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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.
"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.
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.
Absolutely, we need to know the facts! Who is funding all 12,000 studies supporting AGW and how the hell did they get $14B to spend buying scientists?!
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.
Meanwhile in Europe where one party's politicians don't spend as much effort trying to use global warming as a bludgeon against their political enemies (and an excuse to funnel public money to their friends) popular acceptance of "climate change is a real thing to worry about" seems to be higher. How about that, hmm?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
When Congress also demands "information from universities, companies and trade groups about funding for scientists who publicly [accept or] dispute widely held views on the causes and risks of climate change," then I'll care about what "prominent members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate" think about climate change.
It's not like members of Congress understand the "research or testimony" anyways. Nor do members of Congress care what others have to say; they use testimony as an opportunity for themselves to give speeches disguised as questions.
227-3517
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.
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.
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
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...
It depends - reputable scientists disclose all of their funding sources when publishing so you usually don't have to investigate it. Given the pretty major snafu with Willie getting caught and his clear position in opposition to a large published majority, it's not unreasonable to check into actual funding sources, not just those he and others like him have reported.
It's not uncommon to be funded by large industrial groups, even in areas that you would typically not expect - for example, BP funds a lot of non-fossil-fuel energy research at academic institutions which is totally fine, but if you receive money from them then you have to disclose it, regardless of what your results are.
You can find that out by looking at their published work - it's standard practice to disclose your funding sources when publishing or presenting.
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.
The old appeal to authority. Nice. Well, Dyson is a physicist and mathematician, so his opinion on this matters exactly the same as yours - not a jot.
You're doing a great job of discrediting yourself - no one else needs to even bother.
Hey, Liberals are nazis now, so transparency being fascism is perfectly cromulent in this worldview.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Do you have any problem with investigating *all* scientists working on climate, or only on one side of the issue?
A two party system practically guarantees that any major issues will devolve into a for and against and then basic tribalism takes over and people choose sides not based on merits or evidence, but simply based on which group they belong to. There are even some scientific studies that suggest presenting strong evidence will do little to actually change these beliefs. A lot of people don't care about global warming all that much and only assume a position based on their party ideology.
We need to change the voting system to something that breaks up the two party system. That will remove a lot of the idiotic deadlock over some of these things that should be moved to the non-issue category.
So investigating a conflict of interest is now "going after citizens"?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.