Today at Huffington Post, a prominent soldier in the environmental movement wrote:
I was stunned by the industry’s shamelessness — and then chagrined at my own gullibility.
It seems the iPhone app “Our Climate” has caught the attention of the chairman of the Sierra Club, Carl Pope.
That quote above is from when he got suckered by an April 1st spoof app supposedly released by the coal industry (made up by another Sierra Club leader as a joke). As is typical for people that write with an agenda to discredit, he doesn’t examine any of the facts surrounding the topic or the application itself. Predictably, he’s used a collection of weasel words. Pope writes in the Huffington Post:
But truth, it seems, does imitate fiction, with only a few month’s lag time. For this week a prominent climate-cynics site, Watt’s Up With That, released a climate-misinformation iPhone app that contains far more damaging Orwellian language than the Sierra Club’s coal industry spoof. The app, called Our Climate, does indeed treat global warming as, perhaps, just the result of natural atmospheric rhythms. But then again, maybe the globe isn’t warming at all. Indeed, Our Climate is, in its own words, a “bite-sized” guide to how climate cynics argue — and as a result rarely have so many contradictions been encompassed in so little space: Climate is highly variable on its own, so people can’t be causing it to change . Then again, climate has self-correcting feedback mechanisms, so it can’t change, regardless.
But there is one consistent theme to all of the material contained on the Our Climate” app (and on its parent WUWT site). Taken in isolation, each bit of data is designed to send your brain the message, “There’s nothing to worry about (and no reason to stop burning coal and oil).”
Here’s the funny part. The app isn’t mine, I didn’t write it, and I make nothing from it. I only wrote about it a couple of times, as did many other skeptic blogs. Yet the Sierra Club chairman Pope gives WUWT all the credit for it, saying:
For this week a prominent climate-cynics site, Watt’s Up With That, released a climate-misinformation iPhone app
In fact, it was written in Australia, by Aeris Systems which is connected to WUWT only by the fact that they asked me to review it and post the press release.
Even though Pope links to the iTunes page for the app, which has no mention of WUWT, and that page links to the ourclimate.info website, where again there’s no mention of WUWT, he seems to have missed this basic bit of research on ownership. Oh but it doesn’t stop there. Pope also links to the Guardian smackdown by the other climate app developer, John Cook:
And, guess what? WUWT isn’t mentioned in that article either, neither am I. It’s pretty embarrassing when the chairman of the Sierra Club can’t take a couple of minutes to read the content in the links he cites. I have no idea how he came to the false conclusion that the app is mine.
Kids, this is what happens when you don’t do your homework. Will Pope fix it over at HuffPo? Doubtful – the Sierra Club traditionally doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good rant.
Looks like Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope may have been writing an autobiography with this book title:
A nice discussion of AUMF in the comments here:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/10/ron_paul_on_rac.html
And of course here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
On Jefferson’s inauguration as president in 1801, Yussif Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli demanded $225,000 from the new administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice, Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May of 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents, but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate. Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis soon followed their ally in Tripoli.
In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli “and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify.”
So there is precedent (St. Jefferson no less) on Bush’s side.
But this is rather far afield from Climate.
But I can get my friends on the right in a tizzy if I ask: “Do you believe drugs cause addiction?” Well there is scant evidence for it and plenty against. So much so that even the NIDA has said: addiction is a genetic disease.
Too much faith in the world and not enough reason. From all sides of every question.
I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.
o Source: The Book of Lies
——
Exxon: “(how about $100 million for Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project, and $600 million for Biofuels research).”
“The US government spent $79 billion on climate research and technology since 1989 – to be sure, this funding paid for things like satellites and studies, but it’s 3,500 times as much as anything offered to sceptics.”
“The $79 billion figure does not include money from other western governments, private industry, and is not adjusted for inflation.”
“According to the World Bank, turnover of carbon trading reached $126 billion in 2008. PointCarbon estimates trading in 2009 was about $130 billion.”
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2835581.htm
Where’s my oil check????
Leon Brozyna says:
August 11, 2010 at 8:08 pm (Edit)
And another thing. Mr. Pope must be experiencing some confusion between the terms skeptic and cynic.
I’m a climate cynic. I just *know* it’s going to rain on August bank holiday. 🙁
“Climate Cynic” – like that. I just don’t think this climate is good enough to make it. Call yourself a real climate? Now Venus, that’s a real climate. lolz.
LOL a climate disinformation app containing damaging Orwellian language? That coming from someone literally rewriting current events as ordered by Orwell’s Big Brother
Are you sure? I may be mistaken but I thought Taiwan’s official name is Republic of China (ROC). Taiwan has no seat at the United Nations, having lost it to China in 1971. Repeated attempts to regain representation at the UN have been blocked. Taiwan has formal diplomatic ties with only two dozen countries. It has no diplomatic representation in the USA.
