Bradley Fikes writes in the NCtimes.com
A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.
Boy, was I naive.
Since the Climategate emails and documents revealed active collusion to thwart skeptics and even outright fraud, I’ve been trying to correct the record of my earlier foolishness. In one of those columns, I even wrote: “And see Real Climate (www.realclimate.org) for global warming science without the political spin.”
In fact, Real Climate was and is nothing more than the house organ of global warming activists, concerned more with politics than with science.
My mistake was assuming only the purest of motives of the global warming alarmists, while assuming the worst of the skeptics. In fact, the soi-disant moralists of the global warming movement can also exploit their agenda for profit.
Read the entire story here in the NCtimes.com
h/t to ClimateDepot
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
In my limited experience I have found in most things that ommissions speak louder than rhetoric. It is all about knowing the right questions to ask.
REPLY: [ I call this “Seeing the negative space”. What is not said speaks volumes. And you are, IMHO, quite right. -ems ]
The same thing applies when listening to people in all forms of presentation where they are trying to dance around things they don’t reveal. Does not matter if it is a military spokesmen talking about a classified subject or a lawyer answering a question in a news conference. What they don’t say, or phrases that seem overly restrictive are flashing lights warning you to look deeper.
“I have not seen that report yet!”
translation, “My staff is reading that report.”
“Is that fighter plane capable of Mach 3?” — “its mission is low level bombing!”
Translation — “Yes it is designed for low level high speed bombing runs.”
“Do you support this cover up?” — “I am appalled by these revelations!”
Translation — I am appalled we got caught, I told them to hide this activity!”
Larry
Bruce Cobb
So, Mr. Clarke, is this you?
Nope.
So when will Mr Fikes be converting his website accusation of fraud (about the most serious accusation one can make against a scientist) into a formal complaint to the University authorities?
Outside of Alice in Wonderland, this is, after all the usual course of events, when making a serious, potentially career-ending allegation, the onus is on the accuser to make his case and present the evidence.
So come on, Mr Fikes, step up and submit your evidence to the authorities, the stakes are extraordinarily high, the claim that a Professor commited scientific fraud is extraordinary. As Carl Sagan noted, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Where is yours?
Either you’re hoaxing, or you’ve been hoaxed. No one gets rich off of studying global warming. It’s hard work. It requires serious thought. The competition for grants is stupendous. There’s no serious commercial application. Dozens of well-funded big businesses prefer the findings not be found.
All of the original climate change work was done by scientists on their own time without any extra compensation — especially the CO2 work. I challenge you to find one who is making money off of the stuff.
It’s almost humorous to see people make such bizarre claims. If we “follow the money” in this discussion, we find there isn’t much for people doing serious research, on either side. There’s some money for the support of Astroturf organizations, but again, that doesn’t go to research.
Insurance actuaries make a fair amount of money, but they base their work on known science. You may want to take a look at how actuaries come down on the issues, and what they do with the data. They aren’t getting extra money for projecting warming, however — they make money when they are accurate and can help insurance companies reduce payoffs by avoiding unnecessary risks. In the free market of ideas, warming is the accepted idea. In the free market, warming is recognized as a serious problem by people whose jobs are to look out for serious problems. Skeptics don’t score in either free market.
And that’s too bad. We’re not talking good news here, after all.
I complained about pointless, heckling and harassing FOI requests: “I don’t think much of the gutless who file those requests.”
REPLY: As usual Ed, you are flat wrong. The climate industry is costing taxpayers $79 billion and counting.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/climate-science-follow-the-money/
Ah, I see I made a format error, too. Someone will, no doubt, take offense, and see a conspiracy.
REPLY: You know Ed, reasonable people just ask for it to be corrected instead of projecting. When your school students make an error, do you project conspiracy theory on them? Now what is the formatting error you’d like fixed pardner? – A
Ed Darrell (09:57:52) :
Let me see if I have got this right. There is no need for FOI because, by invoking it, one proves one is not a serious researcher deserving of the information. You know, someone ought to novelize that concept.
My apologies for the error — I was not interested in an argument ad hominem, but instead I was arguing on the issues.
