects, and went along as an expert witness in the subsequent lawsuits. The problem was, he falsified his results, and when that story broke he lost essentially everything. But he didn't fake his results for the money, prestige, awards or anything like that. He faked his results because he truly believed he was doing the right thing by doing so.

I know that's not the point you were making... but people do bad stuff because they believe the outcomes justify it, not simply because they can make a quick buck.

Re:disclosure

[Jane Q. Public]

That your rebuttal is purely ad hominem in the truest sense of the word just shows how big of a useful idiot you are.

That you seem to think it's ad-hominem is telling.

Mother Jones is about as far from an unbiased source as you could have found anywhere. That's not ad-homimem; it bears directly on the quality of your argument.

That many official published charts of "warming" temperature started in 1979 is an objective fact.

The "official" argument was that 1979 was about when the satellite record started. But now they're largely just leaving the satellite data out, because it doesn't support their models... which means their excuse for starting in 1979 is also out the window.

None of that had ANYTHING to do with ad-hominem.

I repeat: the pot calling the kettle black.

Re:disclosure

[newslash.formatblows]

They don't get to put it in their pockets, for God's sake. You sound like that Fox News nutjob talking about the scientists living the rock star life. You get money to hire postdocs, student researchers, support staff, etc. You don't get money for sports cars. I know it's hard for most of the deniers to believe, but some people are not 100% motivated by money.

Re:disclosure

[Uberbah]

Repeating right wing canards doesn't make them true. Sorry.

Re: disclosure

[KenHansen]

Just like any competent defense attorney...

Re:disclosure

[Eunuchswear]

Ow! That hurt.

Re:disclosure

[blue trane]

Okay, but then dispute the science and use the data, instead of impugning motives. When conservatives say that scientists are supporting global warming just because they get grants to do so, we should call out that reasoning.

We should say that science should not be motivated by profit, and a way to ensure that is to fund citizen scientists (via a Basic Income, say). Then interested individuals can have the time to examine data and try to replicate findings and look for mistakes in the calculations, spreadsheets, etc.

The key point is that market solutions are deeply flawed when conducting science. If you are a conservative and see the market as the solution to everything, of course you are going to try to fund scientists to find what you want them to find, and you will assume the other side is doing the same. Because the market is the only tool you imagine.

Instead, acknowledge that science advances fastest when market forces are not involved in selecting winners and losers. Science progresses best when information is shared openly, not hoarded and monetized as the market encourages.

Re:disclosure

[phantomfive]

. I very much doubt the research Dr. Soon did was expensive, beyond paying his own salary.

He had to pay his research assistants.

Re: disclosure

[Attila Dimedici]

Perhaps you failed to notice that my source was the Huffington Post. It is they who are saying that ISIS troops are using chemical weapons which they obtained from Saddam's stockpiles. While I will agree that Huffington Post is a bunch of wingnuts, they are are not noted for thinking that Bush was right about anything.

Re:disclosure

[Type44Q]

Did they predict it for the whole globe?

Is winter capable of occuring simultaneously across the whole globe?? 'Cause if not, I believe you've answered your own question. ;)

Re:disclosure

[hey!]

You're raising a red herring issue. It's not that all papers have to disclose their funding: it's that he was required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest, which in this case would have included his funding sources. In essense he committed a mild form of scientific fraud. That doesn't mean he was wrong, it does mean he was deceptive.

That's a pittance.

Which is pretty much what he's worth. He's not an astrophysicist. That doesn't mean he can't publish. Some scientists have illustrious careers without having a degree in their field. Hank Stommel comes to mind. But those guys publish important papers that draw funding from within the field. This guy's career is totally a product of having the "right" position.

That's not true of other climate change skeptical scientists, who manage to have a career without politically motivated patronage. But their work isn't so quotable, because they're tugging at the loose threads of the scientific consensus. Their research doesn't show that the scientific consensus is wrong, because they can't do that in scientific terms -- yet.

If you want to overthrow the scientific consensus it's an uphill battle. It's supposed to be. Otherwise you'd have to give advocates of perpetual motion and creationism equal status, which they haven't earned yet.

Re:disclosure

[riverat1]

Well, there are winters in both the northern and southern hemispheres each year so maybe not. But maybe I should have said the northern hemisphere explicitly. I live on the US west coast and both winters have been warmer than normal. The point is that you can't take your experience in one small part of the globe or hemisphere and apply it to the whole.

Re:disclosure

[budgenator]

Of course the $70 Billion spent by the USG from2008-2012 on research to almost exclusively warmist scientists didn't effect the outcomes.

Re:disclosure

[pepty]

Conducting research in his case is reviewing other people's datasets. It looks like his expenses are his overhead at the Smithsonian and his own salary - which is paid for by the grant money he brings in.

Re:disclosure

[pepty]

Most journals, including some of the ones he published in, require their authors to disclose conflicts of interest. He lied to the editors to get his articles published, so it was definitely unethical.

Re:disclosure

[pepty]

The funding agency DOES NOT MATTER... if proper peer review is undertaken. If the science is good... then the science is good...

I'll skip the obvious comment and just call Godwin's law on myself.

Re:disclosure

[pepty]

Bullshit. Papers directly supported by funding/grants should, and usually do, thank/credit the sources. But just because someone funded you for one thing doesn't mean you have to disclose that in every paper you write that is remotely related.

If on the one hand you describe the papers you write as "deliverables" to your funders, and on the other hand the editors of the journals you are publishing in require you disclose conflicts of interests, then yes, you should disclose those sources of funding.

Re:disclosure

[Strangely Familiar]

Astrophysics is a specialty directly relevant to the radiative transfer of energy between the sun and the earth, and the behavior of the earth-sun system. Aerospace engineering is not as good a match for being an authority in that area. And maybe people might not know the difference without checking, but it is trivial to check. The bigger issue is the honesty of Dr. Soon. He never studied at Harvard or got a paycheck from Harvard. He did not study astrophysics. That he would allow Fox News to call him a "Harvard Astrophysicist" suggests he is dishonest. Failing to disclose his funding is another sign of dishonesty. This is dishonesty related to his authority and profession. It is small wonder he easily becomes hostile over these issues.

Re:disclosure

[Strangely Familiar]

Yes, and I am appauled at all the money tilting the gravity/spontaneous quantum coalescence debate! Why is so much federal funding going to scientists who believe in Einstein's theory of General Relativity, while NONE is going to scientists who support the spontaneous quantum coalescence theory?

Re:disclosure

[Strangely Familiar]

No, you are missing something vital here. The only way to really check whether a particular paper is valid is to a) be an expert in the field, and b) redo the research yourself. Otherwise, you are taking big shortcuts in your evaluation of a particular scientific paper. And these are big shortcuts you MUST take. There are thousands of scientific papers coming out every day, written by teams who have often collaborated for years. Most you can't read, because you can't read everything. Anything you do read, you are probably not going to redo the research yourself. That's kind of the point, isn't it? We all have specialties, and we do different things, so other people don't have to repeat what we have done? So how do you know whether a particular scientific paper is valid? Honestly, unless you can tell it isn't valid, you don't know whether it is valid science. You just have to guess. You guess based on the methods used, and whether the author seems to know his ass from a hole in the ground. And then you judge based on the credibility of the source. Is it from a Princeton professor? Someone from MIT? Or is it a quantum field theory paper written by a dentist? Is the author a whack job? Is the author a paid shill? Is the author a Stanford Astrophysics professor writing a paper about astrophysics, with no material conflicts of interest in the research, the research paper being published in a reputable peer-reviewed astrophysics journal? If you don't evalutate scientific papers this way, you don't properly evaluate scientific papers. Because realistically you can't evalutate them by duplicating the research yourself.

Re: disclosure

[Uberbah]

Which part of "chemical weapons degrade over time" did you skip over, or "it's not a weapon of mass destruction if it's incapable of causing mass destruction? This is on the scale of falling out of a boat in the middle of the Pacific and insisting that water is dry, because of some link to HuffPo, which never actually says anything about WMD's.

FFS man, Hillary and a Bush are the so-far front runners for 2016. The Hillary that's been complaining that Obama hasn't bombed ISIS enough. If WMD's were found in Iraq, they would be letting you know. They're not.

Re: disclosure

[Attila Dimedici]

It is interesting that the Huffington Post does not use the "degraded over time" argument. They instead claim that the "lie" told by the Bush Administration was that Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction rather than that he had them (contrary to what they argued in 2004, when they claimed that no wmds were found in Iraq). Of course, the fact that ISIS has actually used these chemical weapons in the manner for which they were created does not suggest to you that perhaps they are still potent enough to cause mass destruction?

Re: disclosure

[Attila Dimedici]

Oh, I don't suppose it occurred to you that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is unlikely to want to bring attention to the fact that ISIS came into being on her watch. When I did a Google search of her comments about ISIS, her statements were mostly supportive of Obama's strategy, primarily suggesting a slightly more aggressive bombing program than the current one (but supportive of the current program none-the-less). As to JEB Bush, it is hard to imagine him coming out touting wmds found in Iraq, when his own brother did not do so as President. Even though these weapons were found while W. was being shellacked for failing to fin them, it was his decision to keep it quiet. Of course, it doesn't help that people like you continue to believe that WMDs were the sole, or at least primary, justification given for invading Iraq, when in fact the primary justification given at the time was Saddam's refusal to abide by the agreement he made at the end of the first Gulf War.

Re:disclosure

[tehcyder]

You are obviously not a scientist.

If you have "blindly done research" and you're publishing in a reputable journal... then you'll get your ass handed to you if your science isn't correct (trust me: my ass still stings from some of the scathing reviews I've received on a few of my papers).

The funding agency DOES NOT MATTER... if proper peer review is undertaken. If the science is good... then the science is good... this isn't an opinion piece in the New York Times paid for by big oil...

This would be true if he published in a reputable journal, proper peer review was undertaken and Science actually worked like it was supposed to..

Re:disclosure

[dave420]

You should actually read what happened in the climategate "scandal". You are embarrassing yourself and hurting your position by parroting nonsense such as that.

Re: disclosure

[tehcyder]

Just like any competent defense attorney...

Defending someone by comparing them with a lawyer is an extremely unwise rhetorical move.

Lawyers and the law have only a passing acquaintance with the truth, unlike scientists.

Re:disclosure

[tehcyder]

This is basic stuff, I'm amazed on Slashdot anyone is even trying to argue it, much less mod such drivel up.

Whether they acknowledge it or not, a lot of the more right wing people here (and there are a lot of them since this is a US site) rank the right of the oil companies to carry on making money over any other concern, including the future welfare of the whole human race.

Re: disclosure

[tehcyder]

The point about invading Iraq because Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons capable of being used as weapons of mass destruction is that he would have to have had (a) the chemicals and (b) a delivery system capable of delivering them to the US/Western Europe.

