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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.
SO, they're only investigating the funding sources of people who disagree with their position.
Well, that couldn't be biased at all, now could it?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"My colleagues and I cannot perform our duties if research or testimony provided to us is influenced by undisclosed financial relationships."
That line from the mouth of a politician is pure gold. Pot, meet Kettle.
I'm tired of these evil republicans going on witch-hunts after scientists! Those evil right-wingers hate anyone who disagrees with their religion and [interrupted, whispers]..
Oh wait, this is a brave Democrat who is uncovering a vast evil conspiracy because some evil slimeball had the gall to say that global warming is real but that the apocalyptic predictions of natural disasters made by the religion of Environmentalism aren't supported by real facts*.
Carry on, burn him at the stake, expose all of his emails because only those who exercise the faith properly have a right to privacy.
* Seriously, it's now considered blasphemy to say that Global Warming is real but that the world hasn't ended. You know what's funny? Those wacky Christian radio guys who predict the end of the world at least have the decency to admit the world didn't end the next day. Being in the religion of Environmentalism means you don't even have to exercise that level of introspection.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
If only there was some way of detaching politics from science.... Hm....
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
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.
.subject comment seE
Well, I suppose it's a good thing if it can be demonstrated that the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel interests are behind the vanishingly small number of still-reputable scientists issuing climate change lies. But, really, when you have 98% or 99% consensus, you don't need to wonder if the 1 or 2% are lying or just wrong. There are no areas in life where we find ourselves unable to operate with a consensus of 98% or 99%.
So the problem is not that a few scientists are wrong, or willing to be bought. The problem is that the people we elect are willing to destroy the planet for the benefit of their reelection. And the problem is that substantial numbers of voters are stupid and so incredibly self-interested that they are willing to trade their children's future for some politician's "promise" of "jobs, jobs, jobs."
Capitalism as we see it is a complete failure, allowing 85 individuals to control equivalent assets to several billion people, and legally treating the destruction of the planet as just another externality. "Democracy" as it is practiced in the United States is a game played by advertisers and strategists; really, all you need do to understand the depth of the fraud is to realize that advertisers "buy" points with advertising buys. It's not a democracy if you've learned you can predictably alter the point spread with a "buy" of a certain size.
There is no longer *any* legitimacy to our national-level institutions, and for the Senate or House to "investigate" fraud is a joke.
Of this there can be no argument. It is established fact.
So you will have no problem proving your claim ?
University research funding is pretty straightforward, corporations, non-profits, and governments contribute money for research that supports their agenda. What's a little trickier is consulting fees paid to researchers. I think if we were to evenly investigate every climate scientist the climate alarmists would be the dirtier ones.
If 95%+ of scientists agree with each other ... and are NOT all paid by the same corporations ...
but the scientists who disagree with them ARE all (100%) paid by the same corporations ...
I think you're implying bias on the wrong side.
Or do they just not care?
They think the problems will be at least decades away. They feel justified in believing this because some people have always been saying the world will end tomorrow.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They just play the denier's game. Attacking AGW folks because of funding was one of the first games the deniers played, as they couldn't come up with enough solid science on their side.
I see, so pseudo-skeptics can be as shrill and hyperbolic as they please, and that's just fine, but the scientific community is just supposed to endlessly take it up the rear.
What are you afraid of? That it will turn out most of the shit people like you believe is bullcrap invented by the Koch Brothers?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Come out! And accept your punishment, with shall be death by burning at the stake! You're a witch!
Fuck all this! Make the damn politicians who write the damn laws reveal their sponsors! Then maybe they can complain about other people
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Read more...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...
Billions and billions of dollars have been squandered on this boondoggle. No wonder so many people don't accountability.
Nice trick - pretend you have 98% consensus in order to proclaim all who disagree with you as quacks - all while neglecting to say of course what exactly constitutes "agree"...
Then when you disagree with anyone in particular who was in the original grouping, you can claim they were part of the wacky 2%.
When you have people disagreeing with your position on the level of Dyson, you really need to re-think how grounded your position truly is, as opposed to "consensus through fear and intimidation".
Oh, and Soon being paid for by Koch? That was in studies long ago, not even the current study in question... but there's another fact you'd hate for people to know, because it means that you are lying when you claim the study you don't like is funded by Koch.
All that matters of course is you discredit anyone who disagrees with you, just like the Scientologists. We all know how trustworthy they are. If I were you I'd think much harder about the intellectual company I keep.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If only there was some way of detaching politics from science.... Hm....
Easy: make sure to elect only religious people as politicians. So they won't need to bother with science, and can base laws & regulations on holy books alone. While in the meantime, the rest of society can use actual science to discover how the world around us works (and improve our lives in the process).
