Guest post by Steven Goddard
Suzanne Goldenberg recently
complained in the UK Guardian about the
ICCC (International Conference on Climate Change) global warming “deniers” :
The 600 attendees (by the organisers’ count) are almost entirely white males, and many, if not most, are past retirement age. Only two women and one African-American man figure on the programme of more than 70 speakers.
In the UK, profiling like that might be considered a hate crime if it were about any other group other than the one she described. But that isn’t the point. Below is a
photo of the vaunted
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change) taken at their last meeting. The spitting image of her description of the I
CCC. No doubt Ms. Goldenberg considers the adult white men in the I
PCC to be great visionaries, leading the noble fight against climate Armageddon.
Here are some other scientists active in climate change:
Jim Hansen:
Hansen at a climate conference in Denmark 2009.
Left to Right: Dr. Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), Dr. Paul Knappenberger (President of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum), Dr. Wally Broecker (Columbia University), and Dr. Ray Pierrehumbert (University of Chicago) pose for a photo after the first of the Global Climate Change forum. Forum I was held at the Adler Planetarium.
Is it a big surprise that most
senior scientists are adult white males? And what criteria did she use to choose the expertise of one group of prestigious scientists to the exclusion of another? Does she consider her personal climate expertise to be superior to
Dr. Richard Lindzen, to the point where she can choose to simply ignore his opinion?
Richard Siegmund Lindzen, Ph.D., (born February 8, 1940) is a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his research in dynamic meteorology, especially planetary waves. He has published over 200 books and scientific papers. He was the lead author of Chapter 7 (physical processes) of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC on global warming (2001). He has been a critic of some anthropogenic global warming theories and the political pressures surrounding climate scientists.
It is one thing to question the scientific conclusions of an organisation, and a completely different matter to make an ad hominem attack against an entire group – based on such witless criteria.
H/T to Aron for finding the article
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Hi Giles,
Suzanne cites the numbers herself in her article.
“According to DeSmogblog, an environmentalist website, the 50 or so thinktanks linked to this conference between them have received $47m in funds over the years from Exxon and the Koch and Scaife families”
The years she is talking about go back to the 80s. So let’s break it down:
50 thinktanks received $47 million over 20 years. That comes out to $47,000 per annum per thinktank.
Now let’s suppose each thinktank has at least two members (in reality it is a couple dozen or more). That means each member got $23,500 per annum from Exxon, Koch and Scaife.
That’s the salary of a McDonald’s employee. If Alarmist predictions were based on solid science, why would anyone contest truth for so little money when there is vastly much more money to be made out of writing scary articles and books or making disaster movies?
Al Gore has made more money in a few years than all those thinktanks put together over two decades.
In addition: oil companies also fund environmental groups, colleges and universities.
Stevn Goddard your 05 59 47
I was way ahead of you correcting that with my 04 22 03.
Pay attention at the back there 🙂
Tonyb
First off, oil companies produce products that we demand, and they produce them at very cheap prices for us. Therefore, those who criticize fossil fuel companies are very hypocritical, unless, of course they don’t purchase or use petroleum products. And the biggest hypocrite of all is: click
The Gore family has always been up to its eyeballs in political corruption: click
Then there’s Greenpeace and similar groups — who all take bundles of corporate cash, while jumping up and down and pointing the finger at oil the companies, which at least produce something of great value: click
And of course people like James Hansen, who are presumably paid by taxpayers to provide unbiased science, but instead cash in big time from groups and individuals with a heavy AGW agenda: click
And finally, RealClimate and climateprogress are funded by the same person who as a teenager herded his fellow jews into boxcars during WWII, and has now converted to being an international Communist: George Soros. Which of course completely discredits those propaganda sites that accept gobs of Soros cash. Unlike oil company grants, there are always strings attached to Soros money.
Alarmists constantly point at tax paying companies like Exxon Mobil and shout, “they’re giving grants to scientists!” while turning a blind eye to the subversion of climate science by really big payoffs [Hansen alone has pocketed over three-quarters of a million dollars from pro-AGW groups — that we know of].
See? It’s those big bad energy companies — pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Mr Goddard,
Joanne’s scepticism was already well established by your quote. Tell me, you apparently thought highly enough of Dr Simpson’s views to reproduce a lengthy, if curiously sub-edited quote and describe her as a respected client scientist. Do you also endorse her view that even if there is room for scepticism, as there always is, we need to act on emissions, because if the scepticism turns out to be unfounded, as nearly the totality of the climate science discipline agree is likely, the the result is an ‘unsustainable planet’ ?
“…instead cash in big time…”
How many of those ‘sources’ would hold up in fact-checking for a print publication? Really, blog comments as a resource?
The 47M is what is identified.There are think tanks that are secretive of their funding sources and amounts. There are donors who cover tracks through frontgroups. Obviously, that amount spread over that many years isn’t enough to sustain those groups.
I don’t believe in the idea that we have an unsustainable planet. As long as there is a demand there will be the means to supply, science and technology will make sure of that the way it has done. That’s why Malthus and others like him have always been wrong.