A few barrels of mustard gas that you chuck out of a plane is not going to kill millions of people like a nuke.

Iraq was simply not a threat to the US/its allies.

Re:disclosure

[Tamerlin]

This kind of crap is like that junk science about autism and vaccines. Once that stuff gets out there, it is very difficult to get people to stop repeating it, even after it gets discredited. And this kind of disinformation has real-world consequences when people rely on it, including U.S. Senators making speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

That's the real problem. The Koch brothers bought some airtime on fox to say that climate scientists are supporting anthropogenic climate change for the money, when in fact their funding is based on their doing verifiable research instead.

However, stupid people decide who's credible based on whether or not it's what they're saying is what stupid people want to hear.

The media royally fucked things up even more by claiming to be "balanced" - i.e. giving the deniers equal air time so as to show integrity, instead of giving the deniers what they deserved: show us some real, verifiable data, or just go fuck yourself. Even NPR made this colossal blunder of false journalistic integrity. Giving airtime to liars isn't balance, it's lying.

Re:disclosure

[Marxist Hacker 42]

" if proper peer review is undertaken"

The problem comes in when fads appear among the peers.

Re:disclosure

[Marxist Hacker 42]

"This guy's career is totally a product of having the "right" position."

Which fits, because so do all his opponents. Scientific "consensus" is an indicator that something has gone horribly wrong with the scientific process.

Re:disclosure

[hey!]

You have no idea what "scientific consensus" means. It does not mean "unassailable truth"; it just indicates where the burden of proof lies.

Re:disclosure

[david_thornley]

No. An unusually cold winter in the Northern hemisphere can, of course, occur during an unusually warm summer in the Southern hemisphere. Since most people live in the Northern hemisphere, this would look like unusual cold.

Re:disclosure

[jfengel]

In this case, he's not being published in reputable journals. He's had some letters published, which are not subject to peer review. The few times he's gotten his papers into major journals, they've been savaged, and they don't publish him any more. His work is relegated to minor journals and letters.

The peer review process does provide a strong bar against junk science, but not all peer review is the same. Researchers in the field know it, but when the goal is to appeal to the public, it's easy to gloss over the differences. Even other scientists rarely know which are the reputable and high-impact journals outside of their own field.

Re:disclosure

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It shouldn't even indicate that. Consensus has zero to do with truth or even confirmation of theory, scientifically speaking. The majority saying that the moon is made of green cheese does not mean that the moon is actually made of green cheese.

Re:disclosure

[Layzej]

The science will speak for itself.

Indeed. Willie Soon's papers have resulted in the resignation of more than one editor and have been described as "laughable". One of his industry "deliverables" was a literature review that misrepresented the literature to create "a policy–and politics–driven publicity stunt to support the dubious positions on climate change of some prominent American politicians." Several editors resigned over the fiasco. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:disclosure

[Obfuscant]

The Met Office worker can go to work and think "Great, I can just focus on the science, my job is secure regardless of what I find.".

The Met Office is, for lack of a better term, "production" science. That is, a scientist who is hired to process routine data and produce routine output. He has models to run and manage. His job is a line-item in the government budget.

That's significantly different than academic research. Those jobs are paid for by grants. Anyone who wants to study reasons other than anthropogenic for climate change are facing two hurdles. The first is the consensus challenge, but more important is that if they show that the problem isn't the horrific crisis that can justify billions more in grants to solve, they've cut the funding for a lot of people, themselves included.

I've been through the grant process enough to know that "problem solved" is a death-knell for further study of that problem. Anyone who publishes that kind of result regarding AGW is threatening a LOT of money going to a LOT of people. Themselves included.

While tenure does protect more senior research faculty from being fired, it does not mean they'll be doing work they like. A researcher without a grant will be teaching a lot of classes instead of spending lots of time in the lab. He'll have little money for new computers or other equipment, and any grad students who work for him will be funded as teaching assistants.

If you've never been in grad school and been funded on a grant and on TA money you might not realize the significant difference in status that carries. And the significant difference in quality of grad student a PI can attract.

If the money has come from a source that just needs to know the facts without seeing any benefit from an outcome one way or the other then that research is far less tainted than if it's come from a source that has a vested profit interest in one outcome over the other.

As someone who works in the field, I an tell you that the latter is a very common situation in academic climate science research, for the reasons I've already described.

Re:disclosure

[Obfuscant]

My point is that when conservatives attack the motivations of climate change scientists as being motivated by a desire to get grants, they are using an ad hominem argument against the scientists as persons, not against the science itself.

It is perfectly fair to point out that the slander of "your research is bought and paid for" applies to those who publish research opposed to the consensus as well as those who publish in agreement. It is not ad hominem to say that someone who has just attacked one scientist for publishing papers to get money is also attacking every other scientist that is paid to do research.

If a scientist says something you don't like, it must be because someone paid them to say it.

That is exactly the argument used against every scientist that publishes anything opposed to the consensus. It's slander, and it needs to stop. If science can be bought, the color of the money doesn't matter, and neither side can be immune. Deal with the science, not the scientist.

Science is fundamentally opposed to profit-motivation. That's very hard for conservatives to contemplate,

It's very easy for conservatives to contemplate, and this isn't a conservative/liberal issue. It's also not conservatives who leap up every time a scientist publishes something that questions the consensus result and shout "your research is paid for by oil companies."

The ONLY time I've seen anyone talk about the influence of the grant process on science is when they're trying to show the "your science is bought" accusers that a paycheck is a paycheck. It is a direct result of the silly claim that grants are somehow immune from political and social engineering and aren't impacted by the results obtained.

Re:disclosure

[gzuckier]

'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. Im a little curious if it is standard practice to not disclose this type of relationship. If it is, it is wrong. I see an ethics issue at hand Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

In other words, unless the total income of every scientist who believes in AGW is given to you along with a notarized copy of their tax returns you will continue to cling to the belief that each of them has an income which dwarfs Soon's 1.2 million, and which contractually obligates them to advocate for reduction of CO2 no matter what their research actually shows.

Re:disclosure

[gzuckier]

No, you are missing something vital here. The only way to really check whether a particular paper is valid is to a) be an expert in the field, and b) redo the research yourself. Otherwise, you are taking big shortcuts in your evaluation of a particular scientific paper. And these are big shortcuts you MUST take. There are thousands of scientific papers coming out every day, written by teams who have often collaborated for years. Most you can't read, because you can't read everything. Anything you do read, you are probably not going to redo the research yourself. That's kind of the point, isn't it? We all have specialties, and we do different things, so other people don't have to repeat what we have done? So how do you know whether a particular scientific paper is valid? Honestly, unless you can tell it isn't valid, you don't know whether it is valid science. You just have to guess. You guess based on the methods used, and whether the author seems to know his ass from a hole in the ground. And then you judge based on the credibility of the source. Is it from a Princeton professor? Someone from MIT? Or is it a quantum field theory paper written by a dentist? Is the author a whack job? Is the author a paid shill? Is the author a Stanford Astrophysics professor writing a paper about astrophysics, with no material conflicts of interest in the research, the research paper being published in a reputable peer-reviewed astrophysics journal? If you don't evalutate scientific papers this way, you don't properly evaluate scientific papers. Because realistically you can't evalutate them by duplicating the research yourself.

Yep, in a nutshell you got it.
Every nonscientist knows in their particular profession, even if it's counter guy at dunkin donuts, who is good and who is useless, even though it's not always clear from the outside. Science is no different.

Re:disclosure

[gzuckier]

> NASA, NOAA point out warming has stalled, no temperature has exceeded 1998's.

You deniers have got to stop using that one. By now, we've all figured out that any mention of 1998 is just cherry-picking at its worst. All you do is identify yourself as a zero-knowledge shill that should be ignored.

Why, I remember on July 26 1998 I accidentally left the oven on broil for an hour, and the oven thermometer read over 500 degrees; it's a known fact that the average temperature of the earth has not exceeded that since, and from this I deduce that that was the peak point of global warming in both time and space.

Re: disclosure

[gzuckier]

Let's see, it was not Fox News spreading the idea that vaccines cause autism. That was MSNBC. As to Saddam having WMDs, you apparently have not read the reports about ISIS using the WMDs which Saddam had stockpiled (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/14/isis-chemical-weapons-_n_5987106.html)

Yeah, and if your grandfather has a crumbling German gas mask he picked up in WWI stashed away in a trunk in the attic that's proof that the Germans are preparing for chemical warfare.

Re: disclosure

[gzuckier]

Perhaps you failed to notice that my source was the Huffington Post. It is they who are saying that ISIS troops are using chemical weapons which they obtained from Saddam's stockpiles. While I will agree that Huffington Post is a bunch of wingnuts, they are are not noted for thinking that Bush was right about anything.

Yes, the source which stated, "chemical munitions remaining after the U.S. invasion, which the Times notes, originate not from the period when President George W. Bush claimed Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction, but from earlier."
Said Times article stating, "The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West." http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

Re:disclosure

[lsatenstein]

'He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. Im a little curious if it is standard practice to not disclose this type of relationship. If it is, it is wrong. I see an ethics issue at hand

  Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

I live in Canada and we have been experiencing a bitterly prolonged and cold winter. The east coast has had snow up beyond your arm pits.
I can agree with Wei-Hock Soon but with different reasoning. The pollution we have put into the atmosphere is acting as a blanket. Be it smog, co2, or whatever, it is a blanket. When the sun shines, much of the rays are blocked, giving us colder winters. In summer with the sun in the northern hemisphere, it is again the blanket that is keep in the heat and making for sweltering summers.
We are moving into the extremes of very hot summers and very cold winters, thanks to polution. While we suffer here in the north, Australia has its droughts and super hot summers. Is the sun radiation really swinging in strength to any degree? I think not. Wei-Hock blames the sun, I blame the blanket of polution.

Re:disclosure

[ivano]

$120k is a lot of money if you don't have anything else to use it on: eg. postdocs, conferences etc, which is precisely his situation. He was paid to have a desk at a prestigious university; put his name on papers dealing with output of the Sun's energy; and then sit back when everyone calls him an astrophysicist at a prestigious astrophysics institute and take the money.

Re:disclosure

[Plumpaquatsch]

Of course the $70 Billion spent by the USG from2008-2012 on research to almost exclusively warmist scientists didn't effect the outcomes.

Yeah, that's quite a lot of made up money.

Re:disclosure

[Plumpaquatsch]

It shouldn't even indicate that. Consensus has zero to do with truth or even confirmation of theory, scientifically speaking. The majority saying that the moon is made of green cheese does not mean that the moon is actually made of green cheese.

But only the deniers are claiming the moon is made of green cheese.

Re:disclosure

[Plumpaquatsch]

Climate scientists aren't in the business of predicting next years weather. Once you understand that, we can talk.