Oh wait...
We should uncover funding sources of people and organizations that are using that money to lie to us. It is a good thing to uncover the fact that big oil is funding the climate change deniers. But why stop there? Let's start calling upon our representatives to disclose who is funding their campaigns when they draft and vote for legislation that's only in a corporation's benefit. Since they seem interested in uncovering the money trail that leads to lies, perhaps Grijalva, Markey, Boxer, and Whitehouse can lead by example and disclose who funded their campaigns.
It's the natural tendency for people to interpret evidence in the way that supports their prejudice. Go to any football match (I'm thinking soccer as I'm a Brit, but I guess USian football is probably the same) and ask two supporters from different sides what they honestly thought of the merits of a referee's decision. 90% of the time they will agree with decisions that went their way and disagree with decisions that went the other way.
My mum watches a load of those "psychic detectives" TV programmes, and whenever I watch one with her, I steadfastly refuse to accept as credible anything I'm seeing. Why? Because I don't believe in psychic powers. All that evidence, all those police officers saying they would never have solved the case without the psychic's help, I disregard it out of hand. I don't know why it's invalid, I can't prove that any of them are lying and I don't have the statistics to hand about how often "psychics" turn out to be time-wasting frauds that get in the way of investigations, I don't care. I've made my mind up and I ignore any evidence that I am presented with. I guess I'm just as bad as AGW-deniers.
Who is jackbooting anyone? Last time I checked, it was the psuedo-skeptics who were comparing scientists to child molesters.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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...
You're referring of course to the billions of people around the world who drive cars, use electricity, burn trees for heat, or any other activity which contributes to climate change, yes?
Convince the world to go back to a pre-industrial standard of living, and all the industry funded "science" in the world won't make a difference. There won't BE a fossil fuel industry.
Very interesting view from one of the authors.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Yes, governments.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sure.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
From TFA:
When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.
Now the politically correct enforcers are going to jackboot all over anyone who has a different opinion?
Obviously if they don't agree with us, they must be corrupt or worse.
That's some Nazi shit right there.
No, the fact that he has been caught not disclosing his funding sources and been caught breaking ethical guidelines is what makes him corrupt.
Just a thought.
Disclosing your funding source is standard practice. Not doing so is very sketchy.
I'm not clear as to what you are referring to. What "smells like fascism"?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So you are claiming that transparency is fascism. O...K...
Clearly they are not very good at their jobs because the source of funding is irrelevant. Unless you are accusing them of outright fraud, what matters is the research itself, it's replication and peer review.
Right, but the rule for publishing is that you disclose who paid for your research. If you don't do that then people aren't going to take the research seriously. Your funding source is most certainly not irrelevant at all. It doesn't mean that you automatically dismiss any work that us funded by an organisation you don't like, or who you assume has an agenda - you look at the research itself - but if you don't disclose then you're nowhere.
That shutting down funding of a contrary point of view is not exactly scientific best practice.
Who said anything about shutting it down?
All they want is for him to disclose who is funding him, as is standard practice in science.
Now this just uses the same argument: Climate sceptics have to doubt AGW, because otherwise they would lose their financial founding. And to support that, the lawmakers want to actually know who founds the climate sceptics.
Can you link to something, well, academic? A newspaper article is not where rational people go for their scientific information. I can see where you went wrong.
Burning trees for heat is as close to carbon neutral as you can get (hint: they're made from carbon removed from the atmosphere).
If we are questioning Soon because in the PAST he had funding from sources disliked by the left, why shouldn't we question all the original IPCC reports since the head of the IPCC (Rajendra Pachauri) was using his position of power as a sexual predator?
I mean, it could well be he didn't care about the environment, he was just there to gather power and hypnotize potential prey with his positions (a pretty well known technique to get laid in college is to proclaim you are an environmentalist regardless of your actual leanings).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All the article does is highlight a few carefully selected weather stations where the temperature records have been adjusted. It doesn't explain why the adjustments were incorrect. It also doesn't show what the unadjusted temperature record would look like if you took all the station data.
Luckily, somebody else did that: http://judithcurry.com/2015/02...
Financial disclosure is standard procedure in scientific publishing. Problem is, of course, that few AGW denialists ever publish anything in scientific journals.
my poor killfile is so full of deniers that it's not able to fit one more wafer-thin mint.
Hey, Liberals are nazis now, so transparency being fascism is perfectly cromulent in this worldview.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Powerful people in government going after citizens who are critical of the party line. That's what smells.
Sure, if you want to argue that an inquisition is just an attempt to achieve transparency. Then yes, I will argue that it is fascism.
