Readers may recall this story last week: Ad hoc group wants to run attack ads
Here’s an update from GlobalWarming.org by Myron Ebell
According to recently disclosed e-mails from a National Academies of Science listserv, prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism. Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.
The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails. A list of excerpts, with descriptive headlines written by me, can be found below. The entire file of e-mails has been posted as a PDF and can be read here.
In my view, the response of these alarmist scientists to the Climategate scientific fraud scandal has little to do with their responsibilities as scientists and everything to do with saving their political position. The e-mails reveal a group of scientists plotting a political strategy to minimize the effects of Climategate in the public debate on global warming.
Selected Excerpts.
Note that the descriptive headlines in italics are by me. The statements in quotation marks are excerpts from the e-mails.
Can we get corporate funding for some splashy ads in the NY Times?
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I will accept corporate sponsorship at a 5 to 1 ratio….”
But our ads will be untainted by corporate influence.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Over the past 24 h I have been amazed and encouraged at the support my proposal has received from Section 63 and beyond. We have had about 15 pledges for $1000! I want to build on that good will and make sure that the facts about the climate system are presented to a very large section of the public—unfiltered by the coal, oil and gas industries….”
What is it about the New York Times? Aren’t Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman enough?
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Op eds in the NY Times and other national newspapers would also be great.”
Scientists should be effecting social and political change.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I want the NAS to be a transformational agent in America.”
Snow in Washington is anecdotal, but no snow in Vancouver is proof.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “…the coal, oil and gas industries (who, ironically, are running commercials on NBC for the winter Olympics, while the weather is so warm that snow has to be imported to some of the events.)”
Robert Paine, Feb. 27: “The beltway’s foolishness about climate change seems especially ironic given the snowless plight of the Vancouver Olympics.”
David Schindler, Feb. 27: “I’d add that Edmonton is near snowless….”
This is a political fight, and we’ve got to get dirty.
Paul R. Ehrlich, Feb. 27: “Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”
Top scientists adore Al Gore.
David Schindler, Feb. 27: “I recall an event at the Smithsonian a couple of eons ago that I thought did a great job, & got lots of media coverage. AL Gore spoke….”
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “Al Gore has a very well written article in the NY Times.”
Forget the science, we want energy rationing!
William Jury, Feb. 27: “I am seeing formerly committed public sector leaders backing off from positions aimed at reducing our fossil fuel dependence.”
They’ll forget Climategate if an authoritative institution repeats the same old line.
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “An NRC report would be useful.”
Steve Carpenter, Feb. 27: “We need a report with the authority of the NAS that summarizes the status and trends of the planet, and the logical consequences of plausible responses.”
David Tilman: Feb. 27: “It would seem wise to have the panel [writing the report] not include IPCC members.”
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar. 1: “National Academies need to be part of this….”
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar 1: “It is imperative that leading scientific societies coordinate a major press event….”
The last academic defense: It’s McCarthyism!
Stephen H. Schneider, Mar. 1: “…Senator Inhofe, in a very good impression of the infamous Joe McCarthy, has now named 17 leading scientists involved with the IPCC as potential climate ‘criminals’. …. I am hopeful that all the forces working for honest debate and quality assessments will decry this McCarthyite regression, and by name point out what this Senator is doing by a continuing smear campaign. …. Will the media have the fortitude to take this on–I’m betting a resounding ‘yes!’” [Note that Schneider has already sent this e-mail to the media asking for their help.]
To read all the e-mails that CEI has obtained, go to the PDF posted here.
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So this is post-modern science in action? Thank goodness I’m old enough to have been a real scientist. This is enough to make it embarassing to admit to being a scientist.
A Note to the IPCC…
Global warming “has no impact on Himalayas” claims Wadia Director
“According to the data for over 140 years available with a British weather observatory situated in Mukteswar (2311m) in Almora has actually revealed that temperature in that region witnessed a dip of 0.4ºC,” he said.
Since 1991, the institute is monitoring the Himalayas extensively with focusing the glacial studies and last twenty year data has never witnessed a continual retreat. Sometimes, the recession rates have gone up but on an average the rate is very much safer, he added.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/northindia/Global-Warming-has-no-impact-on-Himalayas-claims-Wadia-Director/Article1-515763.aspx
[snip]
So according to Falkowski, Hollywood, the government, and business should help them develop radio and TV programming which should be streamed into every school in America?
Hmmm….creepy.
As biologists I;m sure they’ll be aware of evolutionary dead-ends, especially when they’re so far up one.
PS – Stephen M, no need to crusade on here (the A-word). It’s very off topic.
Stunning! How can educated people be so appallingly dense? How naive to believe that this flimsy plan would not get blown at some point, and do even greater damage to the standing and reputation of the scientists involved. I bet their favoured journalists will be interested to see how they were going to be used.
Mr. Briggs commented on the subject too:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2049
Bwahahaha Did anyone else catch Schneiders self deprecation? LMAO
Bwahahah haha bwahahah
Miss? The fool couldn’t hit the side of a barn door with a truck lol
On Sat, Feb27, 2010 @ur momisugly 6:16 pm Paul Flakowski wrote:
What people are those ? Most folks don’t think “GW” is that
big of a problem, and a whole block of other people don’t
think about it at all.
He then wrote:
They will be selling their opinions of the science, but
not necessarily saying that it’s opinions they’re handing out.
As you read through the other National Acadamy of Science
linkserv emails at
http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/CEI%20-%20Climategate%20Reloaded.pdf
You’ll see that the real target audiences for this publicity
campaign will be power figures (politicians & corporate
leaders) and opinion leaders (media reporters & editors) to
set up a steamroller that quashes the pesky voices of the
“anti GW” crowd once and for all time.