Re:disclosure

[Plumpaquatsch]

That many official published charts of "warming" temperature started in 1979 is an objective fact.

It has to do with the fact that satellite temperature measurements, favoured by denialists because it shows the least warming, started that year. That's why most charts you get to see on your favourite disinformation sources start that year. Most charts actually start about a century before that.

Re: disclosure

[Plumpaquatsch]

Perhaps you failed to notice that my source was the Huffington Post.

Huffelpuffle is never a news source, they are an aggregator. And as all aggregators they work GIGO.

Re: disclosure

[Attila Dimedici]

No, but it is evidence suggesting that the Germans were prepared to use chemical weapons in WWI

Re: disclosure

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, the Times said that, but that was not what they said when the U.S. was preparing to go for war. Nor was it what they said right after the invasion. What they said right after the invasion was that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...now they are saying that there were.

Re:disclosure

[delt0r]

Clearly you don't know many scientists. Scientists, and by association the science they do, has no more integrity than anything else done by people. There are many examples, of bad reviews to people they don;t like, to flat out make shit up. Then there is grant review pannels and well the list keeps on going. Oh and in the US about 1/4 of or salary is suppose to be made up in grants in many universities.

Re:disclosure

[delt0r]

It wouldn't cover the salary of even one worker. Universities charge overheads. The can be anything from 15% to 60%. If you want more than 60k take home, they are going to need to provide far more than 120k per year.

Re:disclosure

[delt0r]

I personally know some people who contribute to the IPCC, I know many more that will never do that again. IPCC is a very very politicized report that is written and rewritten many times, by more senior people down the line. It has a lot less to do with science that it does with politics.

Re: disclosure

[dywolf]

Nope.
Funding does not determine outcome.
People are paid for the act of research, not the outcome.
They get paid regardless of the outcome.
And most research of global warming comes from federal sources.
And federal funding carries NO stipulations about outcome.*
In fact that's why a predetermined outcome is such a big ethical deal.

The very idea that the majority of the worlds scientists are frauds and paid for a predetermined outcome is the rankest ignorance or how scientific funding even work, let alone the idea that tens of thousand of scientists could be involved in a global conspiracy and not one of them blows the whistle.

http://arstechnica.com/science...

*Seriously, do you really think the larger scientific community, let alone the watchdogs, and science deniers, would let such a thing happen?
Its kind of like the nonsense about "Impeach him now!"....do you really think they would at all hesitate to do so if they actually had any legitimate reason they could bring up?

Re:disclosure

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No, it's the supporters who are claiming that the moon is made of green cheese, that human beings are powerful enough to affect climate significantly.

There is a scientific consensus for that. But a mere consensus does not make it true, and it is, after all, a very fantastic and fantasy filled claim that has not been borne out by correct models.

Re:disclosure

[Karmashock]

The issue is that if you evaluate things in that manner then YOU haven't evaluated them scientifically. Rather, you've done it politically on the theory that whomever is in good standing with his peers must also be right. That could well be true however it is not scientifically conclusive.

The ends ARE the means. The cause is the result of the effect. One reaps what one sows.

If your input is political then your output is going to be political.

I am not an accredited scientist. However, I try to evaluate scientific papers scientifically. I go through the reasoning. I evaluate the logic. I ask questions about various things that don't seem to line up. I get further answers that tend to eliminate whatever I thought of as a problem. But I learn and I increasingly understand.

Who knows more about this issue? The fellow that just reflexively says "well if that group of scientists said X then I believe it."... or the fellow like myself that tries to understand himself?

And yet, the internet is full of people that presume to browbeat people like me because I have the audacity to try and understand on my own. While they just reflexively adopt anything they're fed. I find that offensive. I might be wrong in my conclusions but I still understand more of the matter then they a do. All they've done is obendiently accept. I actually try to think about it.

Recently for example I thought "gases expand when warmed, so has the earth's atmosphere expanded over time?"... and my answer there was "the earth's atmosphere has contracted but that is because the lower atmosphere has trapped more heat lower down while the upper atmosphere has cooled."... And that is interesting. And that is something I know because I asked questions and something that most people that just reflexively agree won't ever learn.

The issue is complicated. Yes, there are a lot of people that like to just accept and move on. That's fine. However, such people do not enjoy any superiority over people that want to try and figure it out on their own or understand it. I might not be qualified to make sweeping judgments on the issue but then I never claimed to be able to do that. I claim only to have my own mind. And I'm not going to be happy with the answers unless I can understand them.

I do actually understand the vast majority of science that most people take for granted. I understand chemistry, I understand biology, I understand physics, I understand a lot of things. As well as the expert scientists? Of course not... but well enough that I could explain them in some detail and accuracy if needed. That is all I want to understand from AGW.

And even the experts in the field of climate science admit that their field has problems. It isn't just plucky independent scientists against oil company shills. That's propaganda. The models have been predicting higher temperatures then what we've been experiencing for over a decade.

The facts are that a model is only as good as its ability to accurately predict outcomes. Current models are not doing a very good job. Everyone knows that especially the climate scientists. I don't care who says a thing. I care if it is accurate and if it makes sense. Focusing on the ad hominem is not how science works.

The means are the ends. If you strike this down with politics then politics will be what won... not science.

Re: disclosure

[Plumpaquatsch]

No, but it is evidence suggesting that the Germans were prepared to use chemical weapons in WWI

Nope, having gas masks means they were prepared to be attacked with chemical weapons.

Koch brothers?

[argee]

Their involvement says it all.

Envy

[gmuslera]

Meanwhile paid slashdot deniers are getting the standard 30 pieces of silver for the same work.

Re:Envy

[ClickOnThis]

I saw what you did there.

Re:Corporate interests

[BradMajors]

Gore has made close to one billion dollars.

Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[Anonanonaon]

It sucks that we can't fund science through neutral sources more readily. It's one of the big problems with science and the scientific method. It simply cannot be trusted unless you get personal with it. Anything which reaches the newspapers is likely going to be spun somehow.

Dr. Soon may even truly believe his science is valid, but the funding he receives creates a lopsided megaphone which unfairly skews the perception of the debate.

By the same token, all scientists who receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry or groups they influence, should be barred from publishing papers on vaccine safety.

The problem is... That's everybody.

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[penix1]

Dr. Soon may even truly believe his science is valid, but the funding he receives creates a lopsided megaphone which unfairly skews the perception of the debate.

That's why there is a little thing called "peer review". If his observations are incorrect then a peer review will discover it. If his experiments can't be reproduced then the paper will be discredited (along with his career). And don't think they aren't being scrutinized given his unpopular stance. So although people tend to not bite the hand that feeds them, they also are careful of things that could ruin their career.

That being said, he should have disclosed the tie to the industry as the journal's ethics policy demands. It is up to the journal to decide if they will pull the papers. But that should in no way invalidate the science IF IT WAS PEER REVIEWED as valid.

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[Idarubicin]

Dr. Soon may even truly believe his science is valid, but the funding he receives creates a lopsided megaphone which unfairly skews the perception of the debate.

Having a conflict of interest is understandable; hiding a conflict of interest is problematic.

By the same token, all scientists who receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry or groups they influence, should be barred from publishing papers on vaccine safety.

Scientists who receive funding from, for example, the pharmaceutical industry are expected to fully and explicitly disclose potentially conflicting interests--and by golly, they do. It's taken quite seriously, actually. If you look at any article in a respectable medical journal today, you'll find a section of the manuscript that's explicitly headed with Conflicting interests: or something synonymous. It will appear on every article, even on the ones where it's followed by "None declared" or the like, just so that it's clear that the journal asked for and got an on-the-record response from the article's authors. It doesn't remove the potential bias associated with outside funding, but it at least makes the potential for bias transparent.

Lying about competing interests - even through omission - is looked on very poorly by serious, credible medical researchers. Interestingly, one of the many, many types of misconduct engaged in by Andrew Wakefield was his failure to disclose significant financial interests when he published his (now-retracted and thoroughly discredited) Lancet paper suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. (Wakefield wasn't receiving pharmaceutical money, of course; he collected almost half a million pounds from lawyers involved in an anti-MMR lawsuit.)

And while the practice of mandatory disclosure started with the medical journals, the expectation has gradually bled across into other fields as well, particularly among top-tier journals.

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[Baloroth]

That's why there is a little thing called "peer review". If his observations are incorrect then a peer review will discover it.

A common misconception. Peer review does not verify that the data is correct, that the methodology in the paper is followed, or in general that the results are reliable. It looks at the methods outlined in the paper and tries to spot obvious flaws or oversights, as well as any major problems with the structure of the paper. It can't detect fraud, cherry-picking data, or a host of other problems. Some "scientists" have gotten away for years with made up data or other fraud. And of course the quality of the peer review (or even if it is peer reviewed, in some cases) depends heavily on the journal that publishes it. Anyone can make the "Journal of American Climate Study" or some other professional sounding name and publish total garbage.

If his experiments can't be reproduced then the paper will be discredited (along with his career)

This has pretty much already happened. He's published papers with deeply flawed methodology that has misrepresented the work of other scientists, espouses a scientific viewpoint (that solar variation causes most observed climate changes) that has been shown wrong years ago, and has failed to disclose the source of his funding, a fairly major ethical violation.

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[Anonanonaon]

Thank-you for providing this clarification. It was appropriate and useful.

I would like to offer my own clarification, though; I was already aware of the points you raised, and they do not invalidate the thrust of my post, (slightly cheeky as it may be).

Knowing which side your bread is buttered on doesn't change just because you might have mentioned it in the credits.

Dr. Soon not mentioning it was foolish; a wet dream for the AGW folks, and one which makes it easy to ignore the main problem I described here and in more detail a few comments further up.

Fortunately, even as the debate rages on, Reality will have the final say. -Something along the lines of, "Splat".

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[hankwang]

Having a conflict of interest is understandable; hiding a conflict of interest is problematic.

The strange thing is that his management (Alcock and Kress) is claiming that they were unaware of his funding. The research grants pass through the accounting department of the institute, right? Large sums of money deposited onto or withdrawn from the institute's bank account need to have proper paperwork in place and be signed off by the management? His management must have been actively looking the other way.

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[hucker75]

Climate change isn't science, it's a waste of time and money. Anyone with an ounce of sense can see the climate always has and always will change and it doesn't really matter if it does. Just get on with life and stop pissing about with this treehugging bullshit.

No doubt

[mbone]

Anyone who is surprised by this has really not been paying attention (or has been paid not to pay attention).

Re: Corporate interests

[BradMajors]

Scientific research is not necessary since Al Gore has said the science is already settled.

Is scientific research free?

[cbeaudry]

So 1.2 million over the last decade comes to about $120 000 a year.
With whatever it costs, per year, to do research, then whatever is left cant really be considered "getting rich from the fossil industry".