No, Progressives are authoritarian and in some cases totalitarian fascists, not NAZI's. Liberals always have been and always will be liberal.
No, the fact that he has been caught not disclosing his funding sources and been caught breaking ethical guidelines is what makes him corrupt.
No. The work was unfunded. The publisher required the authors to disclose any funding for the work. Soon disclosed no funding for the work because there was no funding for the work, and disclosing no funding was the proper thing to do. In fact, it would have been dishonest to claim to have been funded by someone if you weren't. (Scarlett Johansson paid me to make that statement.)
Greenpeace accused Soon of not disclosing his funding. The Boston Globe reported that soon had been accused of not reporting his funding. Someone started a petition to fire Soon based on the (mis-characterized) Globe article.
I'll tell you who looks corrupt, and it isn't Soon.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
We can't get the same standards for police brutality that exist in Fergeson to be applies in LA, Chicago, or New York City. We can't get the same standards of ethics you have on the oil industry to apply to Big Media, Big Pharma, and of course the Globalization cartel.
Muck Raking has been turned into an extortion racket. I'm not taking part.
The first acknowledgement of fund tarnishing would come through tobacco and leaded gasoline lobbies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe#Advocacy_of_lead_in_gasoline
This is just continuing the same.
Oh, kazam! Andyring is shown up for the lying sack of shit he is!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
So investigating a conflict of interest is now "going after citizens"?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What are you afraid of? That it will turn out most of the shit people like you believe is bullcrap invented by the Koch Brothers?
I'm afraid that people like you are absolutely certain of what you believe, and that one of the things you believe is that none of your beliefs were influenced by anyone with a motive.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
The Koch Brigade is out in force today.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That's some grade A word salad there.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Funny. Very few governments seem to be willing to do anything except sit on their asses.
Great. So you come up with a solution to AGW...
But let me guess, you conveniently reject the science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
When the transparency applies to only one side of the argument...yes it is. Notice how eager the GW religion attacks and attacks but magically can never be questioned scientifically without fear of being targeted. Go ahead and pretend this is still about science.
one of the things you believe is that none of your beliefs were influenced by anyone with a motive.
Of course they were. Just like your beliefs. That in itself doesn't help us determine which are true, though.
As it almost always is when this place covers AGW, thanks to Dunning-Kruger victims thinking that their knowledge of computers directly translates into knowledge of climate science.
The old appeal to authority. Nice.
No different than your appealing to "climatologists" who can't get ANY predictions right over many decades of trying.
Why do you distrust a physicist / mathematician, who is far more apt at understanding statistics, chaotic systems, and the pure physics involved in atmospheric changes than a climatologist (with a much more shallow education in any of those areas) can possibly be?
That's the really puzzling aspect of people like you who believe deeply in people specializing in what is essentially a nascent filed; you are putting more stock in people who have less hard science training, and the results of their predictions based on what amounts to faith dressed up as science are telling.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well I suppose you would support an equal amount of investigation into the funding of those that might be considered GW activists, you know, to make sure they are not funded by the renewables industry, or their lobby or other activist organizations?
Personally, I think when science allows itself to get into witch hunt mode, it is damning itself to staying there. Scientist should stand up and say "we got this, politicians, please stay out of it".
Didn't we go though just this sort of thing when some lawmakers tried to subpoena Micheal Mann's communications regarding the backing for his research? And were these demands for information eventually blocked?
Have gnu, will travel.
Anyone else see the irony of a CONGRESSMAN complaining about 'undisclosed financial contributions'?
Seriously, I don't care which party he's from; they're all idiot scum.
-Styopa
You have no idea what you're talking about. The principle is called full disclosure, has nothing to do with the inquisition, and is required by every respectable scientific journal and research institution. Willie Soon's problem is not that he had received money for research (all kinds of industries finance all kinds of research all the time), but that he failed to disclose the fact (well, bragging to his sponsors about his papers as "deliverables" certainly didn't help his reputation either). A wider disclosure check is not inappropriate in this context.
Pretty soon the FCC won't allow you to say that.
I think the Salem Hypothesis can be extended to computer science types. They, like other kinds of engineers, mistake their mechanistic approach to their fields for science, and thus feel they have some special capacity to make judgments on fields they have little or no knowledge of.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yeah, that's why the EPA just implemented new standards which would ban the production and sale of almost all of the current wood burning stoves in the U.S.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/la...
All this environmental alarmist nonsense is just being used as an excuse for more government control.
But you cannot take a situation where there is no consensus and fool everyone into believing that there is a 98% or 99% consensus.