References:
“Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan)”
BBC Country Profile
CIA World Factbook
BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | Taiwan’s identity crisis
Leon Brozyna says:
August 11, 2010 at 8:08 pm
And another thing. Mr. Pope must be experiencing some confusion between the terms skeptic and cynic. Now I won’t speak for everyone else visiting this site, but color me skeptical. I’m healthy enough that I can detect an occasional cynical twinge on one of my rare bad days and keep that well reigned in. Perhaps if the enviro crowd would start to reign in their own cynicism, they might start to see the true nature of the climate.
Nah …
=======================
At least he didn’t use the “D” word !!!
Guys guys guys!!
Lets call it a day on the Gee Dubbajah crap and liberal/conservative bashing please!
This site is not about that I think (I certainly do not come here for that).
Lets respect each others political viewpoint and lets talk about the science, not about OT political bull.
Thanks!!
Benjamin P. says:
August 11, 2010 at 10:02 pm
“James Sexton, your ignorance seethes.”
I see the methods of debate from the CAGW crowd are still in pure form. Benjamin, quit taking the handbook so literal, it doesn’t really win debate points. If that is your best retort, then by default you’ve given up in the discussion and concede my point. Thanks. But, now that I see the level of debate we are engaged in, and just to show you I’m not too proud to get my hands dirty, I’ll attempt to properly show you how to throw slights in the conversation that resonate with other readers.
Is the CAGW/CC crowd raiding the 6th grade playground bullies to argue their points now? Sis, that doesn’t work after the rest age past puberty. And regardless of how many times you fail your exams in the 6th grade, eventually, you’ll be advanced to junior-high. No child left behind, remember? Now, Ben, I know it is a scary prospect, but, us adults find that children become better adapted to reality when forced to interact in different social settings and exposed to thoughts a bit more challenging than rote memory work. So, you should really try to apply yourself and when you do, I think you’ll find you can really get promoted to the 7th grade on your own merits, you just have to try a bit harder than what you’ve previously done.
Ben, do you see the difference in the insults? Other than simply stating someone is ignorant, (which many will dismiss upon reading the statement, which takes about a second) you should go into deeper detail. Whereas, my retort will take you considerably longer to read, depending upon your level of English comprehension. Heck, for you, my insults may take you all day to consider! Have a nice day, and comeback when you have a modicum of substance to discuss. Thanks.
tallbloke says, August 12, 2010 at 2:50 am:
Leon Brozyna says:
August 11, 2010 at 8:08 pm (Edit)
And another thing. Mr. Pope must be experiencing some confusion between the terms skeptic and cynic.
I’m a climate cynic. I just *know* it’s going to rain on August bank holiday. 🙁
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yep – no doubt about it, rain it will!
But isn’t that being a ‘weather cynic’, rather than a climate cynic?
How are you all coping with the tragedy around Lake Michigan and where can we Aussies send aid and donations?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced
Hasn’t been a word in the media over here about the death toll….hey wait a minute…it’s not April 1st over there is it?
—
At 7:39 PM on 11 August, Max Hugoson had written:
“Oh yes, that’s right! In the mid 1980′s they had their Colorado Lodge CLOSED DOWN by the Colorado health department.
“Why? Because they had delayed to the point of ‘obviously we don’t intend to do this’, putting in a proper sewage treatment system for the lodge.”
Oh, damn. So that’s where that National Lampoon Lemmings (1973) song “Colorado” came from.
I shoulda known.
—
Benjamin P. says:
August 11, 2010 at 8:16 pm
“It’s funny to see folks talking about the money in “global warming” when it seems their is just as much to be made on the “denier” side of the aisle.”
Still waiting for my check, Benjamin P. ;o)
Maybe I’m not getting a check because I’m not a climate change “denier”.
I will state clearly for the record that all evidence, peer reviewed or not, supports the conclusion that the climate is changing; always has and always will until the sun engulfs the earth. There is no belief required for that position. The facts bear it out.
Ah, well. I seem to be barking up the wrong tree. Maybe I should write to some climate change “believer” organization for my check.
The Sierra Club keeps sending me donation requests. And what do they do with money donated to them? Do they help the earth? No. The Sierra Club was running an ad in North Carolina against the incumbent Senator Richard Burr. It kept talking about how Senator Burr was tied to Big Oil and was using the Gulf oil spill situation to impugn his character.