Seriously. If you are a scientist and your research is contrary to the establishments priorities, where will you get your funding if grants are only given to those who who will publish the "right" findings.

Re:Is scientific research free?

[Socguy]

Funding grants are given irrespective of the findings. ...unless you're referring to the funding which comes from the fossil fuel industry.

Re:Is scientific research free?

[cbeaudry]

Nice try. You saying so, does not make it true, in this age of climate scaremongering.
Try getting a government grant, if your research subject is, "The limits of CO2's radiative forcing."

Also, by the way. 120 000$ is the average salary of a tenured university professor.
What makes them less "bad" than someone making the same amount from another sources?

Should we ignore all papers from scientists who work for the pharmaceutical industries?

Re:Is scientific research free?

[cbeaudry]

The last time? Are you serious?
The pharmaceutical is one of the biggest industries in the world with thousands and thousands of scientists, papers are being published every single day.

Where do you think vaccines come from?
Medicine?

Your post is so idiotic... I don't even know why I'm replying to it, except to just make sure some other morons with only 2 brain cells don't read the crap you posted and think it makes sense.

Re:Is scientific research free?

[bloodhawk]

Funding grants are given irrespective of the findings. ...unless you're referring to the funding which comes from the fossil fuel industry.

This simply isn't true, funding grants normally look at what you are looking to find or research, only a rare few are actually independent and don't care which way your results go. If they are pro something and it looks like you are searching for proof against then good luck getting funding and vice versa.

Re:Is scientific research free?

[martas]

The source of funding isn't the problem, the only problem here is that he failed to disclose it several times. However, the summary is shamefully misleading, because it makes it sound like he literally got $1.2m in his pocket, which he didn't (and you're quite right, $120k a year isn't in any way a remarkable amount, especially considering that he probably had to pay a large portion, up to 50%, of that as overhead to his institution).

Re:Is scientific research free?

[delt0r]

Total bullshit. Funding grants are totally dependent on findings and the track record of your previous findings. It is right there in the text (publicly available in many places) of the grants.

And... the evidence?

[Okian Warrior]

At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work.

And his evidence? What about the evidence? What does him accepting money have to do with his results?

Did he fake his evidence, or fudge the calculations?

Science is all about the observations and the predictive conclusions. It shouldn't matter if he was funded by the devil himself - if science can't refute his observations and conclusions, then it's the science that must be revisited.

Let's focus on what's important, and leave the person out of the equation.

(Lots of doctors take money from drug companies - so much so that there's a government database that allows you to look up your doctor online.)

(And for the record, I'm not for or against the "school of thought" that is climate change. It's simply something I haven't looked into. I have seen some seemingly credible arguments against (due to selection bias in the news), but I leave it to the experts to decide.)

Re:And... the evidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would anyone say the same about the handful of "scientists" who were funded by the lead industry starting in the 1950s, and spent twenty years casting doubt on the fact that lead exposure is bad (and therefore tetraethyl lead in gasoline is really bad)?

Or how about the handful of "doctors" who the tobbaco companies paid millions to spread lies and doubt about the connection between smoking and cancer for decades?

When the truth is bad for corporate interests, expect a campaign against the truth that is as determined and well funded as it is slanderous.

Re:And... the evidence?

[cbeaudry]

Like those pesky scientists who dared do research and publish on the fact that cholesterol is not the evil boogey man we have been looking for.
The science was settled, those idiots should have let it lie...

Re:And... the evidence?

[Dutchmaan]

If this was a scientist who was caught profiting from "the global warming" agenda, this would have been considered iron clad proof that ALL the science is false.

Re:And... the evidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

His evidence has been debunked. The scientists whose research he used have called him out for misrepresenting the results, i.e. he basically lied about them to con others in his papers. This was done years ago, the guy is basically a fraud.

Re:And... the evidence?

[argStyopa]

Curiously, you still managed to avoid discussing (or more specifically, disputing) his facts, which was precisely the previous poster's point?

Re:And... the evidence?

[Xyrus]

And his evidence? What about the evidence? What does him accepting money have to do with his results?

Did he fake his evidence, or fudge the calculations?

Science is all about the observations and the predictive conclusions. It shouldn't matter if he was funded by the devil himself - if science can't refute his observations and conclusions, then it's the science that must be revisited.

His papers in regards to climate have been thoroughly destroyed. A quick Google search will yield plenty of information on the topic. Just avoid the science denial sites.

Soros?

[SuperKendall]

if you want to play the money card... George Soros.

Only Soros spends a LOT more. And is wholly partisan in a way the Koch Brothers are not.

More than anything, the Koch Brothers seem to be some kind of hallucinogen, the way Democrats react to any mention of them.

I'd be careful of throwing that rock too hard from your ivory tower made of frosted glass...

Re:Soros?

[Dutch Gun]

Koch brothers vs George Soros
Rush Limbaugh vs Jon Steward
Ronald Reagan vs Bill Clinton
Tea Party vs Occupy Wall Street
Fox News vs Mainstream Media

Each team has their heroes and villains.

Re: Soros?

[JDAustin]

I'll raise you Tom Steyer then. He spent ~$75 million on dem causes in 2014.

Re: Soros?

[ganjadude]

funny, since the only ones ever brought up are the koch brothers

but the dems are just as good at spending the money, and simply better at acting like they are not taking money from the big donors But if you like, id love to add another name to the soros' of the world. Tom Steyer who has spend over 50 million of his own money on democratic candidates recently - http://www.powerlineblog.com/a...

but no, the republicans are the part of the big evil rich....

Re:Soros?

[phantomfive]

You can tell someone is a blind Democrat if the only rich people they can name are the Kochs.

Re:Soros?

[shutdown -p now]

Fox News isn't mainstream media?

Re: Soros?

[rmstar]

The Koch bros money supports their business, while Soros appears to spend money according to principle.

You mean there is a difference? Ah, sir (well, I imagine you are a sir), then you must hate freedom.

Let me explain. There is a purpose to the claim that the right and the left are equal in their moronics, spin, and moral failures: it liberates the claimant from the responsibility of taking sides. You are free to chose to be a tree hugger or a kkk racist and it doesn't matter! Left and right being the same thing is thus an axiom which guarantees freedom. If you doubt that axiom, you are against freedom, and I'm here to warn you that that will have consequences.

Naughty you.

Re: Soros?

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean the way Democrats keep mentioning the Koch brothers, while Republicans also mention people like Tom Steyer? And Herbert and Marion Sandler? The interesting thing about Soros, Steyer, and the Sandlers is that all three have been either involved with, or associated with illegal activities.

Re:Soros?

[Phillibuster]

You can tell someone is a blind Democrat if the only rich people they can name are the Kochs.

They're the only ones I know of that have pledged to spend almost a billion dollars to influence the next election.

Re:Soros?

[phantomfive]

So tell me, who spends more on elections, Democrats or Republicans? Do they really want the money out of politics?

Re: Soros?

[ganjadude]

read the article

And do you have any citations on how much they spent last year??? I provided mine

Could be true, that

[Press2ToContinue]

Though that estimate might be a little high...

"Just before leaving public office in 2001, Gore reported assets of less than $2 million; today, his wealth is estimated at $100 million."

But then again, it could be right on the money:

"Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in."

Warning about global warming is a good business to be in it seems...

Re: Could be true, that

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he's investing in technologies and developments that he has openly and expressly said he believes offers the best economic potential due to what he has learned from those studies.

All Gore isn't one to declare profit is wrong, or attack capitalism on an existential basis. He's put his money where his mouth is, and thinks you should too.

Re: Could be true, that

[ganjadude]

or hes investing in carbon credit offsets, a feel good plan for rich elite types to feel like they are doing something for the environment, while at the same time flying around on private yets living in huge mansions....

Re: Could be true, that

[smashin234]

Is this the same Al Gore who goes around on his personal jet and has the carbon footprint of a small nation?

That is the same man we should listen to?

The man who tells us that the seas are going to rise and destroy our coastlines and than owns a beach-side mansion?

Re: Could be true, that

[tacokill]

Or he's investing in technologies and developments that he has openly and expressly said he believes offers the best economic potential due to what he has learned from those studies.

Hint: If those technologies and developments were not heavily subsidized then Al's investment in those companies would not be worth diddly as they are not economically viable when compared to other non-subsidized alternatives. That is the very reason those industries are subsidized.

To put it another way, I could make a killing if I sold i386 machines for $2000 and the government gave people a $2500 tax credit to buy my stuff. Take away the $2500 tax credit and there is -0- value of owning a company making i386 computers. Al Gore owns many i386 companies who simply cannot compete with other alternatives without massive subsidies.

Even the crown jewel of the greenies, Tesla, wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for massive subsidies.

Re:Could be true, that

[Plumpaquatsch]

Though that estimate might be a little high...

"Just before leaving public office in 2001, Gore reported assets of less than $2 million; today, his wealth is estimated at $100 million."

Warning about global warming is a good business to be in it seems...

In 2001, the Koch brothers where worth $ 3.2 billion each. In 2010 $ 17.5 billion. Looks like paying others to deny Global Warming seems to be a better business....

As for Al Gore - he made far from being on the board of Apple than from Global Warming. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/heres-how-apple-and-the-internet-made-al-gore-rich.html/?a=viewall

Re:Bullshit.

[thephydes]

sorry wrong link, and you still are a fuckwit - I'm just careless https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:The other side of the coin...

[Socguy]

Please name the governments you consider pro-ACC

what conflict?

[superwiz]

Receiving money to conduct research is conflict of interest if the funds come from parties with vested interest in findings' results? 1.2 million over a decade is hardly a "fortune". It's on par with grants received by any small-size lab. In fact, probably much less. If he is quoted as often as the summary claims, he should be receiving at least 5 times as much in government funding.

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

Receiving money to conduct research is conflict of interest if the funds come from parties with vested interest in findings' results?

Yes. It is a conflict of interest that must be disclosed. It is routine procedure in, for instance, medical papers funded by pharmaceutical companies. The summary is sensationalized bullshit, but that part is true.

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

I'd say it's an indication of interest rather than a conflict of interest. The money is not contingent on the results of the findings. The fact that sponsors have an agenda is not news. Generally, disclosing the source of funding is an expression of gratitude rather than an ethical requirement. If the donors wish to remain anonymous, they should have that prerogative. They are only sponsoring scientific research, after all.

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

Actually, I think an even stronger statement can be made. I think it is unethical of the journals to require revealing sources of funding before publication. Some scientific inquiry (such as this, for example) may pose undue burden on its sponsors. Requiring that sponsorship be revealed inhibits free scientific inquiry. Consider another hypothetical example: an illicit narcotics distributor may want to sponsor research into the long-term medical effects of some legal drug use vs illegal drug use. If a researcher is required to reveal taking money from such a source of funding, he cannot do so without damaging his reputation. But this prevents honest scientific look at a medically pertinent question because it prevents any kind of funding from being given to qualified researchers who may want to investigate such a question.