Yes, that is what we have been trying to tell you
You and others are trying your damnedest to prove it is possible. I give you an 'A' for effort in that regard, but I'm afraid at this point the sample selection of people who are buying that fabrication is too low to be able to claim you can in fact fool everyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Exposing frauds is the inquisition now? You sound like one of the people who's been crazed by the far-right-wing propaganda that turned too many American Conservatives into clueless, angry, totally deranged extremists who will support any corruption that is supported by wingnut media.
What the fuck do I care about "activists"? I don't care what Al Gore says. I don't care even the tiniest bit. Quit dodging the issue, which is the science itself.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Dyson: "theoretical physicist" who understands the movement of air well enough to make a portable cyclone you can move about your house.
Climatologist: Understands the entire workings of the climate so well that they have been unable to form a single model that correctly predicts future behavior of the Earths climate in two decades of trying; constantly claims it's because of some new factor they seemed to have overlooked, claims they know everything THIS TIME.
In practice, Dyson is far less theoretical than any climatologist.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're comparing asking a researcher why they received large amounts of cash from groups with obvious and well known biases to AGW research to McCarthyism?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Funny. Very few governments seem to be willing to do anything except sit on their asses.
that and green taxes
Then why all the fuss about burning down the Brazilian rain forests?
Sure, because that's how Common Carrier works...
Educate yourself and stop listening to Rush.
Cheap storage VM.
Exactly.
"Climate Change" is to the political left as "Terrorism" is to the political right. Frighten the public into demanding that the government do more to allay their fears. Government is always happy to grant itself all sorts of new powers in order to oblige.
Funny. I thought that the left might not be so gullible, especially after the government so recently completed such a major power grab in the wake of 9/11.
Before this "climate change" nonsense is over, we'll all be limited in the number of cubic feet of living space we're allowed to inhabit and our food, gasoline, home heating fuel and electricity will be stringently rationed. To protect us from "climate change" of course.
You're allowed to keep your old woodburning stove, fucktard. You just can't buy a new one that's as dirty as your 50-year-old one.
His socks.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This isn't the only instance.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
Let's see, it *is* a crime to lie under oath, esp. to Congress.
Next, it's a "witch hunt" or McCarthyism, when it's discovered that someone testified under oath to Congress and didn't tell them that his "deliverables" were funded by the climate-change deniers whose wealth - oil, coal - needs it denied.
So the anti-global warming crowd here is defending biased results based on income... oh, that's right, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market (tm) will show that global warming's not happening, and so it's hunky-dory to build new oil and coal-fired power plants, and prevent solar, wind etc technologies from helping change the field... and take money away from the companies. Presumably, they're investors in those companies, too.
Too bad the Real World doesn't see that Invisible Hand. And how many of them live right next to coal-fired power plants?
mark
I'm afraid this is just a sad statement on society. People are either unable or unwilling to rely upon the scientific method, evidence and testable, provable facts. Instead an appeal to experts and human authority are still the order of the day. We are all taught in modern education about the dark ages when secret religious texts were a central source of wisdom, and only a select few well educated scholars were deemed worthy of accurately interpreting those texts. We are taught about how terrible the impact of human corruption was on that time.
Fast forward to today though, and we now have advanced to holding scientific journals as a central source of wisdom, and only a select few well educated scholars are deemed worthy of accurately interpreting them. Is nobody else disturbed by how little difference we have made between the priesthood of old and the scientific consensus today?
The Inquisition (Look out sin)!
The difference is that no one is going to go to jail, and the worst repercussions are likely to be the researcher in question is taken to task for not reporting his funding sources.
Are you fucking retarded?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually, it is the "science itself" that I was saying should be what matters. If you don't care about "activists", then you shouldn't care about the 'deniers" this article is focused on.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/n...
No the left likes to forget they laid the groundwork for Nazism, Italian Fascism and Communism.
You might not use it as a source of scientific information, but it's a good place to learn that what's being passed off as "scientific information" is in fact a fraud. I'm sure that if the OP cited some sort of academic paper, you'd complain that the authors are being funded by the evil Koch brothers or the fossil fuel industry too.
Global warming is the new religion and questioning it is the new heresy.
Oh fuck off. Jesus you're irrational.
Nobody questioning this guy is demanding he be jailed.
Fuck you're an idiot.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Manufacturing evidence. You mean like "adjusting" all the raw data to make it look like temperatures are rising when the raw data show no such thing?
I wonder how much funding George Soros and his cronies have into this now?
We could look into that. But according to you (here) it would be a witch hunt. So I guess we can't look into conflicts of interest.
