Guest post by Harold Ambler
The reasons that climatologist Michael Mann is as successful as he is are multiple:
1. He told the United Nations something that it was dying to hear (he offered certainty when all else saw uncertainty)
2. He has brought serious money to the universities that house him (and run cover for him)
3. He is an extremely talented propagandist
I discuss this in a letter just published by The Wall Street Journal.
Although Michael Mann has the ear of the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, at a minimum, he complains of sailing into the wind of special-interest disinformation. Alas, this is its own potent form of disinformation.
Letter follows:
My Oily Millions
In Anne Jolis’s review of “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars” (“The Climate Kamikaze,” Weekend Books, March 16), Miss Jolis notes that “In his book, [Michael] Mann dubs the unauthorized release of his emails a ‘crime’ and claims that the ensuing ‘witch hunt’ constituted ‘the most malicious’ of ‘attack after vitriolic attack against us’ by the ‘corporate-funded denial machine.’ “
The reviewer summarizes Mr. Mann’s incessant claim of big-oil bullying perfectly. This indeed is, as the expression goes, how Mr. Mann rolls. And it’s true not just about Mr. Mann and his emails, but about nearly every instance of anyone daring to question the version of climate science promulgated by Mr. Mann.
This is all a bit hard to take. I myself am a skeptical blogger and author, yet I am in no way funded by Big Oil. In fact, my three-and-a-half years of toiling on the subject of climate change has yielded approximately $4,000 worth of income. I’m not proud of this fact as a father, husband or man, but it does undercut the constant conspiracy theories about funding behind global-warming skepticism. Meanwhile, as I’ve noted elsewhere, mainstream climate scientists themselves have received grants totalling more than $1 billion from Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and other large energy companies.
Mr. Mann’s book largely sticks to the familiar conclusions of climate science. Readers might be interested to learn that the current interglacial period, the Holocene, is the coolest of the last five. The one before ours, the Eemian, which ran between approximately 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, likely saw temperature averages of 2° Celsius warmer than today, and sea levels about 15 feet higher. Climatologically, if humans could time-travel to the most ideal time to live on Earth, we would be unlikely to find a better moment than right now. The Holocene, including and especially our own moment within it, is a beautiful climactic nest.
As for those who would convince the public that the sky is falling, one has to ask: Who benefits from such frightening claims?
– Harold Ambler
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(Please let it serve as the occasion when you choose to buy and enjoy my book, available for Kindle and in paperback at Amazon.)
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Well said, sir!
Part way through your book now – thanks for it. The Kindle version is a little askew, as some of the figures appear no-where near the text which accompanies them, and one is left with some puzzlement as to what the graphic might be intended to convey – until one reads a few more e-pages further and then gets the “aha” moment. I use a kindle Fire so the pages are about normal page size (no little Nook screen which could account for the wonkiness of the layout). All that being said only for your information, however, the book itself is a great addition to my arsenal.
I bought your book Harold and can highly recommend it. Keep up the good work.
Who benefits indeed. And the shrillness of the defence, and the skulduggery ensuing from its methods, reinforce Mr. Ambler’s point(s).
Great letter. How benefits from manns agenda? Perfect question
1. Congratulations on getting your letter published in the WSJ
2. Good luck about selling more copies of your book.
3. I hope you realize that getting a climate skeptic letter published in the WSJ – who previously declined to publish a climate alarmist letter organized by Dr Gleick and signed by 255 scientists, can upset Dr Gleick. A lot. When a Heartland director managed it (or rather, 16 people including Heartland’s director, Harrison Schmitt did), Gleick tweeted about 8 times to complain, wrote 2 articles complaining, 2 more facebook posts complaining, and a signed a counter-letter to the WSJ as well. He is also began phishing Heartland the very same day the letter was published. So if I was you, I’d be on my guard against any suspicious looking emails!
4. Just kidding about the last sentence of item 3 Every thing else in item 3 is however true
As Ambler said: “the Eemian, which ran between approximately 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, likely saw temperature averages of 2° Celsius warmer than today, and sea levels about 15 feet higher.”
Why is today’s temperature rise able to create such drastic melting when the previous one couldn’t? Why did not the MWP or the Roman or the Minoan warmth cause noticeable and damaging sea-level rises?
Apparently pre-Mann Joules are worth 1/3 a present Mann-Joule. Another aspect of how all history is irrelevant as today is Special. Science as well as scientists.
@Regarding the penultimate paragraph.
It is obvious that if it were not for our skill at adapting our environment, the climate today is far too cold for us as a species, and we would inhabit only small areas of the globe.
We do not wear clothes because of modesty, but because it is too cold to live without clothes. Man as an animal but for the skill of adaption could only live in the tropical rain forests and other tropoical regions.
Generally, we want and would thrive in a warmer globe.
The idea that it is beneficial to live in a climate equivalent to that emerging at the end of the LIA is madness..
Who benefits indeed.
Those who question the motives of scientists funded by “the fossil fuel industry” are quick to call foul based on conflict of interest. For those same people, the same conflict of interest doesn’t seem to apply to the UN, a political body of questionable mores, as the UN seeks hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth transfers to play with.
Now, for me, that doesn’t say anything negative about the scientists who are working with such public funding, but it does say something about the perspectives of those who only see a risk of bias on only one side of the debate.