In fact, the researchers should be required to reveal their data much more so than they should be required to reveal their source of funding. But this is a requirement that most journals do not have.

Research should be considered on its merit. The assumption should be made that there are vested interests on both sides of any controversial scientific issue and the source of funding should not be considered as a data point in evaluating the legitimacy of research

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

If donors wish to remain anonymous, they are free to do so, but they must also be anonymous from the researchers. And you can play semantics all you want, but it won't change the fact that the journals requested information they are entitled to request which the researcher failed to provide, which is a serious breach of ethics (not to mention contract).

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

Again, there are ways of funding research anonymously, but the ethical way to do so is for the source of funding to remain hidden from the researchers as well. As for your ideas about research being considered "on its merit" -- that might work in a more ideal world, but it is a naive simple-minded claim which ignores the basics of human nature as well as overwhelming historical precedent.

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

If a journal requires disclosure of funding, then there is no way for a researcher to accept an anonymous contribution and comply with the journal's requirements for publication.

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

This:

Research should be considered on its merit.

is not being naive because of the very sentence that follows it:

The assumption should be made that there are vested interests on both sides of any controversial scientific issue and the source of funding should not be considered as a data point in evaluating the legitimacy of research

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

Another point: omitting a name of one the controversial sponsors of scientifically sound research could be a test for a potential bias in a journal's editorial decisions.

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

i hope you are joking. you must see the difference between the original source of the funding, and the source of funding from the researcher's view?

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

That would be an interesting test if conducted intentionally and with proper controls to make meaningful conclusions possible. Otherwise, it's grasping at straws.

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

There may be vested interests, which does not mean their influence is equal or equivalent. Also, said vested interests do not affect individual researchers differently, which is a further potential source of bias. Finally, research typically is considered on its merit. As a matter of routine, no research is dismissed simply due to the source of its funding in the academic world. This researcher's work is no exception, as it has been argued against based on tangible scientific evidence. However, disclosure of funding sources is still one of the most basic safeguards against systematic corruption of published work. This has happened in the past, and it will always remain a possibility because science does not and cannot work according to whatever idealized model of incontrovertible proof and fully verifiable evidence you have in your mind. In the real world, there will always be subtle biases.

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

Actually, it's an interesting test on its own. It may have accidentally exposed a bias in editorial choices. In fact, if the journals do put any weight on source of funding of the research, can they claim to be "peer-reviewed"?

It would mean that they only give partial consideration based on the peer reviews and give some of consideration's weight to a source of funding.

Further, a case can be made that any journal that requires that all sources of funding be disclosed and yet does not make this requirement clear to its subscribers (and still maintains that it is a "peer-reviewed" publication) is a journal that is committing fraud. By making disclosure of the sourcing of funding a requirement, it makes it part of a pre-screening for review. So it gives some however-justifiable or however-little weight to a consideration which has nothing to do with peers' view on validity of the research.

Re:what conflict?

[martas]

Posts in this thread have explained several times how any why funding information is of legitimate interest. You seem to have your own notions about what scientific discourse and peer review mean. Where you get those ideas from I don't know, but I believe the academic community at large does not share them, nor should they, I think.

Re:what conflict?

[superwiz]

Sorry, "others agree with me" is not a counterargument. You haven't addressed any of the actual concerns. In fact, claiming that what's popular is ethical only validates the concern that demanding to know who sponsored the research creates an impetus for quashing legitimate lines of scientific inquiry. This should be a grave concern not only for the pedantic reason such as a wish for a purity of scientific process. As you are probably aware, quashing inquiry into medical efficacy of a certain naturally-occurring substance has resulted in the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Injecting mob-mentality-biased weights into choices of scientific lines of inquiry is very, very dangerous.

Sounds Good to Me

[wisnoskij]

If the fossil fuel industry wants to spend their money, that sounds great. I am not going to complain that they are wasting their money, and research in to alternative reasons why the climate is changing is important. As for declaring where his funding comes from, why? A scientific paper must stand alone, and not be judged by any other standard than if its logic is correct and if it is repeatable. All research is funded by someone, and no one is going to fund a paper that they have no conflicts of interest in. Probably far more worrisome is that each and every researcher has a huge personal and professional conflict of interest to have their research hypothesis proved correct and find interesting publishable results. That the funding also ubiquitously comes partied have how huge expectations of getting the results they want can also cause problems, but since no one has yet found a way to conduct research for free, it is not a solvable problem.

Re:Corporate interests

[TapeCutter]

Zero. Gore put his money where his mouth was and made an educational movie, the profit went straight back into his educational foundation, not his pocket. Gore is worth ~$100m, none of it has come from his activism on AGW, that activity has COST him money.

"Profit"??

[l2718]

If you don't understand how university research is funded, please don't write article summaries for slashdot on that topic. This scientist is described as having "made a fortune" for receiving research funds – but this is research money, not personal money. In fact his institution was given the $1.2M, and he just got to direct how it the money was spent (hint: his mortgage in not an allowable expense). Possibly the grants were used to cover part of his salary (though TFA doesn't say so), but that is a normal use of research funds and there are limitations on that.

I agree that he should have declared this funding in the paper (because the journal asks that funding sources be disclosed), but this is not him getting rich. This is him getting his research funded. You have a missing link:

1. Get research funds
2. Spend them on research expenses
3. ???
4. Profit!

Re:"Profit"??

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the NY Times article does seem to say how the money was spent:

"He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering. He has received little federal research money over the past decade and is thus responsible for bringing in his own funds, including his salary."

It would appear that he is paid entirely by what is called "soft money". i.e. If he doesn't bring in grant money he is out of a job. it seems unlikey that he would continue to get funded if his research results (and public statements) didn't conform to the desires of the corporations who are paying his salary.

Is it april 1 already?

[rossdee]

" Wei-Hock Soon"

  hock (v) 1. To sell or pawn something

Re: Corporate interests

[Required Snark]

Gore is right: the science is settled. In fact, it's been understood for nearly 200 years.

The existence of the greenhouse effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824. The argument and the evidence was further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838, and reasoned from experimental observations by John Tyndall in 1859, and more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.

In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell wrote “[The unchecked burning of fossil fuels] would have a sort of greenhouse effect”, and “The net result is the greenhouse becomes a sort of hot-house.” Bell went on to also advocate for the use of alternate energy sources, such as solar energy.

The basic mechanism is straightforward, even thought the physical system has many interacting processes.

The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form UV, visible, and near IR radiation, most of which passes through the atmosphere without being absorbed. Of the total amount of energy available at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), about 50% is absorbed at the Earth's surface. Because it is warm, the surface radiates far IR thermal radiation that consists of wavelengths that are predominantly much longer than the wavelengths that were absorbed (the overlap between the incident solar spectrum and the terrestrial thermal spectrum is small enough to be neglected for most purposes). Most of this thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and re-radiated both upwards and downwards; that radiated downwards is absorbed by the Earth's surface. This trapping of long-wavelength thermal radiation leads to a higher equilibrium temperature than if the atmosphere were absent.

The key observation is that human activity has changed the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and this has changed the equilibrium temperature of the system.

Strengthening of the greenhouse effect through human activities is known as the enhanced (or anthropogenic) greenhouse effect. This increase in radiative forcing from human activity is attributable mainly to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. According to the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations".

CO2 is produced by fossil fuel burning and other activities such as cement production and tropical deforestation. Measurements of CO2 from the Mauna Loa observatory show that concentrations have increased from about 313 ppm in 1960 to about 389 ppm in 2010. It reached the 400ppm milestone on May 9, 2013. The current observed amount of CO2 exceeds the geological record maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data. The effect of combustion-produced carbon dioxide on the global climate, a special case of the greenhouse effect first described in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius, has also been called the Callendar effect.

Al Gore, although not a scientist by training, is smart enough to understand this. You, on the other hand, are too biased and stupid to accept facts that have been well known for a long time.

Just to make sure that your are up to speed on basic facts, the world is not flat, the earth revolves around the sun, and the universe is more then 5000 years old. Glad that I could clear these things up for you.

Re:Bullshit.

[wisnoskij]

Should of just posted that as main level comment. Great, short, and very relevant.

Arguments against

[Okian Warrior]

Oh, and in case someone poo-pooh's my claim of arguments against, it's Freeman Dyson making some reasoned points(*) against the predictions of climate science.

Again, I make no judgement on the movement, but it's hard to refute Freeman Dyson as an acceptable authority.

(*) Point one is that everything is predicated on models which are shot through with fudge factors. Real models shouldn't have fudge factors, or should be able to show that the factors are derived from first principles.

(*) Point two is that topsoil is an enormous carbon reserve that has largely been overlooked. He calculated how much extra topsoil is needed to offset the carbon in the atmosphere (spread out, it's on the order of 1/100 of an inch) and opined that changing agriculture might be able to offset the CO2.

Re:Arguments against

[Okian Warrior]

Seriously, who is 'Freeman Dyson'? I've never heard of him.

Think back, remember that Star Trek episode where they flew the ship inside a sphere the size of a planetary orbit? Remember what they called it? It was a Dyson Sphere.

That Dyson. The one they named the sphere after.

He's still alive.

I'm framing this in terms you'll understand, since your parents haven't yet shown you how to use Google.

Re:Arguments against

[MisterSquid]

Someone upthread posted a presentation of evidence contra speculations about the problems with climate models such as Dyson's.

The consensus models for AGW are accurate. You and Dyson need speculate no more.

Re:Arguments against

[itzly]

That doesn't make Dyson an expert on climate.

Re:Arguments against

[dave420]

You should see what field Dyson works in, then come back here and apologise.

Re:Corporate interests

[gijoel]

Tu quoque is not a valid argument.

Show me where Al Gore fudged his results, and then failed to disclose his financial dealings.

Re:The other side of the coin...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... evil scientists... and our vast sums of grant money... that are sometimes sufficient to pay graduate students above poverty wages and buy relatively not-old equipment...

Your fundamental mistake is assuming that the notion of global warming is the result of an agenda, and not basic physics (famously first noted by Arrhenius well over 100 years ago) followed by applied observation. If you've really been so innundated by corporate media that you can't understand that anyone might seek objective truth without an agenda, it's time to turn off the TV and step back.

Re: Corporate interests

[Anonymous Coward]

It really depends on what science you care about. Certainly the greenhouse effect and some contributors to it are understood and agreed upon by most. Just like cyclic weather patterns, solar changes, photosynthesis, ocean currents, jet streams, earth's wobble, etc. are all well known.

What is still unknown is the percentage that all the different climate change contributors are impacting global warming.