Certainly did not seem that way. You are dead wrong on the issues. If you are against the freedom of information act, then I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. You are wrong, but there is no convincing you, so I wash my hands of the conversation. I can tell from the statement below that reality’s message on the answering machine still awaits.
Dozens of well-funded big businesses prefer the findings not be found.
I misidentified the author of a post to which I responded, and said: “My apologies for the error — I was not interested in an argument ad hominem, but instead I was arguing on the issues.”
Dave F said:
Answer the issues and show me, then. I’m just writing what I know. If you have contrary data, please post it. Our disagreement certainly shouldn’t be interpreted as my saying anything about whoever made the argument, especially since I responded only to the argument.
As I noted earlier, I’ve worked for FOIA acts in three different states, and was a member of the national FOIA committee for some years. If you want to pick a fight, how about picking a fight on something substantial, where we disagree? I’m not opposed to FOIA — I think it’s a good tool under certain circumstances. Generally it works best when used by journalists in pursuit of journalistic stories. It’s not a great tool for science research, and it’s a poor tool for rebuttal of published science research.
There’s no convincing me by simply claiming I’m in error with no data, no. If you have a case, make it.
I noted:
Do you disagree? Make a case. That’s been very much the history of all efforts to clean up the air since the 1940s. There are notable exceptions, but it’s fair and accurate to note that industry generally claims an inability to clean the air so much as health or other concerns require. I’m making a mere statement of history. I find it odd that you think history means I’m obstinate.
Ed Darrell (09:57:52) :
“I challenge you to find one who is making money off of the stuff. “
Fish, barrel.
Really, Ed, do you have anything to say other than “I believe the pro-AGW side”? Because, you could save a lot of pixels, and incrementally lower your carbon footprint in the process, by leaving it at that.
Bart, I asked for a pointer to someone making money off of global warming. You linked back to an Anthony Watts post. Are you saying Watts is making money off of warming? I doubt that.
The post mentioned Al Gore — of course, you aren’t crass enough to suggest that Gore makes money off of it, are you? Because you’ve got a heck of a mountain to climb to make that case.
The challenge stands: Name someone who makes money off of warming. I don’t mean hurl mud, I mean name someone who makes money, and tell us how they do it.
Technically, since ‘global warming’ is an almost completely natural occurrence, it’s the wrong way to ask the question. But we know what was meant. So, off the top of my head…
James Hansen: Minimum of $720,000
Rajendrea Pachauri: click. Probably much more than Gore
Al Gore: $100,000,000+
Phil Jones: £13,700,000 [$22 million]
Federal gov’t AGW grants: $50+ billion past decade [vs Skeptic funding of $19 million]
Everyone who has written an alarmist book
Every university that accepts AGW grants
Every advertising agency hired by the gov’t to warn of “carbon”
The thoroughly corrupt UN
Shell Oil company among many others
China, Russia, India, Brazil, and every country that was given carbon credits to sell, as part of the original Kyoto scam…
This is too easy. I could go on all day, because the question is as simple to answer as the old Groucho Marx game show question: “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?”
The taxpayers are being forced to pay the for the AGW fraud. The wealth transfer from the general population to the special interest groups that benefit is projected to be in excess of $1,000,000,000,000.
That is real money. And every pocket that money goes into, whether it’s Al Gore’s, or foreign countries, or James Hansen’s, or the opaque and unaccountable UN, or oil companies, or the CRU climate scientists who strategized by email about how to hide payola from the taxman, and every other AGW special interest, will be making money from ‘global warming’ — just as the rest of us will be forced to pay much higher taxes, much higher gas prices, and pretty much more for everything else.
The common citizens are the ones being robbed by the CO2=CAGW tricksters, based on the repeatedly falsified conjecture that mostly natural change in a tiny trace gas will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.
I wasn’t looking for a comedy routine, Smokey. I wasn’t looking for bald face falsehoods.
How, do you claim, did Al Gore make $100 million off of global warming?
Your claim is beyond silly.
It’s scurrilous, too.
What in the world makes you think such things? Is there any logical explanation for your statement, or are your claims [snip – clean up your language ]
Ed, get a clue. If you need help, just do a search of “Gore”.
Anyone who actually believes that Al Gore isn’t in the globaloney/carbon credits scam for money doesn’t understand the first thing about what’s going on in the real world.