‘He is an extremely talented propagandist’
Its that really true , given he makes fool of myself whenever is exposed to public review , which may explain why its very rarely done, and given that he normal comes across has a bit of nasty big head and that’s in friendly situation with his ‘followers. I am not sure this idea is true, but I do think these may ,ironically, be good reasons to keep him in place and in the public eye. So a ‘talented propagandist’ but not for his own side ?
I am shocked. Shocked! … that big oil is not sending you a big fat check in the mail each month. Darn, who knew about that?
Good letter; good points; well said. Thanks.
What about Brad Pitt’s review?
He’s not an extremely talanted propagandist. He’s just a propagandist and not a very good one, but a self employed tool that the alarmist movement are overly happy to use and abuse.
Take a look at the most visible and verbal of the lot, who range from employed PR and journalist tools to self-important bloggers like Romm to scientists like Erlich, Hansen and Mann, but notice how few they are compared to the supposed amount of alarmists.
The thing that made propagandists good in old europe was that they kept up with the current times (in everything from technology, behavior and hype) and they used it to their advantage and used force where it didn’t work.
Mann, like most of the self made officers of the alarmist movement, seem to be stuck on the 1930’s version of everything communication. So the only ones they’re reaching are mostly a small bunch of the closet version of themselves and everyone who wants, and can, profit of them and their deluded behavior (of course, they don’t seem to mind though being well funded by the very evil entity they say fund their oposition.)
Excellent letter, Mr Ambler. Your book is on my ‘purchase soon’ list.
Hey, if Mann had to share his grant money with “denialists, skeptics, and other Gia-haters”, he’d have much less of it to go earth-whoring around.
I hope he finally meets his match with a big law suit that requires an excruciating discovery process–then we might finally have a penitent Mann, although he’ll probably be screaming all the way to the “Big House”.
To Doug Proctor: To evaluate the course of the Eemian , you need to take the values
from Greenland drilling, not from the Antarctis, where 1 year of snow only yields 2 cm
of ice and therefore is too little for detailed avaluation…..
The Eemian was not continously warm, there were 5 cycles of 2,200 years each and
enormous temp swings from +2 “C above todays Holocene and spikes like an
astronomical sin wave went down 5’C. This 5 spikes each endured a couple
hundert years each only and all what melted more or less was quickly converted back
to ice in between the spikes…..
Before you ask questions with the intent of being right of logical on something
check in detail next time before airing unfounded assumptions…unless you want to
confuse innocent readers…..
JS
Mann deserves the ridicule he gets … because … well he’s not a serious scientist.
It is easy to get hot under the collar with mann because what he says is outrageous … but he only says it to get PR … and that kind of carp stopped working ages ago.
Harold: I came to the conclusion last year that the reason we poor skeptical bloggers don’t get a slice of that oil money is…the oil companies have been told by the AGW crowd that they’re already funding us, and they’ve come to believe it. So why reach into the till to give us more?
But that’s not the case, Oil Companies. You aren’t funding us. I would love a chunk of cash for my ENSO- and sea surface temperature-related research. Harold, how about you? Anthony?
Dante D. Leone says:
March 21, 2012 at 4:27 pm
“He’s just a propagandist and not a very good one, but a self employed tool…
You’re absolutely right Dante! Michael Mann is indeed a tool, however, I wouldn’t call him self-employed based on the grants he’s received! 😉
copner says:
March 21, 2012 at 3:46 pm
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You got something to say ?
Say It. Or shut up.
Children are easily exposed, cus they know not.
@Joachim Seifert: So the warmth that raised sea levels 15 feet higher than today was so intermittent that “all what melted more or less was quickly converted back to ice in between the spikes.”
Amazing how the sea rose, then, yeah? That’s some fancy liquid solid ice water, there, eh?
The Big Oil funding is a red herring anyway. Funding may be a motive for making scientifically bogus claims, but it is not proof. A scientific theory that describes observed behavior in nature, and that makes predictions that are both provable and reproducible is a valid theory regardless of who is funding the person who came up with it. Likewise, if a corporation with a financial stake in the outcome finances a scientist that disproves a theory, the incorrectness of that theory is unaffected by the funding source. We ought to care less about arguing that we’re not being paid for by Big Oil than arguing that the entire premise of the accusation is without merit. It’s just lazy science, which the CAGW crowd excels at, and they should be called to account.
Bob Tisdale says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Harold: I came to the conclusion last year that the reason we poor skeptical bloggers don’t get a slice of that oil money is…the oil companies have been told by the AGW crowd that they’re already funding us, and they’ve come to believe it. So why reach into the till to give us more?
But that’s not the case, Oil Companies. You aren’t funding us. I would love a chunk of cash for my ENSO- and sea surface temperature-related research. Harold, how about you? Anthony?
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lol, because the oil companies aren’t threatened by this madness. In fact, it helps them. Cap and trade the oil companies, and then they’ve eliminated all future competitors in the oil industry.
The only fossil fuel industry adversely effected by this idiocy is the coal industry. And, their attack on the coal industry was in part, funded by the natural gas industry.
Maybe we should go there for some money. They don’t have as much as oil or gas, but, they are the ones with something to lose.
I wholeheartedly agree with all but one point, that the Holocene is the coolest of the last five interglacials. Maybe. If you do not consider the possible brief excursions in MIS-7.1 and 7.5, which some consider to have been briefly a couple of meters higher than present, or about in the same range as the Holocene Climate Optimum, while others claim many meters below what has been achieved in the Holocene.
Two things occur to me about climate alarmists:
1 They lack self awareness
2 They form a mutual congratulation circle and have no need for actual merit.