Neither do I believe the subversive Marxist adage that is being spread on forums “We buy shit we don’t need!”. Certainly we can do without a lot of things. We can do without butter on toast. We can do without milk or juice, drink water instead! We can do without socks. We can do without underwear. We can do without cutting our hair. We can do without toothpaste. In fact, we can do without almost everything apart from living in a cave near a stream and having some wild game to kill. But then you’d have a very painful life and be dead by 20.
(I especially like the other popular comment that activists are taught to post on internet forums “Why are kids playing computer games! They should climb trees instead!”. Because climbing trees is boring after you’ve done it twice and kids die when they fall from them.)
We buy “shit” we want, not necessarily need, because it increases the quality of life, stimulates our minds and keeps people employed. Otherwise we’d just be sitting around breeding and dying, which is what was happening in India and China during much of the 20th century. The result, population boom and mass poverty.
One of the real problems that exists is overproduction. Too often producers and manufacturers overestimate demand and that results in a lot of goods (from food to cars) that can’t be sold. They need ultra-modern monitoring systems to be able to gauge demand more precisely. That will put less stress on resources and cut company expenses, which means more affordable products or better salaries.
They are all well documented “Giles“, me boy. There are pages and pages of links from different sources all verifying the same thing. Go ahead, have a look. Too bad you’re so uncomfortable with the inescapable conclusion. But there it is.
Follow the money. Cui bono? Both those who are paid off, and those paying off. Everyone else loses. It’s the pro-AGW money that has thoroughly corrupted your pals over at RealClimate and climateprogress, Hansen, Suzuki, Mann, etc., etc. They all take outside money. That’s why the alarmists shout the alarm about oil companies — to take the spotlight off the fact that their pals are doing much worse and being sneakier about it.
Hansen has denied taking the payoffs. But if others are slandering him by making direct accusations of taking what amounts to bribes at taxpayer expense, then he should sue like anyone else would if they were falsely accused.
So why doesn’t Hansen take legal action? The answer is simple: the discovery and deposition process would undoubtedly uncover a lot more that we don’t know about. So Hansen takes the hits, and pockets the loot. And pounds the AGW/catastrophe drum as if getting more loot depended on it.
The 47M is what is identified.There are think tanks that are secretive of their funding sources and amounts. There are donors who cover tracks through frontgroups.
Then you’ll have to prove that, Giles. The purpose of a thinktank is to accept research grants, do research and then advise companies and governments about the direction they should be taking. There’s no dark sinister plot in that unless they were advocating fascism.
What you said applies more to Greenpeace who are not open with their accounts despite receiving upwards of $200 million a year. Or various bodies within the UN. Or Al Gore who said he was going to spend $300 million on a campaign to spread awareness of global warming. Where would he get $300 million from and why won’t he answer that when asked???
Wallowa County is peppered with outdoorsmen and women who can recount with very good accuracy the extremes of temperature, both hot and cold. These extremes are nearly always coupled with negative effects on income, which makes them so memorable to the populace (if you can call it that) here. People older than 50 will tell you, everyone of them, that they do not recall a colder time than this. Those that have memories and are in their 90’s (my boyfriend’s aunt is celebrating her 99th on Sunday and has an elephant’s memory) tells us that it was this cold in March in the earlier part of the last century when she was a child. This would explain why record cold temperatures are being recorded all over in areas that have records going back to the 30’s. So far I have seen one that recently broke an 1890’s to present temperature record.
As to the cause, MSNBC would have us believe it is the invisible global warming monster we must defeat (visions of the devil anyone?). My back-door observation tells me it is because the Pacific is colder than it has been in a long time. Should we believe in a forked tail devil out to get us unless we sacrifice to the Algoricle, or should we question this cultish sect and go with meteorologist after meteorologist telling us to bundle up, it is cold outside? Or we could all just go outside, everyone in the upper part of the US, right now, and check for ourselves.
[checking back door weather…nipply cold with snow on the ground…wear a coat]
Giles Winterbourne (10:35:01) :
The 47M is what is identified.There are think tanks that are secretive of their funding sources and amounts. There are donors who cover tracks through frontgroups. Obviously, that amount spread over that many years isn’t enough to sustain those groups.
Oh no!!! Sounds like a conspiracy theory. I thought the denialists held the patent on those. Welcome to the club. And, if you would, provide a complete listing of the money donated by the think tanks and donors. Then be sure to reduce the total $ by the amount given to research beneficial to your mantra, like biomass research, reforestation, and any others you may find.
” Our typical response is that we never discuss our funding” http://www.co2science.org/about/position/funding.php
For one example….
“There are pages and pages of links from different sources all verifying the same thing. ”
And it’s too much work (or research) to actually make a link?
Heavy on the assertions, light on exegesis. For the last several days.
John Philip,
If we get hysterical about every possible threat we face, there isn’t much room left for anything else.
How about 30,000,000 people living on the San Andreas fault around Los Angeles? The fault has meters of stored displacement accumulated from the last couple of hundred years.
The fact that a few well known people are hysterical about AGW, does not equate to sound policy decisions.
Real Climate’s bandwidth is funded by a PR firm called Environmental Media Services (EMS) as part of their Science Communications Network.
