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Foul and fair, into your air.
(Picture courtesy of Iguanasan at flicker.com.)
The ability of the Big Oil fraudsters to keep up their barrage of disinformation verges on mania when events show over and over that only the fact free right wing continues to be deluded. This week, successful efforts to place bad information in scientific journals has forced a decent man to resign because he was careless and let it happen at his publication.
An ongoing attempt to place articles contesting climate change’s origin in man-made activities produces one repudiation after another. Inspired by pay for their play, fringe members of the scientific community forge ahead with attempts to legitimatize the Big Oil mantra that there is no proof that the stuff they spew into the atmosphere does any harm.
The editor of a science journal has resigned after admitting that a recent paper casting doubt on man-made climate change should not have been published.
The paper, by US scientists Roy Spencer and William Braswell, claimed that computer models of climate inflated projections of temperature increase.
(snip)
“The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted…, a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers.
“In other words, the problem I see with the paper… is not that it declared a minority view (which was later unfortunately much exaggerated by the public media) but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents.
“This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal.”
While the mere figures of disease occurring in pollution laden environments, such as those that abound around refineries and similar toxic environments, shows the facts are against them, Big Oil plows on with profit-driven attempts to keep the poisons in our air. As long as Big Oil profits are directed toward hacks who will accept money in return for their souls, our air will continue to be poisoned.
The organizations funding the fraudulent pseudo-scientific research in this instance are described as right wing think tank and evangelical. The fraudsters are working on the ‘board of directors of the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing thinktank critical of mainstream climate science, and an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, an evangelical Christian organisation that claims policies to curb climate change “would destroy jobs and impose trillions of dollars in costs” and “could be implemented only by enormous and dangerous expansion of government control over private life”.’
It’s a matter of astonishment that any association can be made, even for profit, between any religion and promotion of destruction of life on the planet any, even lesser, gods are credited with creating.
21 Comments
To some missing information from Ruth’s post (recommended by the way). The editor and journal in question are:
Wolfgang Wagner who was the editor of the journal Remote Sensing.
Speaking of Edit – I wish we had that capability here. What I meant to say is below (forgot the word add):
To add some missing information from Ruth’s post (recommended by the way). The editor and journal in question are:
Wolfgang Wagner was the editor of the journal Remote Sensing
Yes, thank you, didn’t think about it, but totally shouldn’t have left that out.
Yes, it is the Vaudeville!
The only atmosphere that is right in their view, is the one that kills. When the conditions and atmosphere are right for the Corporations are the ones that remove our rights and Democracy.
Yep. Pathetic. And when there are no consumers left, they’ll blame it on us lazy shiftless convalescents.
THE EVIL that is FORBES
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/08/23/the-alarming-cost-of-climate-change-hysteria/
According to Spencer,
(emphasis mine)
So, either Spencer has doubled down, and is now lying about what is in his paper (which has been downloaded over 56,000 times), or he’s delusional, or it’s the editor in chief who is lying or mistaken.
Well, there could be middling cases. E.g., Spencer might have gotten, e.g., 10 different arguments that his previous work was wrong, but only addressed 5 of them. However, as I read the following comment by “Frank” at Spencer’s blog, Wagner, the Editor in Chief, made no attempt to address any of the specifics of the SB paper:
Further proof of Dr. Wagner’s motivations can be found by examining the details of his editorial – nowhere does Dr. Wagner discuss the scientific errors he believes were made by SB11 and the media reports that followed from it. He claims that SB11 ignored Trenberth et al (2010), but he doesn’t explain exactly what information in that paper “to some extent” refutes SB11. (T10 was a rebuttal of Lindzen and Choi (2009), a paper that used vastly different analytical methods than SB11 to assess the consistency between GCMs and observations.) He doesn’t cite any source for the “open discussions” he asserts refute SB11. He doesn’t cite any scientific errors that were made in the UAH press release or the Forbes article. If Dr. Wagner were interested in advancing understanding of climate science, he would have taken the time to fully explain the key scientific issues to his readers.
I wrote a very recent diary on the pathological scientific culture working against honest scientists who don’t believe the Catastrophic AGW theories: Ugly Scientific Tribalism of CO2 Global Warming Fetishists, and a Beautiful Film on Climate Realist Svensmark In the commentaries, I referenced an article by Nigel Calder who discussed various scientists efforts to falsify the work of Svensmark. Not all attempts at falsification amount to much.
I’m not going to study the SB paper, but for anybody so inclined, pay special attention to both Svensmark’s scientific critics err, thoroughness, as per Calder’s article, and educate yourself about what goofy hurdles Svensmark and his team were made to jump through, their sin being – apparently – that their theory of solar magnetic and cosmic ray modulation of climate on the Earth, is a serious threat to the CO2 orthodoxy.