Whether or not I like Richard Burr or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that people donate money to the Sierra Club thinking it will go to help clean up the earth and instead it goes to advance their political ideologies. That ain’t right. As far as I am concerned, the Sierra Club is part of Big Environment, which has less scruples and is richer than Big Oil.
The quickest way to make someone really angry is to be right.
The only climate cynics in this issue are those promoting climate hysteria over CO2 and the end of the world, even as they enrich themselves from the hysteria they promote.
Benjamin P,
Bunk on you.
There is orders of magnitude more money being made by climate cynics promoting apocalyptic hysteria over CO2 than being made by skeptics pointing out the flaws and fallacies.
Show me the multi-million dollar institutes of skeptics. Show me the equivalent of the Sierra Club promoting climate hysteria with a multi-hundreds of millions dollar budget.
Show me the PBS specials showing the fallacies of AGW, funded by grants from ExxoMobil and billion dollar foundations.
Show me the university departments receiving millions per year in govt. grants to teach climate skepticism.
False equivalency on this issue is not simply wrong, it is annoyingly wrong.
AGW promotion has made a generation of fear mongers rich.
Pope is just a convenient poster boy for the sort of ignorant cynicism behind climate hysteria.
observa says:
August 12, 2010 at 5:04 am
“How are you all coping with the tragedy around Lake Michigan and where can we Aussies send aid and donations?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced
Hasn’t been a word in the media over here about the death toll….hey wait a minute…it’s not April 1st over there is it?”
I went to your link and read your story and endeavored to find the data, as opposed to the .gif files offered. Admittedly, I only spent about 10 min. of company time to find the data, but to no avail. However, I did get this note when clicking on an image file in the form of a pop-up!……
“NOTICE: Due to degradation of a satellite sensor used by this mapping product, some images have exhibited extreme high and low surface temperatures. Please disregard these images as anomalies. Future images will not include data from the degraded satellite and images caused by the faulty satellite sensor will be/have been removed from the image archive.”
And, I couldn’t find any of the extreme temps reported. There should probably be someone with more sleuth-like abilities look into this.
One of the most simple and useful things you can do in this silly AGW game is to Google the person involved to find out what their educational background is. Carl Pope is said to have a summa cum laude degree from Harvard College in 1967. No mention of what his major was. I’ll bet it was something like English or History but I’m not sure. Carol Browner has a degree in English from U of Miami. That really qualified her to run the EPA or be in charge of AGW for Obama. Whenever someone has a degree in anything ending is “Studies”, Environmental Studies, Black Studies, Gender Studies, you know they didn’t really have a rigorous time in college. Those kinds of degrees generally mean they couldn’t hack Math, Chemistry, and Physics. Look at Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Waxman, Markey and others in Congress pushing cap and trade, etc. Scientific morons all.
Sceptic? Cynic? Insensitive? Inflexible? Out of sorts? Ticked off? D-word? I think that these same guys were in my fourth grade class! The same guys learned terms like stupid, retard, jerk, etc back in the fourth grade. The terms change but it’s the same crowd.
Observa,
We’re not swimming in the lake. The usually cool to frigid waters are way too hot. You never know when your going to hit a 440 degree F patch. Of course, the steam’ll get you before the water does. As side benefits, the heat is killing off the asian carp and delaying subsidized windmill installation. 😉
The Puffington Host is always good for a laugh, though you risk losing some brain cells if you read too much of it. As someone pointed out above, the saddest thing about the enviros fixating on CAGW is that they are missing both the things that need attention and all of the progress we have made in recent decades. Not to mention losing credibilty they will need if they ever again embrace a real issue.
Allencic says:
August 12, 2010 at 6:38 am
Look at Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Waxman, Markey and others in Congress pushing cap and trade, etc. Scientific morons all.
Anthony and mods, I know this isn’t “playing nice”, but my better angel can’t stop me from commenting: “In Barbara Boxer’s case (and maybe the others), the word scientific isn’t necessary.”
lol, from the Huffington Post story, at the bottom of the article, now appears this…..”Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this post claimed that Watt’s Up With That released the iPhone app “Our Climate”. The app was released by Aeris Systems, and not Watt’s Up With That.”
Oh, the humanity of it.
Bill Tuttle says:
August 12, 2010 at 12:21 am
[REPLY – How well I know. The bullet ref. is what would have happened to him had the US and allies not invaded: Saddam’s eventual assassination…]
*memo to self: examine sentence structures for future conditional tense before commenting and revealing self as forgetful idiot*
REPLY – Heck, if you even know what the future conditional tense is, you’re well ahead of the game. ~ Evan
The “future conditional tense” is what the traveler said when he landed in Boston, got in a cab, and asked the cabbie “Where can you get scrod around here?”