How will they do it? By using their memberships in NAS as a
badge of honor and a crutch, they’re going to sell the
scare !
The NAS members in the other Sections should feel cheapened
by such antics.
Bring it on, these guy have spent so much time shooting themselves in to foot, their now standing on their knees.They just don’t seem to understand that fear is a very short term motivator, and it quickly turns to anger. The more they try to scare people now, the more angry they are going to make everyone.
Looks they have a mole inside.
Falkowski – what a [self-snip], his own University says the NH snow cover has been reaching record extent.
Also from Schneider..
Haven’t we been saying that for years? The man has been reading sceptic blogs.
The hypocrasy is palpable
This item appeared in the UK “News of the World” and looks like it could have been “placed ” by the WWF . I have tried to comment on the piece but it seems to be tightly moderated. Dark deeds afoot.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/green/749418/WWFrsquos-head-of-climate-change-answers-critics-who-claim-it-is-just-a-myth.html
i think bigoil’s email is fatcat@planetdespoilers.org
These people are delusional. That is not hyperbole… delusional and dangerous.
Warmer in Edmonton during an el nino? Wow… rocket science there… and I will never figure out how they have convinced themselves that their gargantuan funding, including massive oil industry dollars, can possibly be threatened by a few piddling dollars Exxon played around with over 10 years ago.
Apparently when you’re well financed and pushing a load of BS virtually uncontested for two decades, it’s disheartening to see that people are not as stupid as you thought they were.
These people make me ill. And that’s not hyperbole either. Physically ill at the thought that they have any sort of power or control, that they write crap that kids will be forced to read in school, that they have the funding to make stuff like their “science on pbs” scheme happen, and that they’re not currently institutionalized.
Dr A Burns (23:58:38) :
Are all the alarmist “scientists” in this group biologists
———
Not real biologists. The new pseudoscience called Conservation Biology is the next link in this chain. This “crisis disciplne” – that’s what they call it -begins with the ‘no debate’ premise that everything is doomed and tailors everything to fit. Not exactly the objective scientific approach. Those are the people that ‘proved’ that highest global polar bear population in recorded history, with most subpopulations growing or stable, were shrinking and, for the EPA, endangered!
Note that the population used most often for their media poster child is the one in Hudson Bay, the southernmost one in the world. Like focusing on the Antarctic Pensinsula or one of the chosen thermometers.
Vast Conservation Biology industry interest in long term studies of the effect of climate change on whatever.
So Ehrlich didn’t think it was enough to scare the *** out of one or two generations of worried young men and women, now he’s going to scare our kids, too! And the sad thing is that if the AGW scare delays the development of the poorest countries, it will delay the stabilization of their populations, too.
This is a political fight, and we’ve got to get dirty.
So, insults, lies, fraud, and intimidation are just the start? What’s left, Ben Salter in a Power Ranger™ suit popping us in the snoot until we recant?
I can’t wait for the next dramatic episode.
Popcorn, anybody?
Charles, the comment below ,which I tried to post earlier is surely on topic ? The newspaper item is a blatant freebie for WWF . Please ignore this comment if you are still moderating the early morning post 🙂
This item appeared in the UK “News of the World” and looks like it could have been “placed ” by the WWF . I have tried to comment on the piece but it seems to be tightly moderated. Dark deeds afoot.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/green/749418/WWFrsquos-head-of-climate-change-answers-critics-who-claim-it-is-just-a-myth.html
Darwin awards anyone?
Paul Erlich was the darling of the social science faculty members when I was a university staffer in the early 1960s. It was not a comfortable experience when I said in a common room after reading his first blockbuster that I thought Erlich was an idiot. Time has proved me right and Erlich wrong, but for some reason his opinions still matter in those circles. Don’t those academics still in Erkich’s thrall ever observe what happens in the real and observable world over time?
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/29/1975-endangered-atmosphere-conference-where-the-global-warming-hoax-was-born/
Must be mentioned again…
The staggering theme running through all of the emails is that science itself is under attack simply because other qualified scientists, – some perhaps more qualified to question their scientific data than they – have the ‘effrontery’ to question their papers on the single subject of global warming.
When, in the history of scientific research, has it been necessary for scientific theory to be supported against a measured opposing viewpoint, by organised a major advertising campaign? can scientific data no longer be defended by the data itself ? Why do these people get so upset at many of their own kind having a different viewpoint? And why do they try to spread lies and obfuscation about the motives behind anyone who dares to question whether AGW is fact or fiction?
A feeling of panic pervades throughout all their correpondence. They need to be careful otherwise they will lose their argument completely to a growing sceptical publiic who question their departure from the normally accepted procedures for presenting scientific research data.
Those 15 contributors to this fiasco must be trying to distance themselves and fast before they are exposed and their research called into question.
Or are most of them part of the 17 under investigation?
NickB. (23:56:54) :
“…The McCarthy line is really too much. What is it, Sourcewatch.org? Every bad word spoken against AGW and every suspected link to Big Oil is documented there – there’s even a page against Pielke Jr.”
What is amusing about the McCarthy line was history has shown him to be essentially correct! There were Communists under the bed, Oh My If you want to meet them go to Cambridge MA. Wear a global warming denier shirt and they will be happy to scream in your face "When we take over, we will kill people like you…" i got that reaction from wearing a pro gun ownership shirt.
If you want the Big Oil connections go to
http://activistcash.com/foundation.cfm?did=166
and check out the various Rockefeller foundations (Standard Oil money) and see how much they are giving WWF and Greenpeace, the favorite authors for IPCC peer reviewed reports.