Also, please see my reference to “The Deniers” (who deny their denial; right there, that tells you that somebody is lying Can you figure out who?).
Thanks Ruth, rec’d.
What can be said? The corruption and loss of real journalism is killing us. The corruption and loss of our democracy is killing us. The corruption and loss of our American corporations, being transformed in to transnationals with no fealty or loyalty, is killing us.
Guess we better do something before we are dead.
yes. The concerted attack by the lackeys of corporate welfare is, literally, killing us.
An updated version of a paper by Lindzen and Choi, which also looks into determining climate sensitivity via utilizing satellite measurements, has recently been published. AFAICT, this was published in a ‘regular’ journal, not an open source type journal, such as SB used.
Lindzen and Choi found that
The original Lindzen and Choi paper got a number of criticisms (including some legitimate criticisms :-) ), but according to Lubos Motl, theses have all been corrected in the new paper.
We shall see.
N.B. Note that Lindzen and Choi don’t question that human generated CO2 adds to global warming. Rather, they are addressing the real, substantive difference between the CO2 catastrophist and CO2 skeptic camps, which centers around the degree of such warming. Anybody who applies the term “denier” to them (which rhymes with “Holocaust denier”) either doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or else they’re deliberately obfuscating the situation.
Even if there were substantial doubt about the degree of warming, we should err on the side of caution. By continuing to alter the composition of our atmosphere, we are conducting a dangerous experiment. We only have one planet—and the Earth’s bio-sphere has to come first!
We need to shut down the horrid corporate-industrial-military machine which is tearing up the planet. And there are a whole bunch of other reasons for tearing down the industrial-corporate machine besides global warming.
We need to cut back human population, live sustainably, start walking and cycling instead of driving everywhere (many Americans could use the exercise anyway).
“Even if there were substantial doubt about the degree of warming, we should err on the side of caution”
This is what Noam Chomsky says, and it sounds rational, except that one gets such a very different sense of the level of “danger” involved when listening to the scientific skeptics, that it’s hard to take this viewpoint seriously. 15 years ago, when we know a lot less, this viewpoint made more sense.
For me, personally, the only nagging doubt I have is about methane release, from tundras. I don’t know that we have enough experience with that green house gas to say anything intelligent about sensitivity with respect to it. And finding out the hard way, well, that sounds dangerous.
The methane question could be taken, though, as a good reason to stop the scare-mongering about CO2. Honest scientists shouldn’t unnecessarily have to waste time and energy on one issue, that may well distract them from a more important one.
Also, propagating BS in the hopes that it will lead to a greater good is ethically dubious, can easily backfire, and in terms of allowing transpartisan electoral remedies to our problems, probably already has backfired, to some degree. If you’re conservative, and you know lefties are eager to embrace a pseudo-reality for some ideological reason of their own, are you more or less eager to try and worth with them?
U.S. Awash in Oil and Lies, Report Charges
By Stephen Leahy
People from all over the U.S. walk to the White House to stage a sit-in.
Credit:tarsandsaction/creative commons license
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 2, 2011 (IPS) – With four times as many oil rigs pumping domestic oil today than eight years ago and declining domestic demand, the United States is awash in oil.
The country’s oil industry is primarily interested in who will pay the most on the global marketplace. They call that “energy security” when it suits, but in reality it is “oil company security” through maximising profits, say energy experts like Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International, an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas and coal companies and governments.
The only reason U.S. citizens may be forced to endure a risky, Canadian-owned oil pipeline called Keystone XL is so oil companies with billion-dollar profits can get the dirty oil from Canada’s tar sands down to the Gulf of Mexico to export to Europe, Latin America or Asia, according to a new report by Oil Change International released Wednesday.
“Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets,” concludes the report, titled “Exporting Energy Security”.
Little of the 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil pumped through the 2,400-kilometre, seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL will end up in U.S. gas tanks because the refineries on the Gulf Coast are all about expanding export markets. One huge refinery operator called Valero has been touting the potential export revenues of tar sands oil to investors, the report found.
Because Keystone XL crosses national borders, President Barack Obama has to issue a permit declaring the pipeline serves the “national interest” in order to be approved.
“The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry,” said Kretzman, who wrote the report
So does that mean that if I can find you a few pro-tobacco industry “skeptics” who think that smoking does not cause cancer, you’ll stop taking the majority who do think it is dangerous seriously? And I’m sure we could find a few such tobacco skeptics if we look hard enough ;-)
Anyway, the bottom line is that, if we don’t know for sure that it is safe for the planet, we should stop adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
I don’t think that there is all that much “propagating BS” on the part of the people who warn about the dangers of global warming.