No, Soon was attacked for not disclosing his funding in relevant papers.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
It smells like fascism. That's what I'm afraid of. A lot of things lately have smelled like fascism.
He who smelt it...
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Is not the entire world.
Globally, it's the warmest year on record.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
No different from Soon, where he is being attacked NOT because the current funding is from Koch, but because he had the audacity to EVER take money fro them. No different, except Soon is not groping women (if you want to rank offenses).
groping women and doing bad science are completely unrelated. You can be a terrible person, but still a good scientist. You can be an unethical scientist(doing things like torture), and still be a good scientist.
You can be a good person, and still be a shitty scientist. You also seem to be mixing up correlation and casuation. Again, its probably because you don't understand science.
Exactly, which is why he's in climate science, which at this point has more akin to astrology in terms of accuracy and actual "science". Just because his chicken bones come in the form of heavily doctored data does not make his prognosis any less Scienthy.
Um not really. you have nothing to back up your claim that his work was heavily doctored except you disagree with it, and are simply making counter arguments to take the heat off a scientist who has been caught red handed.
I see. So the fact that the overwhelming majority of linguists believe French, English and Urdu all descend from a common mother tongue mean that the consensus proves Proto-Indo-European studies are false?
You're talking bullshit, and sounding like a simpering moron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The denier in question is a scientist, who has taken large amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry without reporting it in his papers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
For the paper that was the target of this witch hunt Soon and all his coauthors have repeatedly stated that they received no outside funding for their work.
Greenpeace started this as a way to discredit a paper without actually taking on any of the aspects discussed in the paper itself.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Which has nothing to do with "carbon".
Are you really that incredibly stupid to think it would be? Or are you just being intentionally deceitful?
If oceans rise just 5 feet it's going to take tens to hundeds of trillions dollars to do things like move entire cities or create flood barriers. Increases In salinity and changes in rainfall can lead to completely redoing the water supply for entire regions which in turn can completely alter the manner of agriculture in each region. Increased storm activity can take a toll also.
It may look like the US spent 22B in climate research but actual research dollars were only 2.5B of that amount. The global women's shoe market is 80B whereas the global soccer (football) market is much larger. I have done some research and found we spend more yearly on the two than all of climate research ever done since the beginning of science. For a problem with such a high likelihood of being plausible its pretty damn insane more hasn't been done to understand and map the problem. I would not be suprised if the cost of dealing with a changing climate exceeded one quadrillion usd dollars within only 150 years.
We need more satellites that map various temperatures (including ocean), land use, cloud cover, and co2 distributions. We need more studies and data on glaciers - autonomous sensors everywhere. Same goes for ocean currents - also temperatures from deeper that you may not get from satellite. We need better climate models that let us accurately predict the changes that are likely - region by region - something current models struggle with. We cant feed those better models with better data, or more accurately check predictions because we lack the means of acquiring better data. Ultimately, in 100years or so, there may be serious wars fought over the redistribution of wealth that a changing climate will force on us all.
The funny thing is, I can't tell which side you're talking about.
I would feel a lot better about the disclosure if it were even handed. Instead of saying "those questioning whether climate change will lead to a catastrophe must disclose their sources of income before appearing before this committee" say "anyone appearing before this committee must disclose their sources of income." Full disclosure's a good policy, but it shouldn't be used as some kind of weapon to intimidate people from testifying.
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...
Make rats breath asbestos for 10 years, witness proof it's a problem.
Make rats breath tobacco smoke for 10 years, witness proof it's a problem.
With climate, what's the equivalent metric to make the degree of danger clear?
We have instrumental temperature records that are only about 100 years old. Those records show clear and steady warming.
We have records showing CO2 increasing drastically over that same time frame. We have easy and clear physics to show that CO2 traps radiation and contributes to warming.
The consensus though tapers off hard after these basic facts. The overwhelming majority of the remaining evidence is computer models of processes that act over centuries and millenia. How much confidence and weight should our policy decisions place on modelling of long term processes, when we lack really good long term data to even calibrate against?
My point isn't we should be filled with doubt and uncertainty, but merely to observe that claiming climate change is as scientifically proven to be deadly as smoking is just, false. You shouldn't be doing it, as the science doesn't support it, which if I recall is the entire basis of the concern and complaint in the first place.
No, that's how fascism works. Pretty soon they'll come for you.
Using the force of the United States government vie senate commity is the McCarthy connection. You and I can debate or ignore based on funding sources all day long. We are not the government.
It isn't the "scientific community" that is making this demand, it is the people that fund the "scientific community"
Nope, its the people who have to listen to the same "experts" (who mostly aren't climate scientists) repeating the same arguments that disagree with the vast majority of actual climate scientists. And they want to know if there is something going on here - like the experts being paid by the same people as those who insist that they know more about climate science than actual climate scientists. You know, Senators like James M. Inhofe and people like the Koch brothers.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
n/t
What "smells like fascism"?