Are humans a major contributor? (most theories say yes)
Are humans the only contributor? (some crackpots say yes)
Is the human influence so small it doesn't matter? (some crackpots say yes)
Is it due to burning fossil fuels or the removal/depletion of vegetation?

And then the arguments start about the best way to "fix" the problem. If we reduce our impact is that good enough or do we have to reverse it?

The biggest problem is all the models suck. The whole world should band together and build the exaflop supercomputer and try to solve this problem, then move on to cancer, then someone else can pick something...but most of academia to too damned greedy and egotistical to really work together...and that doesn't even count the corporate fat cats and government lackeys who fund everything.

Re:bad summary.

[dcollins]

Cited in the NY Times article; not in the papers published by Dr. Soon.

Re:Corporate interests

[circletimessquare]

climate change is not some scheme al gore cooked up for political purposes

but... for the sake of argument, let's make believe you are right for a moment

let's ignore the research of thousands of scientists, decades of observations, and go with the low iq fantasy that al gore, sitting on his gold toilet, made climate change up, just to hurt big energy donors to republicans

ok. and?

this is your argument?

"i know a guy once who committed murder and got away with it... so this guy here should get away with murder"

that's how you think right and wrong works?

it's like those moronic headlines about how many jets al gore flies in, or how much fossil fuel was burned to fly big wigs to a climate change conference. so what!

if someone does something wrong, *that hardly makes another wrong ok*

point out the grossest, most hypocritical, limousine liberal shallowness on the topic, and guess what einstein: climate change suddenly doesn't go away as a problem. the damage to our atmosphere from fossil fuels doesn't magically disappear and become a nontopic, just because you found a liberal somewhere who drives a gas guzzling 4x4. do you understand?

to not understand this very simple moral concept: that two wrongs don't make a right, simply makes you, and all of the ignorant propaganda that depends on that foundation, look fucking stupid and morally immature

Re:NYTimes wouldn't write this about...

[phantomfive]

Oh by the way, I an atmospheric scientist and I work with computer models every day. I have serious doubts about how well we can simulate the future climate of earth in 10 years, let alone 100 years into the future.

Your doubts have been supported. You got the time scale (ten years) about right, too. It seems like they are over-estimating the magnitude of various feedbacks.

What research

[publiclurker]

all he has to do is regurgitate whatever his owners tell him to say. It's not like he is doing anything remotely resembling real science.

Simple Economics

[LifesABeach]

Those who screen the loudest are the ones that stand to lose the most. I'm just surpized that the Kroch's haven't started making contingency plans; other than the XL Pipe Line. Maybe further up river?

Re:Simple Economics

[Opportunist]

Then why do we let the geriatrics who don't give a shit about this planet's shape in a decade run the show?

Re:Simple Economics

[LifesABeach]

Maybe the one's with long fangs will bequieth their wealth to them?

Re: Corporate interests

[517714]

The Alexander Graham Bell quote is revisionist history - there is no record of such statements prior to 1997. No one has ever published an image of any document with such words. Bell was anything but an environmentalist, he advocated alternative fuels because he believed that oil would be depleted within a decade. Your ability to copy verbatim from a Wikipedia article is unlikely to be confused with intelligence or critical thinking by anyone possessing either of those traits.

And even lower salary

[aepervius]

Many scientist I know of which are "only" post doc do not even get salary here , they get 1/2 or 1/3 salary as long as they have no real tenure / place. $1.2 million is a HUGE deal. Now we do HAVE an example of scientist paid off. And guess what ? It is on the skeptic side. It is funny to find so few climate skeptic "it is the sun/volcanoe/scientist are paid off" protesting that huge ethical breach.

Re: And even lower salary

[BlueTrin]

You are clearly not living in the US, people actually pay their professors over there.

huge difference

[aepervius]

There is not many article on cholesterol in comparison, believe it or not biology is far far more complicated than climate science, because of the many additional factor both camp "cholesterol is bad for you" and c"cholesterol is good for you" can be bot right, due to the way the homeostasis in our body work and what happen when it does not, body requirement, confounding factors etc.... This is why you see often study contradicting each other in biology "coffee is good / bad for you". This is not about settled science , this is about having far far many factors coming in. In climate science on the other hand , the system are huge, but the number of factors or confounding factors is relatively small compared to a human. Think about it : you cannot simulate properly a human by slicing him in single voxel of meat and simulating the interaction between each other. You can do that with atmosphere to predict short term and evolution, and you can do that on a different level to predict long term evolution.

Re:huge difference

[phantomfive]

You can do that with atmosphere to predict short term and evolution, and you can do that on a different level to predict long term evolution.

No you can't. At least, thus far, the computer models haven't been able to do it.

Re: Corporate interests

[phantomfive]

Gore is right: the science is settled. In fact, it's been understood for nearly 200 years [wikipedia.org].

That's kind of ignorant.....if we only were going to get warming from the CO2, then there would be little to worry about. It's the extra warming that we get from hypothesized feedbacks that really would destroy the world. Furthermore, even understanding the effect of CO2 is problematic, because it is mixing with other gasses and that makes a difference. There was a study in 2006 that further refined the effect that CO2 had on the atmosphere (narrowed the error bars).

We are still improving the computer models. If the science were settled, they would be much, much better at predicting.

Re:Our brief interglacial warming period

[riverat1]

The next "epoch of crushing cold" has been postponed indefinitely. Scientists have calculated that CO2 would have to get down to 240 ppm to get another ice age going.

Re:Nothing compared to what global warmers get

[Dutchmaan]

So where did you hear the other stories? Your psychic powers?

Re: Corporate interests

[BlueTrin]

I fail to see how it is bad if it benefits the world more than it causes harm.

Re: Corporate interests

[Livius]

If Al Gore is your idea of a scientist, then you don't get an opinion on what is or isn't settled.

Re: Corporate interests

[Required Snark]

I quoted Wikipedia. You referred to no source at all. Put up or shut up. Show some sources for your position. If you are right, then edit the Wikipedia page.

By the way, even if your are right, this is nit picking. It has no significant baring on when the phenomenon was proposed. Bell is just a well known figure, and he was not the first or last to bring up this possibility.

Re:Why focus on funding?

[sectokia]

There is no need for 'consensus' in true science. The facts speak for themselves. The truth is: nothing to do with global warming is truly a science. Consider maths physics chemistry and engineering. Their laws are not just predicted, they are verified TRILLIONS of times over, if not orders of magnitude more in almost every aspect of modern life. Global warming 'laws' and predictions constantly fail. Just look at the IPCC's own predictors nad how wrong they have been. They are dealing with a system of such complexity that unless they end up with a computational molecular simulator for the earth, they will never succeed. The truth is, global warming scientists can tell us as much about the climate as a physiologist can tell you about why we have consciousness and the way the brain works exactly. They can tell us as much about the climate as economicts can tell us about the economy. The complex systems simply cannot be figured out or predicted on the marco scale. The real scam of global warming is that a very poor social science is treated as a 'hard' science and constantly pushed as if their models are strong as our theories of gravity. When in reality they are piss weak models that have been wrong every time, and their real error bars are so far as to make them completely meaningless.

No reference to him in the Congressional Record

[Derling Whirvish]

Elected officials who want to block the EPA and legislation on climate change frequently refer to a handful of scientists who dispute anthropogenic climate change. One of scientists they quote most often is Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun's energy can largely explain recent global warming.

I can find no reference to him in the recent Congressional Records. I am a skeptic of the phrase "One of scientists they quote most often is Wei-Hock Soon" as this is the first I've ever heard of him. And you would think the Congressional Record of floor debates and speeches would be the place to find a mention of him if "elected officials who want to block the EPA and legislation on climate change frequently refer to [him]." Does anyone have a reference to back this statement up?

Re:No reference to him in the Congressional Record

[design1066]

They don't quote him just his findings

Re: Corporate interests

[Required Snark]

Your refutation is incorrect. Yes, there are other greenhouse gasses, but they add to the effect of CO2. By the way, I never specifically pointed out C02, although one of the Wikipedia quotes I included used it as an example. I wanted to limit the size of the quotes. Here is another reference showing various greenhouse gasses and their impact on the greenhouse effect:

By their percentage contribution to the greenhouse effect on Earth the four major gases are:

- water vapor, 36–70%

- carbon dioxide, 9–26%

- methane, 4–9%

- ozone, 3–7%

The major non-gas contributor to the Earth's greenhouse effect, clouds, also absorb and emit infrared radiation and thus have an effect on radiative properties of the atmosphere.

Frankly, I'm not completely sure what you are saying because you are incoherent: "the effect of CO2 is problematic, because it is mixing with other gasses and that makes a difference". Mixing how? Chemically? Via radiation? Interacting with clouds?

"... if we only were going to get warming from the CO2, then there would be little to worry about." Could you quote a source on that? Did you make it up? How about "There was a study in 2006 that further refined the effect that CO2 had on the atmosphere (narrowed the error bars)."? Any references for that one either? Did you mean to imply that reduced error bars mean that the effects of global climate change are not important? What are you talking about?

Now let's examine "We are still improving the computer models. If the science were settled, they would be much, much better at predicting." This is just flat out wrong. The quality of a simulation is not solely determined by knowledge of the basic science. For huge chaotic systems like global climate, the vast computational resources required limit predictive results. Furthermore, there is still a lot we don't understand, for example the effect of clouds, or the interaction between ocean circulation and climate. Note that these have nothing to do with the physics of greenhouse gasses, which is the nominal point under consideration.

Both climate modeling and computational resources are getting better on a yearly basis, as you pointed out. That doesn't mean the current state of the art is useless.

To conclude, you called me "kind of ignorant". I take personal offense to that. I just went to some effort to demonstrate that your are a thoughtless fool who seems incapable of logical argument and plays fast and loose with facts. Before you insult your betters you should examine your own mental resources. At this point all you have shown is that you are an intellectual failure.

Re: Corporate interests

[itzly]

"the effect of CO2 is problematic, because it is mixing with other gasses and that makes a difference". Mixing how? Chemically? Via radiation? Interacting with clouds?

The different gases overlap in their absorption bands, so that makes it hard to say what the individual contribution is. Also, while CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere, water vapour is not. For instance, most of the water vapour is in the lower layers of the atmosphere, and in the arctic areas there's very little water vapour at all, so in higher layers and in the arctic, greenhouse effect is mostly determined by CO2. In humid layers, water vapor is the main contributor.

What conflict of interests?

[Opportunist]

For a conflict of interests, you first of all have to have more than one interest.

Re:Cmon...

[Opportunist]

Yes, it has happened before. But you might have notice that every time something dramatic changed in the climate of the earth, the top level of the food chain was yanked and thrown away.

You might want to check who's sitting there currently and who's going to get replaced next time around.

Re:Same shit. Different decade.