Maybe Al is selling those $1,200 pix with him out of pure altruism — and Pachauri is in the game for the frequent flyer miles, huh?
I’m not in it for the money either, Ed. So you can have your pic taken with me for only $500. We can even do it in front of a global warming sign if you like. Just like Al.
Yep, me and Al. Neither of us is in it for the money.
More climate scam loot: click
Just explain your case. You claimed Al Gore has already made $100 million on global warming.
We’re from Missouri — except for those of us from the SEC who want to see how you work your numbers so Al can go to jail. Explain how Al Gore made $100 million when he gave away his proceeds from climate change work.
I’m just calling your bluff, that’s all. Show us how it works.
Ed Darrell,
Say it ain’t so, Ed, that you’ve been living in your mom’s basement all this time, so you never heard of Al Gore’s amazing financial rocketship to enormous wealth.
Global warming – specifically, the looming AGW climate catastrophe – is Gore’s schtick. He’s gotten rich off of it. Take away Gore’s ‘climate change’ alarmism [Earth In The Balance, An Inconvenient Truth; $200K speaking fees, brokering the sale of “carbon credits”, $1,200 ten-second photo op lines of sycophants, etc.], and about 98% of his income would never have been possible.
Al Gore has leveraged his global warming scaremongering into centimillionaire status. And he personally leveraged his gloom ‘n’ doom global warming alarmism into Board seats on influential companies, and into his own company selling “carbon credits”, and into being a “senior advisor” to Google, and into speaking tours with Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales [who has just censored references to Climategate], etc.
You wrote: “How, do you claim, did Al Gore make $100 million off of global warming Your claim is beyond silly.”
Now it’s my turn to call your bluff: document the fact [no opinion, please] that Al Gore actually “gave away” his $100 million in global warming proceeds. Show us how that works. Because I’m skeptical of Al Gore’s self-aggrandizing altruistic motives. If he really believed what he’s selling to the public, Al would be a traitor to the human race for his profligate over-consumption and waste of resources – the same waste of resources that he criticizes others for.
Smokey, you shouldn’t act the complete idiot on economic and finance stuff, as you do. By the way, my mother’s dead, and you’re a troll just for bringing it up.
Gore’s estimated $100 million fortune boost came through stocks — he sits on the board of Apple and he’s a paid advisor to Google. It would be darn near impossible to have access to the stock options and pay from those two stock rockets and not get filthy rich. You could read about it in Ken Auletta’s new book, Googled: The end of the world as we know it. (Here’s a rumor for you to worry about, though it’s almost certainly untrue: “Gore makes a penny for every Google search — every time you Google “global warming,” he makes a penny. Worse for you, he’s got a deal with Microsoft to make $0.03 for every Bing search. If that’s true, Al Gore will make millions just dishing accurate information about climate change, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Don’t even think about his deal for iTunes downloads!”) Gore makes money on information and technology advances, an area where he was an early advocate and an early adopter, and an area in which he remains probably the highest ranking once-elected official who knows how to make the technology work (rumor has it that his microwave oven and even his old VCR display the accurate time, adjusted for daylight savings).
Gore’s contributions of proceeds from his Nobel Prize, the film, and his lectures, are well known, well tracked by major media (who bother to check out the IRS filings) . One would need to be near a troglodyte to be unaware of the facts.
Oh, you could look it up in the finance pages of major newspapers, but that would be too much like research, wouldn’t it?
That would be 100,000 photos. With 100,000 people who forked over $1,000 to pay for the thing, you’d think that you’d be able to offer 1% or 2% of the people to testify to the accuracy of your statement. And yet you don’t even have one person. If you did the math, you’d see that your claims are ridiculous before you make them.
There’s a reason those two guys at Google, who started in their dorm room, are worth billions, and you are not. They listen to smart people, and they learn.
You just never learn, Smokey. (I’ve given you the link that proves your error, to save you from having to Google it yourself.) You could do much better if you’d just listen to Al Gore sometime.
Ed Darrell (15:39:56) :
“Bart, I asked for a pointer to someone making money off of global warming. You linked back to an Anthony Watts post.”
Ed… You’re an idiot.