UPDATE: About an hour after this story was posted, Monbiot backs down, see below. – Anthony
===========================================
Sheesh, can’t these people read? I find the timing of this more than coincidental.
George Monbiot tweets:
Secret funding of climate change deniers exposed again: bit.ly/m6Yjlp. Key issue here is that interests never declared.
Soon and Balliunas 2003:
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by funds from the American Petroleum Institute (01-0000-4579),…
Paper here (PDF)
here’s the full acknowledgment:
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by funds from
the American Petroleum Institute (01-0000-4579), the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant AF49620-02-1-
0194) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(Grant NAG5-7635). The views expressed herein are those of
the authors and are independent of the sponsoring agencies.
We have benefitted greatly from the true and kind spirit of
research communications (including a preview of their
thoughts) with the late Jean Grove (who passed away on January
18, 2001), Dave Evans, Shaopeng Huang, Jim Kennett,
Yoshio Tagami and Referee #3. We thank John Daly, Diane
Douglas-Dalziel, Craig and Keith Idso for their unselfish contributions
to the references. We also thank the Editor, Chris
de Freitas, for very helpful editorial changes that improved
the manuscript. We are very grateful to Maria McEachern,
Melissa Hilbert, Barbara Palmer and Will Graves for invaluable
library help, and both Philip Gonzalez and Lisa Linarte
for crucial all-around help.
There’s been a swarm of such news items happening this week in an attempt to discredit climate skeptics. ICCC6 is getting some press, and in response these claims of “secret” get circulated. How transparent. The other LOL is from washed up science writer David Appell (who runs an angry blog called Quarksoup) expressing “being stunned” that WUWT readers haven’t denounced a supposed recent death threat that occurred in Australia 5 years ago that was “repackaged” for the present. Trouble is, the press is onto the scam.
Monbiot also tweets:
Is there a single prominent denier who won’t turn out to have been funded by an oil or coal company, or by the Koch brothers?
Well I once had a Shell Oil credit card for which I got cashback credits on purchases, so I guess that makes me guilty.
Bishop Hill quips:
Now obviously there’s a bit of Monbiot “puff” going on here, but I think we should look on this enthusiasm for disclosure of conflicts of interest as an area in which widespread agreement should be possible.
Perhaps George would like to consider a joint call (a) for the IPCC to activate its COI policy for all AR5 working groups with immediate effect and (b) for climate journals to require disclosure of conflicts of interest in the way that medical journals do. I’ll write and ask him.
How about it Monbiot? Goose, gander, and all that.
h/t to reader PaulM
================================================================
UPDATE: About an hour after this story was posted, on his Twitter feed, Monbiot recognizes his error.
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No reply from George yet – I asked five hours ago. Give him time though.
I have evidence that many prominent Climate Alarmists are being secretly funded by governments with taxpayer money. Having said that, as long as all raw data and codes are made public for the purpose of replication, then it matters not a jot where the funding originates. Hey, Georgie baby?
Does Monbiot mention the Greenpeace bung from BP? No he does not.
He is so short sighted he should have gone to ‘Specksavers’
What about this supposed quote of Soon seen in a Slashdot headline yesterday? Is it accurate? Is it misleading?
[Harvard researcher Willie] Soon in a 2003 US senate hearing said that he had ‘not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor received grants from any organisation that had taken advocacy positions with respect to the Kyoto protocol or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.’
Would that be the same 5 hours Greenpeace gave to VW when they published a report on VW. 😉
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/motoring-news/vw-named-as-europes-least-green-car-maker-2303655.html
VW, jointly owned by Qatar Petroleum and the German state of Lower Saxony, said it had not had time to respond properly to Greenpeace’s report, despite being given five hours to do so. Five hours !!!!!
Hi
The bit.ly/m6Yjlp doesn’t work.
It has got caught up with your URL: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/01/george-monbiots-denial-fantasy-tweet/bit.ly/m6Yjlp
cheers
Is there a single prominent AGW supporter that isn’t funded by the Government, an Environmental Organization, or some save the world foundation?
If I was Soon and Balliunas, then I’d sue him.
Monbiot is an idiot of Tamino proportions.
Ignore
Ha ha only in Monbiot’s apparent delusional world is there a difference between GE Wind and GE Oil, like they aren’t both owned by GE Energy.
Most green NGO’s are funded by energy companies and those NGO’s don’t care one wit how “dirty” by coal, oil, and nuclear, the owners are of those energy companies.
But, of course, what’s reality to socialists propaganda in the minds of socialists?