[Opportunist]

You're really asking this in a country where a not too small portion of the population lives in areas that are routinely hoovered up and spit out by tornadoes? A population who lives in trailers in exactly those areas, too?

Really?

Re:How do Climate Change Believers Profit?

[BlueStrat]

Hmm, what industries could profit from climate change true believers?

How about governments, those who run them, and those tied to and who profit from government? They gain ever more power & control over ever-wider-ranging areas of life and have another excuse to squeeze the marks for more of their wealth.

Strat

Re:NYTimes wouldn't write this about...

[Cochonou]

Oh by the way, I an atmospheric scientist and I work with computer models every day. I have serious doubts about how well we can simulate the future climate of earth in 10 years, let alone 100 years into the future. We just recently began incorporating micro-biology into the climate models. They are very crude and in my opinion, it's these very organisms that over the long term, will play an ultimate role in the carbon/oxygen balance. Until we have these features much better modeled, we cannot say with any sort of certainty what the earth's temperature will look like in the long term. At this point, there is still a lot of variability in the outcome, by make very minute changes to the model initial assumptions.

Yes, of course. The current models point to a strong global warming. They might very well be wrong.
The matter at hand is actually quite simple. Knowing that the current models predict a salient danger, would you rather:
- Act now to reduce carbon emissions, given corrective actions are very expensive and might turn out to be useless at the end ?
- Wait for more information before acting, knowing that delaying the corrective actions might have very nefarious results in the end ?
The choice is not straightforward. If it was, there wouldn't be such a debate.

William Briggs

[pipingguy]

From http://wmbriggs.com/post/15337...

"It was at this point real dread set in. It looked like the four of us were telling the truth. We were. And to the deluded who cherish the genetic fallacy this appeared that our result might be true, too. So the mentally feeble David Appell (sometime scourge of the comment box) put a FOIA request to the employer of Legates, but the poor soul was rebuffed because no state monies were involved in the writing of the paper. As we claimed. Then Greenpeace contacted the employer of Soon with the same intent, and Greenpeace discovered that Soon was in the same state as those who receive Greenpeace money. Which is to say, Soon in his career received money from sources other than our beneficent government. But he didn’t get anything for the paper the four of us wrote. How disappointed Greenpeace must have been to have discovered that."

Re:Corporate interests

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be ridiculous. Al Gore's notoriety, famous for making a movie that was full of lies - worse than any Michael Moore movie, then started his own TV channel that was bought by Al Jazeera. He still jets all over the world talking utter shite about things he knows little about.

I would like

[wvcaver9588]

I would like to see who is supporting the pro global warming

Re:Our brief interglacial warming period

[riverat1]

Many things drive climate but greenhouse gases are definitely one of them.

Re: Corporate interests

[phantomfive]

To conclude, you called me "kind of ignorant". I take personal offense to that.

You're right. Maybe I should have said, "You express yourself poorly." You said the science is settled, but even you yourself point out places where it is not.

If you want to get a taste of the difficulty, then here. This explains science you are probably already familiar with.

Re:Our brief interglacial warming period

[riverat1]

Here's the story with a link to the abstract.

I'm shocked!

[rochrist]

Shocked I tell you! Who would have expected this??

facile comparisons

[Uberbah]

Some of them even play for the same team - Clinton pushed through laws Reagan could have only dreamed of: NAFTA, gutting welfare, telecom deregulation, and repealing Glass-Steagall. The "mainstream media" serves the same status quo interests as Fox, and does it better. Everyone knows Sean Hannity is a chicken hawk hack, but Tim Russert on the other hand! He's got that patented tuffbutfair gravitas, which he gave away to Cheney every time he was on his show.

Remember all the complaints that it was time for OWS to start picking issues and candidates, getting involved with electoral politics? That was frustration from political operatives that OWS didn't immediately turn itself into tools of the DNC the way the Teabaggers let themselves be co-opted by the Kochs.

Re:Corporate interests

[circletimessquare]

Not just ANY liberal, THE liberal Al Gore who is CENTRAL to this whole scheme.

i stopped reading there

above in my comment i mock the stereotype of the low iq conservative who thinks al gore invented climate change

you respond by continuing with that low iq "thought"

making you exactly the problem i am talking about

genius:

if al gore never existed we would still have climate change

because we dump co2 in the atmosphere

which is the actual fucking problem. right? do you understand moron?

if al gore never existed, would pumping CO2 into the atmosphere make pink bubble gum and unicorns instead?

it requires evil libruls to turn too much CO2 in the atmosphere into a problem?

what exactly is the hilarious ignorant socially retarded thought process by which al gore is the problem, and not the CO2 we dump into the atmosphere?

do you have the slightest tiniest fucking clue how fucking stupid you sound?

Problably didn't consider that talking point

[Uberbah]

Probably more for being pro-climate change.

How do you figure? Solar panels are pennies on the ten thousand dollar bill next to oil. Fellating Exxon is a thoroughly bipartisan endeavor - Obama has opened up more land to drilling than Bush and Cheney, including the eastern seaboard. He brags that the U.S. is producing more oil and gas than it has the ability to transport to market. Biden's son is a top executive at Ukrainian energy company. BP was allowed to savage the Gulf of Mexico and get away with paying a fraction of the costs of mitigation. Politicians from both parties fall over themselves in the rush to pledge their love of coal.

Government has a heavy bias toward fossil fuels. If there was a bias resulting from government-funded science grants, it would be against climate change, not for it.

Re:Problably didn't consider that talking point

[Plumpaquatsch]

Probably more for being pro-climate change.

How do you figure? Solar panels are pennies on the ten thousand dollar bill next to oil. Fellating Exxon is a thoroughly bipartisan endeavor - Obama has opened up more land to drilling than Bush and Cheney, including the eastern seaboard. He brags that the U.S. is producing more oil and gas than it has the ability to transport to market. Biden's son is a top executive at Ukrainian energy company. BP was allowed to savage the Gulf of Mexico and get away with paying a fraction of the costs of mitigation. Politicians from both parties fall over themselves in the rush to pledge their love of coal.

Government has a heavy bias toward fossil fuels. If there was a bias resulting from government-funded science grants, it would be against climate change, not for it.

Case in point: just look at the GAO Climate Change report, detailing expenditures on "Funding for climate change activities", by far the most money goes to the Dept. of Energy, which of course doesn't spend a penny on actual climate science, but on things like "energy conservation" (ooh, evil) and "Fossil Energy Research and Development "

Yes you read that right. The tax that according to the denialist PR gets wasted on climate research to quite a large extend goes into "Fossil Energy Research".

Riiiiiiiight

[Uberbah]

Because you'd have the same "leave the Brittney scientist alone" reaction if the situation was completely reversed. If an oft-cited study demonstrating that climate change was a real thing suddenly turned out to have been funded on the sly by Michael Moore, Al Gore, or Greenpeace, or the liberal booogyman of your choice. You'd still be calling it character assassination and wanting the science to "speak for itself."

Yup. Sure. You becha.

Re:Riiiiiiiight

[sumdumass]

So to you the character assasination is more important than the science itself?

Re: Riiiiiiiight

[stealth.c]

And now we see character assassination visited upon the person protesting character assassination. Classy.

Re: Riiiiiiiight

[Strangely Familiar]

Pointing out double standards is not character assasination. It is a legitimate form of debate. Character assassination is like when the FBI tries to show that a civil rights leader is having an extramarital affair. The affair has nothing to do with the civil rights movement. I don't think sumdumass properly understands character assassination either. Pointing out an undisclosed conflict of interest directly relevant to the issues discussed in scientific papers is not character assassination. It is pointing out a relevant conflict of interest. The fact that it was not disclosed according to modern standards makes it relevant misbehavior. Character assassination would be accusing Dr. Soon of misbehavior that had nothing to do with the scientific papers in question.

Re: Riiiiiiiight

[Uberbah]

Asking for consistency is "character assassination" on what planet? Asking a conservative if he'd have no problem with Michael Moore covertly funding AGW studies is no more "assassination" than asking an Obama fan why she stopped having a problem with the Patriot Act after Obama was elected.

Where you dropped on the head as a child, or something?

Re:Bullshit.

[Sardaukar86]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I second Wisnoskij, this was the most succinct (at 6.5 mins) piece I've seen on the topic, many thanks for the link.

Also a good incentive to read up on Richard Muller's other work. Apparently he was somewhat sceptical so he went out and did his own research; he's not terribly sceptical any more.

Wow...

[KenHansen]

$1.2M over the past decade?!?! That is $120K/yr... Not quite a lottery-size payout... Oh, and Koch Brothers? Come on, can't the left find another boogie man to pin all their fears on? How much money was spent on the other side to re-affirm what 'everyone' agrees with?

I would *hope* he got paid a lot!

[billstewart]

There are only three good reasons for promoting climate change denialism.

• - Protecting corporate interests, and
• - Supporting the political party that protects those corporate interests, and
• - Annoying people who oppose that political party.

Protecting corporate interests by promoting bad science is something you shouldn't do at all, but if you're going to do it for them, they should be paying you really well. Supporting that particular political party's protection of their corporate sponsors' interests by promoting bad science is something cynical enough you should also only do if they're paying you well for it. (They pay their other marketers well.) Annoying liberals is something you can do for lolz is something you can do for free if that floats your boat.

If you're going to do "scientific research" to disprove climate change, and you don't get some outrageously large "research grant", you're getting ripped off, and you should at least go join a union like the Screen Actors' Guild so you can get paid scale and overtime. (SAG union rules presumably say the studio is supposed to pay for costumes, but if you need to spring for a white lab coat and some glassware and blinkenlights to make a demo tape, that's probably ok, even if they use that in production.)

Re: I would *hope* he got paid a lot!

[tehcyder]

There is another reason to do so: The sincere belief that the alarmists are a threat to human survival. Their unconditional animosity against much-needed energy sources, if acted out in the political sphere to the degree that they wish, would doom billions to poverty and death. There is no doubt some risk in continuing to use fossil fuels the way we do, but governments are not who I would trust to quantify and hedge against that risk. They are much more likely to overreact or underreact for political reasons, costing the world countless lives. This is an unpopular opinion I'm sure. The technocratic idealists here who align with the alarmists are positive they know better how the world should run than those SUV-driving rubes out there, but such paternalistic hubris has gotten mankind into huge trouble before.

Bashing Teh Government will always go down well in right wing circles, but it's a pretty feeble argument against doing anything.

I suppose we should just let The Invisible Hand sort everything out?

Isn't this just shooting the messenger?

[stealth.c]

Whenever scientists publish a controversial new cosmological theory there is no gossiping over who paid them. Because it doesn't matter. If their interpretation of the data is wrong, or if their model is wrong, all someone has to do is correct their work. Yet when it comes to "climate science" much ink is spilled disparaging the motives and character of anyone who challenges the orthodoxy. If he's wrong, show how he's wrong. I don't give a rat's behind who paid for what. The work either contributes to our understanding or it doesn't.