The registrant of Realclimate.org is Environmental Media Services.
The realclimate server is located at 2403 Sidney St Suite 510 Pittsburg PA. RealClimate’s EMS server is located in the same place.
Here is Whois Search Results:
Domain ID:D105219760-LROR
Domain Name:REALCLIMATE.ORG
Created On:19-Nov-2004 16:39:03 UTC
Last Updated On:30-Oct-2005 21:10:46 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:B133AE74B8066012
Registrant Name:Betsy Ensley
Registrant Organization:Environmental Media Services
Registrant Street1:1320 18th St, NW
Registrant Street2:5th Floor
Registrant City:Washington
Registrant State/Province:DC
Registrant Postal Code:20036
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.2024636670
Registrant Email:betsy@ems.org
Admin ID:B133AE74B8066012
Admin Name:Betsy Ensley
Admin Organization:Environmental Media Services
Admin Street1:1320 18th St, NW
Admin Street2:5th Floor
Admin City:Washington
Admin State/Province:DC
Admin Postal Code:20036
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.2024636670
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
ZoomInfo on Betsy Ensley:
#Betsy Ensley, Web Editor/Program Coordinator: Betsy joined the staff of EMS in April 2002 as a program assistant for EMS’s toxics program. She manages BushGreenwatch.org…
Betsy is paid by MoveOn.org — which is funded by George Soros.
“There’s no dark sinister plot in that unless they were advocating fascism”
Really? How about pure and simple disinformation?
Even a biased thinktank needs to review ALL the literature, analyze, verify, and develop thinking based on the research. To ignore data….. That wouldn’t pass muster if the purchasers were wanting to really know what was happening in the field.
The really egregious piece is that the practice started with tobacco / cancer denying and has continued; often with the same participants.
“…various bodies within the UN.”
Examples? Cites?
“..why won’t he answer that when asked???”
“The $300 million venture, funded largely by profits from his Oscar-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth” and the cash component from his Nobel Peace Prize.” http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/31/gore-im-not-applying-for-the-job-of-broker/
“Giles” just doesn’t get it at all.
The problem is the fact that taxpayer-paid government bureaucrats are being paid by outside individuals and groups with a heavy pro-AGW agenda they want pushed. And they’re getting what they’ve paid for.
RealClimate – Your point is..?
“Although our domain is being hosted by Environmental Media Services, and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content” http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/about/
Proof otherwise?
“How about pure and simple disinformation?”
I believed in catastrophic global warming for a decade or more. As I accumulated evidence, grew wiser and became apolitical (I was a very typical brainwashed liberal, now a no nonsense libertarian) it seemed obvious to me that no catastrophe was coming and that this global warming hysteria is a multi-faceted scam preying on the ignorant.
So tell me, Giles, how did I become a skeptic if the Alarmists are telling the truth?
“Hansen, Suzuki, Mann, etc., etc. They all take outside money”
“…taxpayer-paid government bureaucrats are being paid by outside individuals…”
Examples?
Cites?
“Hansen has denied taking the payoffs. …amounts to bribes at taxpayer expense, then he should sue like anyone else would if they were falsely accused.
So why doesn’t Hansen take legal action? ”
Maybe because the only place that discussion is happening is in the comment threads of a few blogs?
The really egregious piece is that the practice started with tobacco / cancer denying and has continued
Giles, when scientists denied tobacco caused cancer they claimed they had a consensus and that the science was indisputable. They also claimed a consensus against the idea of plate tectonics. They also claimed a consensus that there was an Aryan race superior to other races. Now they claim a consensus that the world is going to go up in flames unless you allow government regulators and carbon traders to monitor your daily activities.
You got your tobacco analogy from other activists (I’ve seen it before, it’s boring to mimic) without questioning the validity of it.
Giles Winterbourne (11:55:06) : “Although our domain is being hosted by Environmental Media Services, and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content”
Proof otherwise?
How about showing yours. You have made more than one allegation about funding implying editorial control of other organizations. If funding is a priori proof of control then it also works against RC despite what they claim. Or does your logic only apply to anti-AGW organizations?
Yep, Aron and DAV, I gave “Giles” plenty of citations and all he can parrot is, “Cites… cites?”
Something tells me if I refuted every last thing he said with peer-reviewed chapter and verse, it wouldn’t ever be enough. Why? Because it is a tactic of true believers to endlessly question, and then when they’re faced with an answer, they move the goal posts by asking different questions. The cite pest gets plenty of links, but they’re never enough.
Climate realists [AKA: skeptics], on the other hand, only have one central question: where’s your real world proof, aside from your always-inaccurate computer models? Show us how CO2 makes global temperatures rise.
It really galls the always-wrong alarmist contingent that the planet itself is refuting their failed/falsified “CO2 causes global warming” conjecture: click1 and click2
Smokey,
Repeated request for citation is an old discussion board trick used to tire or frustrate an opponent. If the person making requests was as knowledgeable as they claimed to be they wouldn’t have to ask for citation so often.
When citation is requested give it to them, but if they continue to ask then tell them what I said above and include that no matter how much citation you give it won’t change their mind until they see things apolitically.