However, if people are concerned about BS, there is a lot more of it on the denier side. That is why you’ll find scum-bags like Senator James Inhofe on that side of the argument. And why I’ve pointed out to you in the past that your list of “skeptics” contains people who are also skeptical of things like evolution.
@warp9 September 5th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Unfortunately, you think pro-tobacco industry “skeptics” are equivalent to honest scientists who do honest experiments that support their theories. You make a grave error when you confuse honest skeptics with dishonest skeptics.
Based on what? You’re saying that it’s so?
Have you actually studied the matter? Cause it seems to me that you’re not really thinking about the matter, merely reacting tribalistically, which may involve some mentation. However, the nature of that mentation is rationalization.
Cosmic rays, solar cycles, and absorption spectra don’t give a hoot about Inhofe, Chomsky, me or you.
To anybody who’s interested in the subject of pathological science, I suggest The Trouble with Physics and Not Even Wrong. From the quote I give of Smolin, in my other diary, it should be clear the the problems of “me too” science aren’t limited to string theory.
It’s understandable why laymen would like to take refuge in a majoritarian viewpoint of various scientific communities. However, that is not a reliable gauge of truth. There really isn’t one, though Smolin’s discussion of scientific ethics is probably the best guide one could hope for.
My guess is that, if you look hard enough, you will find some scientists who actually (and honestly) doubt that smoking causes cancer. Of course, you might have to look pretty hard, and you might have to end up including a few guys who are also skeptical of things like evolution. ;-)
Note: I’m trying nested quotes here, and I don’t know for sure how they’ll work, so if this looks strange, that is what happened.
No, based on the fact that I’ve personally heard a lot of the BS myself from various GW deniers. I’m talking about stuff like the lie that “a volcano puts out more CO2 in a single eruption than all of human activity combined.” I’m not saying that all GW skeptics are guilty of this sort of thing, but large numbers of them are. And since you brought up the idea that people might be put off by BS, then they have more to be put off from in the denier camp.
All I need to know is (A) that CO2 and Methane are greenhouse gasses, meaning that help absorb and retain heat coming to Earth from the Sun (this fact has been known for a long, long, time). And (B) that we are adding massive amounts of these gasses to the atmosphere through our activities. I don’t know exactly how much warming this will result in, but I don’t need to know that. I do know that this seems like a dangerous experiment with the only planet we’ve got, so I say STOP!
Anyone who wants to volunteer to conduct a real life proof is welcome to move to Bastrop, TX, and live in the results of this belief in the Big Oil line.
Around here, the Big Oil line is all about our immense reserves being used to give jobs. Which is absolutely stoopid, as any actual effect will be many years in the future, and the tar sands project has not been shown to have a definite amount of reserve product. Geologists of any standing to date have not been consulted to establish any actual amount of potential for development.
@warp9 September 5th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
The increase in CO2 from pre-industrial age ‘recent’ minimum, is something like 1/4-1/3.
So, could this be equal to the total CO2 from Pinatubo? ScepticalScience quotes Gerlach, who estimated CO2 output from Pinatubo at 42 MT to 234 MT. Conveniently, scepticalscience only quotes the minimum, and doesn’t label it as such. Say, now, that’s real honest!
There’s about 3 trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, so 1/4 of that is about 700 billion tons. This is much larger than even 234 Mega Tonnes, so yeah, this is a bogus claim. However, while I haven’t researched it, it looks like the only scientist who has made this claim is Ian Plimer.
If you can find a single scientist, other than Plimer, who makes this claim? And if you can’t, do you think that this might be a clue to examine the arguments that are held by a majority of CO2 catastrophist skeptics?
I’m aware of a scientist who doubts any green house gas effect, at all, and believes that adiabatic effects cause all the heating attributed to the atmospheric gases. Does it make sense to focus on this theory, when it has so little support?
I’m really not concerned what a global warming “denier” who has the pedigree of a Rush Limbaugh says. I’m more interested in what the scientists say; and furthermore, not the outliers, but those who are more in the mainstream of the skeptics, and those who have real evidence for their theories, such as Svensmark.
“The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry,” said Kretzman, who wrote the report.
We’ve got 50 years of history in the Middle East (I’m counting from Operation Ajax onwards) showing that is exactly how our government operates.
~
A reply to Spencer and Braswell has already been accepted for publication by a science journal. However, it seems to have a few problems:
You can get a preprint, here.