Doom is barreling down on us at an unprecedented rate. We have to turn over huge new powers to government to avoid this doom. Government will create huge new bureaucracies to combat the doom. The huge new bureaucracies will be financed by huge new taxes. The bureaucracies will control huge new swaths of business. Businesses will fund huge new lobbyists. Bureaucracies will create huge new regulations. Huge new regulations and huge new lobbyists will be funded through price increases. Huge new portions of subject populations' income will be devoted to governments, bureaucracies, and business. That smells like fascism.
~Loyal
One thing's for sure. If we don't do something about AGW all of those things will come to pass as the effects become more and more evident and people start demanding action.
On the other hand we could just impose a gradually increasing carbon tax* that would require a relatively small bureaucracy to administer and have the effect of making non-carbon energy sources more attractive as time goes on.
*The carbon tax should be imposed at the well/mine head or point of import of fossil fuels and possibly a tariff on imports from high carbon emitting countries. The carbon tax's proceeds should be distributed as an equal dividend to all legal US residents. The would have the effect of easing the tax's burden on low income residents and penalizing high carbon producers. The existing IRS could handle the dividend part of it.
Thinking about it: the committee is based on the assumption that avoiding a climate disaster will require a lot of government intervention. Unless the policy is applied to everybody it will essentially become "people who don't support government intervention or increased government spending must disclose their sources of income before appearing before this committee." I think the result of that approach is pretty obvious.
That's a pretty twisted interpretation of what happened.
It isn't the "scientific community" that is making this demand, it is the people that fund the "scientific community" producing the claims regarding global warming ^H^H "climate change." You know, the "global warming" ^H^H "climate change" studies that are used to justify calls for the government to seize all control of the economy and society to "prevent" "climate change." They want to protect their investment.
I wonder how much funding George Soros and his cronies have into this now?
Where are the "Funny" mods? I laughed so hard at that I had to explain to my coworkers what I was laughing at.
I often see postings by climate deniers, skeptics, critics, whatever you want to call them claiming that the 97% of scientists who supposedly believe in AGW do so because their pay is based on them supporting it. Somebody should put together the stats on who is funding the scientists in the field, whether they are pro or con on the issue and what are the terms of their "contract". Do they have a grant to specifically study the issue of AGW, are they just studying climate in general, or are they just on salary and don't have a grant to do anything in particular? Also, where are the people located? Are they mostly in the US, or spread out among many countries?
I want more info than just a single "97%" statistic.
Tell us how you really feel.
If his papers are fine then why did he not disclose his funding source?
If you are intelligent why is it that you buy into the implied lie that Soon's funding is Koch? That's just what the left is implying, they aren't saying it outright because it's not at all the case - only that Soon a while ago did accept some funding from Koch, not involved at all in this study.
Yet you bought that line, you made the leap they wanted you to make because you want to believe SO BADLY.
Think for yourself man and shrug off the nose ring!
Where did I say that I thought his funding was from Koch?
I said that he did not disclose his funding source and that makes it suspect.
Given the level of your argument though, it seems you're not interested in discussing it. You also forgot to log in. If you forgot your password then you can reset it by email.
Consensus is the exact opposite of science. If we went with the consensus, the Earth would be flat, the sun would revolve around the Earth, the moon would be made of cheese, etc. Science is questioning *everything*. Anybody who says there is a consensus in AGW and opposition is to be silenced or downplayed is anti-science.
What are *you* afraid of?
You don't understand what a scientific consensus is. In science a consensus exists when there are no longer arguments among the practitioners of a science about a particular point in that science. It's not something they vote on, it just happens organically.
In which case their funding source is the program grant that keeps them employed and pays his rent.
One thing's for sure. If we don't do something about AGW all of those things will come to pass as the effects become more and more evident and people start demanding action.
Perhaps not. Perhaps global warming has a net beneficial effect where fewer people freeze to death in the winter, more land becomes arable in the northern latitudes, and plants produce more foodstuffs and fibers from the increase in carbon dioxide. Or perhaps Mt. Pinatubo will blow throwing particulates into the air dropping world average temperatures by one degree for years.
On the other hand we could just impose a gradually increasing carbon tax* that would require a relatively small bureaucracy to administer and have the effect of making non-carbon energy sources more attractive as time goes on.