Yes or no.

[Uberbah]

You'd still be crying "character assassination" if a pro-AGW study turned out to have been funded by Al Gore without disclosure, and was met with the same criticism? It's an apples-to-apples comparison, so you should have no problem answering a simple question with a simple monosyllabic answer.

Yes or no.

Yes or no.

Yes or no.

Re:Yes or no.

[david_thornley]

If a study was funded by Gore with no disclosure, then the person doing the study was doing it unethically and the paper and person should be suspect. No difference.

However, in a field where almost all scientists say one thing and very few say another thing, finding that a scientist on the minority side being unethical is more significant than finding one on the majority side.

Re:People that live in glass houses...

[Karmashock]

Then talk about the evidence. When you make it political then the discussion becomes political. And when that happens your evidence becomes worthless unless it is politically useful.

This is something I think a lot of people have a very hard time with...

The means are the ends. Think about that.

The outcomes are the consequences of the actions taken to achieve them.

The house is built brick by brick out of the specific bricks you're laying.

Point? If you're house is built out of political bricks... if the arguments are made by politicians and pushed by lawyers and the consequences of laws and PR campaigns... then you built a house out of politics, lawyers, and PR.

Is that what you want to do or do you want to build this house out of science?

Because if you want to do that... then you're going to have to make your bricks out of science and not politics. Which means all the political bullshit gets put back into the fucking box it came out of and we can just talk about the science.

Refuse to do this... and its just politics. Nothing different from a million other political issues and science just doesn't even begin to fucking matter.

Choose.

Science or politics.

Re:NYTimes wouldn't write this about...

[dave420]

People keep trotting out this "very expensive" excuse, but so far it seems a decent, effective amount to spend on this problem would be less than 0.1% of the GDP of any nation wishing to get serious.

Re:Cmon...

[dave420]

You do realise that the increased sea ice is because ice on the land is melting, right? Of course you don't. You've thought about this for 20 seconds and decided you know more than all those scientists out there who have been studying this for generations. Yes, climate change has happened before, but never at this rate (without a comet/asteroid impact). It saddens me that a society can let loose people like you upon the world with such a flawed understanding of science.

Re:People that live in glass houses...

[dave420]

The difference is this clown's papers regularly get destroyed by other scientists for being bad science, and this clown keeps hiding the conflict of interests when he's specifically required not to. That's the difference. It's not about moral high-ground, but integrity. This joker has very little, and those calling him out on it are being attacked for running a smear campaign, when it's nothing of the sort.

Re:How do Climate Change Believers Profit?

[dave420]

You might want to read where the NIPCC got its funding from, how it kept that quiet, and the validity of its science. None of those answers point to respectable science.

Re:How AGW "Scientists" Profit from Gov Interests

[dave420]

The difference is they disclose where their funding comes from, instead of lying about it. Oh, and they put out proper papers which are not thoroughly torn apart by other teams around the world. Apart from that, though, yeah! Spot on!

Re:funding of science

[dave420]

They have attacked his science - it's been thoroughly debunked time and time again. This time, however, it is shown that the scientist in question didn't disclose his funding, which is an ethics problem regardless of the quality of your science.

Re:People that live in glass houses...

[Karmashock]

You're painting a one sided story here. Don't forget the IPCC was caught citing a climbing magazine for evidence that the Himalayas were melting. And yet you expect people to take them seriously.

What is more, this sort of discussion is not productive if what you want is a scientific discussion. Your position here and this argument is inherently political. And that means you are pulling the discussion in a political direction. If you do that... the science doesn't matter.

Let me repeat this.

If you make a political argument - THE SCIENCE DOES NOT MATTER.

It just becomes politics.

If you want to have a scientific discussion, then have a scientific discussion. Science doesn't have anything to do with who is making the argument. A hobo on the street could say something more scientifically valid then anyone you could name. The arguments stand and fall on their own merits. You say this guy pushes garbage science that gets torn apart by his peers? Okay... but that is a political argument. The scientific argument is to simply continue to tear apart his arguments SCIENTIFICALLY.

The means ARE the ends. Everything is the consequence of the process.

If you win this argument via political means then science will not have won... politics will have won. And if politics win scientific discussions then you will be setting a precedent that that in anything controversial science should be entirely ignored and both sides should just cut right to the political arguments.

I really don't understand why so many people don't grasp what they're doing when they reflexively resort to political arguments.

Stop. Back out. See the big picture here. It is precisely this reflexive political strategy that has caused the AGW issue to become such a shit show. I know you don't want to hear this and you're just going to say "but its all the other political faction's fault"... It isn't. You're every bit as much to blame as they are here. You're making political arguments... not just you but a lot of people that support AGW... and those political arguments undermine the science by making the issue political.

Here you might say "but I had to make it political because X"... then the science is irrelevant and never can be relevant. Game over for science in this issue.

Or you can back off... and just patiently be scientific about it. That will require common courtesy, open debate, the due process of investigating evidence and evaluating arguments. And most importantly an open mind.

If you can't do that... then Al Gore was almost right when he said the science settled. Rather, the science will just be irrelevant because the politics will be the only thing that matters anymore.

It will just be which ever side gets more votes. That isn't science.

Ad hominum attacks again?

[FreedomFirstThenPeac]

I thought ad hominum attacks were the preferred tool of the people with no science to use.

Re:And when did the SATELLITES go up?

[Jane Q. Public]

Well, I've got an advantage over you, apparently. At least I read the comments I am responding to, so I can see whether my argument is actually refuted before I even write it.

Re:Why focus on funding?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Global warming 'laws' and predictions constantly fail.

Hilarious claim in a discussion about Willie Soon - according to whom it should now be way colder than in the 50s.

Re:How do Climate Change Believers Profit?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Hmm, what industries could profit from climate change true believers?

How about governments, those who run them, and those tied to and who profit from government? They gain ever more power & control over ever-wider-ranging areas of life and have another excuse to squeeze the marks for more of their wealth.

Strat

Perfectly valid argument - if the utterance of "terrorism" didn't gave the government far more power than Global Warming ever could. IOW stick it where Soon's sunspots don't shine.

Re:Even Better Title: How to Profit from Climate C

[ivano]

Can you show me that climatologists are getting their money from "green" industries? Because I think paying an institution to accept an engineer into an astrophysics institute so his publications on solar output can seem more authoritative is as conspiratorial as it gets: But you just skip over that bit - how convenient.

Re:Corporate interests

[ivano]

He profited from a market that doesn't exist. He's better than I thought!

Re: Corporate interests

[517714]

You truly are an idiot - just as Alexander Graham Bell predicted you would be. One cannot prove that Bell did not say the thing attributed to him, but no one can find such a quote before 1997 (75 years after his death) from the falsified biography which was attempting to make Bell relevant, but no one has an image of an original document or contemporary reference to support the quotation - it is drawn from whole cloth. I can cite the source relevant to his supposed advocacy for alternative fuels which clearly shows he had no environmental concerns and confirms my statement as to his reasoning which were strictly economic contrary to many of the current attempts to rehabilitate his image as a forward-looking environmentalist instead of an industrialist: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/...

It isn't nitpicking, I simply do not believe your post required more than a cursory response. I have no obligation to address the many falsehoods you put forth, but let's start with your initial statement, "Gore is right: the science is settled. In fact, it's been understood for nearly 200 years" Again, this is revisionist history. Fourier ultimately dismissed "greenhouse" effects in his published works which disqualifies him from being credited with an understanding of the issue of planetary temperature. https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~r...

If you want to insist that Fourier understood the issue, then you must conclude as he did that the atmosphere was not part of the issue of the the planet's temperature. I am confident you do not agree with his conclusion.

Svante Arrhenius described the greenhouse effect in 1896 which at 119 years ago is not really all that near 200 years.

Perhaps you should actually educate yourself on this issue. It is clear that your sources are dubious, and that you are not a critical thinker, but merely a parrot spewing talking points.

Are you really defending him?

[johncandale]

Are you really trying to suggest he wasn't corrupted by the money? Even if he didn't 'take it home', he was still gaining status from it in soft ways.

Duh

[cwsumner]

"Here's 1.2 mil. We want you to tell us that it is possible that global warming is being caused by the sun"

The Sun causes all warming, there is no other source of energy for us. (And no, things that originally came from the sun don't count...)

But, if you want to know if it is possible that the Sun could cause what is called "Anthropomorphic global warming", then yes of course it could. It is already known to do so. The berden of proof is on the other side, to prove that it is -not- caused by changes in the sun !

So you kept wearing the clown shoes

[Uberbah]

...and skipped right over the fact that Hillary would be talking about nothing but WMD's if they had actually been found in Iraq. Because the reason she hasn't been president the last 6+ years is her vote to invade Iraq.

To stop Saddam from using/possessing WMD's.

As to JEB Bush, it is hard to imagine him coming out touting wmds found in Iraq, when his own brother did not do so as President.

Clown. Shoes. Iraq is why Democrats took back Congress in 2006, and Republicans across the country took a beating in 2008. Do explain why everyone from the Bush family and the Bush Administration wouldn't be talking about these discovered WMD's if they vindicated W's war.

I wont hold my breath, because you'd first explain the workings of a perpetual motion machine before you could square that circle.

Oh, I don't suppose it occurred to you that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is unlikely to want to bring attention to the fact that ISIS came into being on her watch.

You do know that Hillary was at State, and not the Pentagon, right? The Hillary that was all set to "obliterate" Iran back in 2008? The Megathatcher would have re-invaded Iraq two years ago to fight the monster her boss's administration created.

When I did a Google search of her comments about ISIS, her statements were mostly supportive of Obama's strategy

Too bad you stopped your Goolgling. Because yes, the USG under Obama did create ISIS, by arming, funding and training extremists to fight Assad. Echoing the strategy of the first modern right-wing president, Carter, who funded the proto-Taliban in Afghanistan to provoke the USSR into stating what American Exceptionalists would call a "humanitarian intervention".

But that's the ever-present problem for right-wingers: the only legit criticism of Democrats comes from the Left.

when in fact the primary justification given at the time was Saddam's refusal to abide by the agreement he made at the end of the first Gulf War.

Agreements which entirely revolved around...Saddam's WMD's. Like I said, clown shoes.

It is interesting that the Huffington Post does not use the "degraded over time" argument.

What's interesting is that your own link never mentions WMD's, or Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Because it's not a weapon of mass destruction if it's incapable of causing mass destruction.

Because it's not a weapon of mass destruction if it's incapable of causing mass destruction.

Because it's not a weapon of mass destruction if it's incapable of causing mass destruction.

Because it's not a weapon of mass destruction if it's incapable of causing mass destruction.

Repeated so it might sink in this time, even through the clown shoes.