Why communism failed: they sported only the crack pots out in public. Of course they couldn’t do nothing else since they only consisted of greedy crack pots to begin with. :p
Wouldn’t worry too much about this. Most politically aware people understand that corporations like to support both sides of an important question. Most politically aware people also understand that funding is a lagging variable. Lobbyists will give more support to a politician who already takes their side in a reliable way. Soon was working on CO2 for a long time before he got any support from corporations, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have switched from science to pseudo-science if Greenpeace had thrown money at him.
Other papers are available on Soon’s web site.
Dyck, Soon et al 2007 paper on polar bears:
Soon 2005 paper on solar influence on the arctic:
See also the famous (558 citations) 1974 paper of Gordon Manley, “Central England temperatures: monthly means 1659 to 1973” which says
See also WUWT post on climategate emails showing CRU scientists seeking funding from oil companies.
Monbiot is a tweeter hack. That’s it. He’s completely irrelevant to the discussion. (Or is “useful tool” a better description?)
I get confused these days by who the bogeymen are. Why not so long ago it was Halliburton and Karl Rove. Now its “an oil company” and the Koch brothers with the wicked mind control skills. Presumably in 5 years time it’ll be Martha Stewart and the home shopping network. Makes as much sense as what loons like Monbiot seem to believe.
If, as Moonbat insinuates, oil funding means suspect research then:
CRU’s research is suspect.
Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project is suspect.
“Well I once had a Shell Oil credit card for which I got cashback credits on purchases, so I guess that makes me guilty.”
LULZ!!!
What can one say about Monbiot. Well, nothing. He is a nothing. Too long as an activist and not long enough as an investigative journalist.
Mindbuilder says:
July 1, 2011 at 4:44 am
What about this supposed quote of Soon seen in a Slashdot headline yesterday? Is it accurate? Is it misleading?
================================================================
Lol, given the in depth analysis slashdot gave, what do you think? What happened to when people could discern for themselves. Back in the day, people were laughed at for believing the National Inquirer. Now there’s thousands of web equivalents and people take them serious.
I’m not saying it is or isn’t true. I’m saying I’m incredulous at the validity people would lend a paragraph gossip about what someone else stated. Let me guess, you read “Pop Tarts” also.
‘We have benefitted greatly from the true and kind spirit of
research communications (including a preview of their
thoughts) with the late Jean Grove (who passed away on January
18, 2001)……’
Jean Grove wrote The Little Ice Age (Methuen 1988, 495pp). It is encyclopedic. I was told that there was to be a second edition. RIP Jean Grove, thanks for you book which sits in front of me now.
I replied to a comment on Soon and big oil made at DotEarth yesterday with this-
re #9, Ike Solem- Thanks for the heads-up on research institutions that can no longer be trusted, having been sullied by funding from ‘big oil’. In this case, the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astro-Physics.
But then we should at least add Stanford, UC Berkeley, LBNL, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Princeton to your list, right?
From Donna Laframboise-
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-greenpeace-big-oil-ja…
“BP is funding research into “ways of tackling the world’s climate problem” at Princeton University to the tune of $2 million per year for 15 years
BP is funding an energy research institute involving two other US universities to the tune of $500 million – the aim of which is “to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment”
ExxonMobil itself has donated $100 million to Stanford university so that researchers there can find “ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming””
Perhaps we should add to the list any University that has endowment investments in ‘big oil’, since dividends from those investments are paying for research projects and infrastructure and student stipends and chaired professorships at the Universities.
Moonbat always comes across as a weak sort of a character with shallow intellect. His biggest strenght(also his weakness) is that he is a follower rather than a leader.
Great journalists lead a debate, not take sides in it. But the guy kows his limits and has to make a living, so taking sides is far more rewarding than the hard work involved in intellectual and scientific journalism. George by nature was always going to be a disciple, the perfect stooge for the warmist brigade.
http://twitter.com/#!/GeorgeMonbiot
I got something wrong abt Willie Soon. I suggested he’d never declared his fossil fuel funding. Unlike many, it turns out he has. Apologies.
Greorge admitts error, points awarded
I suggest Mr Monbiot show his displeasure by refusing ever again to buy petroleum products.
chris y says:
July 1, 2011 at 5:50 am
I replied to a comment on Soon and big oil made at DotEarth yesterday with this-
re #9, Ike Solem- Thanks for the heads-up on research institutions that can no longer be trusted, having been sullied by funding from ‘big oil’. In this case, the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astro-Physics.
But then we should at least add Stanford, UC Berkeley, LBNL, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Princeton to your list, right?
Not to mention the CRU at at the University of East Anglia, initially set up with money from Royal Dutch Shell.
Perhaps the time has come, Anthony, to finally admit you own a large mansion in Tennessee and a condo on the beach and fly all over the world using other people’s money to speak on AGW for large fees…… oh wait that is AL Gore…… sorry.