A small bureaucracy? Isn't that something like a temporary tax increase? Do you know how many people were employed by the US government to set gasoline prices? That should have been a small bureaucracy, right? Price per gallon? Has to be less than 85 cents? It took 10,000 people to do that. You are one hundred miles further from the refinery? You get to charge two cents more. You sell gasoline in California, using the California formulations? You get ten cents more. You live in Utah, and no one from your state is on the Ways and Means Committee? You get eight cents less.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
That's simplifying the concept of falsification to the point of inaccuracy, or more appropriately in your case, an outright lie.
As to counter-studies, some fraud paper published in a Mexican pseudo-journal does not constitute the destruction of AGW.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Why would you want a solution to a warmer and better world? Can we currently grow food on tundra? No. But with AGW, all of Canada and Siberia come on board as farm land. So skying gets replaced by warm weather sports. Big deal.
Pure comedy gold, thanks for the laugh!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Full disclosure is the general rule, and in most cases you will easily find information on funding for particular research. But in this case (it's not just about Willie Soon) you have a long-running, well organised campaign of financing climate change denial. AEI (Big Oil money) used to pay 10k plus travel and expenses for conference papers questioning IPCC reports. Go ask your scientist friends when was the last time they were paid ten grand for a conference paper, take note of their dropping jaws.
Well, clearly *SOME* hidden funding has been revealed, as mentioned even in the summary. Possibly not by that enquiry, but perhaps they just didn't look very closely.
OTOH, I *do* think that the sources for funding for *all* those who testify before congress should be revealed. And for any other favors or promissed favors also. There's nothing wrong with taking money from somebody who agrees with your findings, but there is wrong in hiding that you did so if they are used as a guide for public policy (or even the policy of some private group that isn't the one paying you).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Wrong, a change is needed in science, where scientists disclose the agenda they are working to, and by who approves the agenda that is funded.
I see what you did there. You are implying that (climate) scientists have an agenda. And that makes it okay for AGW-deniers to have one, doesn't it?
If scientists aspire to any agenda, it is to advance the understanding of nature through observation of it. Of course, scientists are human, and some may have hidden agendas. That is why scientists are obliged to reveal their observations and their methods that they use to arrive at their conclusions, so their peers can examine it. Revealing their sources of funding is part of that process.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Well, clearly *SOME* hidden funding has been revealed, as mentioned even in the summary.
No, no hidden funding has been revealed. Soon and three others wrote an unfunded paper. They did the research on their own time, and no one paid them to do it, and no one paid them for it. The publisher required authors to disclose funding for the work being submitted. The work being submitted had no funding, so that's what they disclosed. Greenpeace started digging into the authors' histories and found that Soon had received funding for previous work. They told reporters that Soon should have disclosed funding for previous work as though it had been for this work. The Boston Globe reported that Soon had been accused of non-disclosure. Someone started a petition to get Soon fired based on a mis-characterization of the Boston Globe story. No hidden funding has been revealed, but enough slanders have been spread to instill doubt about the work, which, one presumes, was their intent.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Of course they were. Just like your beliefs. That in itself doesn't help us determine which are true, though.
I'm glad you agree. Now you and I just have to convince MightyMartian.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Bull-fucking-shit yourself. Opposition to the global climate control movement is NOT based on denying that, in general, increased CO2 concentrations can have warming impacts. It's based on, among other things, questioning the level of impact, actual historical baselines, other potential causal factors (over many of which humans have no control), and feedback and self-correction mechanisms that may exist to moderate warming caused by increased CO2 (and other gases) concentration in the atmosphere.
The idea that any debate over these very serious issues is tantamount to a denial of the fundamental laws of the fucking universe is so ludicrous as to make me believe you are either a fucking moron or a religious fanatic. You seem to consider the IPCC reports as holy writ, revealed by the higher power of "science," and thus unassailably accurate and unquestionable.
It's the AGW side that keeps claiming that every opponent is a shill for Big Something, while their own funding comes from pennies dropped in their charity boxes by pandas and polar bears.
And as a bonus, Florida would disappear completely.
This doesn't mean that the $1.2 million that Soon received from the fossil-fuel industry had no impact on Soon's outlook.
It doesn't help that it is a ridiculously terrible paper. His argument boils down to: "Using a small, cherry-picked subset of the data that has known errors that we aren't going to correct for, we can see that incoming solar energy is correlated with temperature, and therefore CO2 doesn't cause climate change." This argument is equivalent to say that because sugar intake is correlated with weight, exercise has no impact on weight, in addition to the horrible treatment of the data.
Either Soon is utterly incompetent, or he's a cynical shill for the fossil fuel industry. I'm not sure which is worse.
You're comparing asking a researcher why they received large amounts of cash from groups with obvious and well known biases to AGW research to McCarthyism?
