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Lawmakers Seek Information On Funding For Climate Change Critics
HughPickens.com writes: John Schwartz reports at the NY Times that prominent members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are demanding information from universities, companies and trade groups about funding for scientists who publicly dispute widely held views on the causes and risks of climate change. In letters sent to seven universities, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who is the ranking member of the House committee on natural resources, sent detailed requests to the academic employers of scientists who had testified before Congress about climate change. "My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships." Grijalva asked for each university's policies on financial disclosure and the amount and sources of outside funding for each scholar, "communications regarding the funding" and "all drafts" of testimony. Meanwhile Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. sent 100 letters to fossil fuel companies, trade groups and other organizations asking about their funding of climate research and advocacy asking for responses by April 3. "Corporate special interests shouldn't be able to secretly peddle the best junk science money can buy," said Senator Markey, denouncing what he called "denial-for-hire operations."
The letters come after evidence emerged over the weekend that Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had failed to disclose the industry funding for his academic work. The documents also included correspondence between Dr. Soon and the companies who funded his work in which he referred to his papers and testimony as "deliverables." Soon 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. "What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change," says Kert Davies.
The letters come after evidence emerged over the weekend that Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had failed to disclose the industry funding for his academic work. The documents also included correspondence between Dr. Soon and the companies who funded his work in which he referred to his papers and testimony as "deliverables." Soon 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. "What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change," says Kert Davies.
The President’s 2014 Budget proposes over $ 21.4 billion for climate change activities
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Of this there can be no argument. It is established fact.
So you will have no problem proving your claim ?
and the wall street banks were salivating at the thought of trading carbon credits
your point being?
a lot of money to be made on "green" crap
At one time, most people thought the earth was flat. That didn't make it factual.
The correct sentence should have been: "At one time, most people thought the people of former times thought the earth was flat. That didn't make it factual."
There never was a time when people, who were really interested in the actual shape of the earth thought it was flat. There have been models of a flat earth, but they existed solely because no one actually cared about the real shape. It was just assumed in the models to be flat because it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Old Germans believed the world was a tree -- but just in the sense that the World Tree Yggdrasil made for some nice stories. They never tried to map their trips assuming they would be walking along the bark of an actual oak.
As soon as the necessity arised to know about the real shape, it was pretty clear from the beginning that the earth was round.
Same as we did on the "lead in gasoline isn't harmful", "asbestos is safe to breathe" and "smoking tobacco doesn't cause cancer" instances, yes.
Industry runs the same playbook over and over, and reasonable people counter it the same way each time...
I thought that the claim about consensus was based on peer reviewed papers that had been published and not on the public stance of individual climate scientists.
The following article looked at 12,000 papers and found a 97% consensus regarding human-caused global warming.
http://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-cook-et-al-2013.html
I'm curious as to what data you used to determine that the 95% consensus statement is a proven lie. Care to elaborate?
No, Progressives are authoritarian and in some cases totalitarian fascists, not NAZI's. Liberals always have been and always will be liberal.
Bull-fucking-shit. AGW is about the observation that increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere lead to increased energy in atmospheric systems, increased surface temperature, increased ocean temperatures, and increased absorption of CO2 into the oceans leading to acidification.
This idea that the laws of the fucking universe somehow have to abide by YOUR political ideology is so ludicrous as to make me believe you either a fucking moron or a religious fanatic.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
>The letters come after evidence emerged over the weekend that Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, had failed to disclose the industry funding for his academic work. The documents also included correspondence between Dr. Soon and the companies who funded his work in which he referred to his papers and testimony as "deliverables." Soon 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. "What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change," says Kert Davies.
Do you have any problem with investigating *all* scientists working on climate, or only on one side of the issue?
No, where did I say that I did?
Scientists are routinely investigated. Not just climate scientists but all scientists of all disciplines - it's part of the process. Accounting for the money used to fund your research is a major part of modern science and it is carefully tracked and audited, as are the sources used by groups and individuals.
It is your responsibility to disclose them in your published work, but that doesn't mean that people aren't also going to check if you don't - that's exactly why this story exists and why it is important. He didn't do so and an investigation caught it. This sort of financial scrutiny of scientists is not uncommon, and it happens to *all* scientists, even ones who don't work on climate science.