Receiving large amounts of money is actually fine. Receiving large amounts of money and not disclosing it is a problem.
The whole issue with Soon was not that he was funded by a fossil fuel company but that he failed to disclose that he was funded by a fossil fuel company. In most cases a study funded by a government grant is required to disclose the source of the funding in published papers and it's good scientific ethics to disclose any potential conflicts of interest.
Who are you quoting in your comment? Mr. AdHominem?
I don't think you have read the article or you don't understand what they were investigating. So let's stop being juvenile with the attacks and discuss the science.
Since when does one (roughly) side of a controversy deserve much more examination and aspersions as to whether they are "bought" or not than another? Does anyone seriously believe the pro-AGW folks all are totally un-invested scholars speaking only pure objective truth as they best see it? Give me a break.
Everyone that has some doubt about the official AGW story or claims has been roundly vilified for quite some time now. They have been compared to flat earthers or young earth folks for bothering to voice an opinion. This is not the stance of any sort of enlightened discourse or inquiry. It is a concerted effort to silence and shame critics of a politically aligned position. It has almost nothing to do with real science.
There are many catalysts for laughter, ignorance being one of them. I expect you are quite easily amused.
The idea of bread mold curing infections is probably going to keep you giggling for hours.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Nope, its the people who have to listen to the same "experts" (who mostly aren't climate scientists) repeating the same arguments that disagree with the vast majority of actual climate scientists.
"Nope" ??? "Nope"?? I would call that a failure of comprehension. You do realize that the US government funds a great deal of climate research, right? And who approves the funding?? Who is it that is demanding the information?
... 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.
I'm glad you managed to work the "Koch brothers" in there. It shows you're "serious." (eyes rolling)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So you are claiming that George Soros is a climate scientiest producing climate models and studies that dispute various aspects of climate change in addition to being a currency manipulator, business man, one of the richest men in the world, and a left wing activist and financier? That is fascinating. I don't suppose you have any documentation to back that up, do you?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Only if people like you get their way. The governemnt has checks and balances, not so in the private sector. I can't vote comcast out and I probably don't have another option.
Cheap storage VM.
Ha. Do you really still think that? How's that IRS investigation going? Did you like the public comment period before the FCC vote today?
Well, first of all "climate change" is a far older term than "global warming". Gilbert Plass published a paper titled "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change" in 1958. The terms are used interchangeably.
The rest of your post is just hyperbolic.
I imagine you're giggling a lot more about the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels are a major factor in Earth's climate than I am about penicillin.
The IRS investigation went well and had a proper outcome, unless you have your own agenda.
Cheap storage VM.
Nope, its the people who have to listen to the same "experts" (who mostly aren't climate scientists) repeating the same arguments that disagree with the vast majority of actual climate scientists.
"Nope" ??? "Nope"?? I would call that a failure of comprehension.
Yeah. On your part. Poor downtrodden denialist.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
Ignorant comments, because the regulation has not been released.
Please elaborate on what part of this is a non-functioning check/balance? Looks like things are progressing properly.
Cheap storage VM.
Oh? I thought the investigation was complete, and you were satisfied with the outcome. I don't think you really know anything about it.
Using the force of the United States government vie senate commity is the McCarthy connection.
Odd you didn't complain about Senator McInhofe, who did exactly what you claim now happens. Only he actually did it for real.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Hide the Decline
You can live in purposeful ignorance if you like; I choose not to, because I can understand better what will or may happen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does Wisdom of crowds bring out the TRUTH in this case?
Casteism
And yet you still haven't successfully identified either the topic of the story or who the story is centered on. If you can't comprehend something that simple it's a safe bet that you don't have a meaningful understanding of the science of climate change, which leaves you in the cargo cult enthusiast category.
Maybe you should be planting trees, it would be more useful than your post, and it would keep you out of trouble.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The story is about denialists not being able to handle facts. Stop proving it.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I know that I'm not worried about it, because every time I am bothered to check on it, it is progressing in a meaningful manner. I'm certainly not obsessed with it and I'd rank it's importance somewhere under whether my turd was brown or brownish green during my last bowel movement.
Cheap storage VM.
Lawmakers Seek Information On Funding For Climate Change Critics
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 ...
Its simple to get right. You didn't, and still haven't.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Adolf McInhofe ring a bell, Nazi scum?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I can see you're trying, but you're not making much progress in getting it right. Is there somebody you know that could coach or tutor you? Maybe all you need to succeed is just a little nudge at the right time or place.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
They could be like Olympic athletes, and wear jerseys that have the logos of their corporate sponsors while testifying.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain