George Monbiot's denial fantasy tweet

I have evidence that many prominent Climate Alarmists are being secretly funded by governments with taxpayer money. Having said that, as long as all raw data and codes are made public for the purpose of replication, then it matters not a jot where the funding originates. Hey, Georgie baby?

What about this supposed quote of Soon seen in a Slashdot headline yesterday? Is it accurate? Is it misleading?
[Harvard researcher Willie] Soon in a 2003 US senate hearing said that he had ‘not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor received grants from any organisation that had taken advocacy positions with respect to the Kyoto protocol or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.’

Hi
The bit.ly/m6Yjlp doesn’t work.
It has got caught up with your URL: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/01/george-monbiots-denial-fantasy-tweet/bit.ly/m6Yjlp
cheers

If I was Soon and Balliunas, then I’d sue him.

Ha ha only in Monbiot’s apparent delusional world is there a difference between GE Wind and GE Oil, like they aren’t both owned by GE Energy.
Most green NGO’s are funded by energy companies and those NGO’s don’t care one wit how “dirty” by coal, oil, and nuclear, the owners are of those energy companies.
But, of course, what’s reality to socialists propaganda in the minds of socialists?
Why communism failed: they sported only the crack pots out in public. Of course they couldn’t do nothing else since they only consisted of greedy crack pots to begin with. :p

Other papers are available on Soon’s web site.
Dyck, Soon et al 2007 paper on polar bears:

W. Soon’s effort for the completion of this paper was partially supported by grants from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, American Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil Corporation

Soon 2005 paper on solar influence on the arctic:

This scientific research was supported by generous grants from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, American Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil Corporation.

See also the famous (558 citations) 1974 paper of Gordon Manley, “Central England temperatures: monthly means 1659 to 1973” which says

I am indebted to the Shell Organisation for a personal research grant…

See also WUWT post on climategate emails showing CRU scientists seeking funding from oil companies.

I get confused these days by who the bogeymen are. Why not so long ago it was Halliburton and Karl Rove. Now its “an oil company” and the Koch brothers with the wicked mind control skills. Presumably in 5 years time it’ll be Martha Stewart and the home shopping network. Makes as much sense as what loons like Monbiot seem to believe.

Mindbuilder says:
July 1, 2011 at 4:44 am
What about this supposed quote of Soon seen in a Slashdot headline yesterday? Is it accurate? Is it misleading?
================================================================
Lol, given the in depth analysis slashdot gave, what do you think? What happened to when people could discern for themselves. Back in the day, people were laughed at for believing the National Inquirer. Now there’s thousands of web equivalents and people take them serious.
I’m not saying it is or isn’t true. I’m saying I’m incredulous at the validity people would lend a paragraph gossip about what someone else stated. Let me guess, you read “Pop Tarts” also.

I replied to a comment on Soon and big oil made at DotEarth yesterday with this-
re #9, Ike Solem- Thanks for the heads-up on research institutions that can no longer be trusted, having been sullied by funding from ‘big oil’. In this case, the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astro-Physics.
But then we should at least add Stanford, UC Berkeley, LBNL, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Princeton to your list, right?
From Donna Laframboise-
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-greenpeace-big-oil-ja…
“BP is funding research into “ways of tackling the world’s climate problem” at Princeton University to the tune of $2 million per year for 15 years
BP is funding an energy research institute involving two other US universities to the tune of $500 million – the aim of which is “to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment”
ExxonMobil itself has donated $100 million to Stanford university so that researchers there can find “ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming””
Perhaps we should add to the list any University that has endowment investments in ‘big oil’, since dividends from those investments are paying for research projects and infrastructure and student stipends and chaired professorships at the Universities.

http://twitter.com/#!/GeorgeMonbiot
I got something wrong abt Willie Soon. I suggested he’d never declared his fossil fuel funding. Unlike many, it turns out he has. Apologies.
Greorge admitts error, points awarded

Thanks George Monbiot, for the increase in our electricity prices. You W*anker.

This article is very clear to me, a new meme is emerging, a summer offensive once again attacking skeptics, oil companies and the like. And they will coordinate in a way that dwarfs the climategate communications.
The reality is that they are never going to stop even if we get 30 epic winters in a row and glaciers roll into NYC again. They are already shoveling the last 2 winters down the memory hole and had the audacity to investigate themselves over climategate and pronounce themselves clean. They are cozy in their parasitic lives and unless there is some dramatic event like perp walks and prison for stealing from the taxpayer, nothing will cause them to change at all.

David, UK [July 1, 2011 at 4:43 am] says:
“I have evidence that many prominent Climate Alarmists are being secretly funded by governments with taxpayer money.”

You know what, that is a diabolically brilliant point. We may have be missing the obvious all along, a classic trees vs forest scenario from being dragged down all the endless rabbit holes. Worldwide, we should have a simple goal now, ahead of all others. That goal is …
Eliminate taxpayer funding of all climatology. Period.
Just like cockroaches and parasites, they will always be among us, but the workable solution is to cut off their food supply. Zero the budgets. The taxpayers can do this in all places except perhaps China. It might not be easy but it can be done. In fact the timing may be perfect with fiscal collapse looming everywhere. It would be foolish to not bankrupt them while we ourselves are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Trotsky of watermelon environmentalism

Special relativity was apparently funded by Swiss taxpayers through the salary of a certain clerk working on the subject at the Bern patent office (possibly pondering the matter also during working hours). Said clerk was an anarchist-pacifist with left wing inclinations, so (if one shares those inclinations) special relativity should be right. Antimatter, on the other hand, was the idea of a right-wing warmonger called Edward Teller who wanted to unilaterally hydrogen-bomb the USSR. Since we do not like right-wing warmongers (I, for one, don’t), antimatter must not be trusted to exist at all. It must only be a right-wing concoction to fool honest folks into funding the military.
Copernicus, then, was a parish priest, funded by the Catholic church. He was surely a Papist propaganda puppet, not to be trusted. And Aristotle was totally supported by the slave economy of ancient Athens, just as many of the US founding fathers were slave owners: all the logic in Aristotle’s Organon, and all the politics in his Politics, as well as all the claims about liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the US constitution, should be dismissed as merely the fruit of slave exploitation.
I doubt whether there is some bit of knowledge somewhere that can be trusted after all. Gosh.

Enron loved Carbon credits too. Big oil loves it, as it makes their product more expensive!

The original report was by Greenpeace US
If you are stupid enough to rely on Greenpeace reports and press releases, what can you expect?

I don’t know why twitter is so popular, it’s mostly noise and gossip from narcissists. The only practical use for it is real-time reporting.

The funding of research by big oil is only a problem if they interfere in the doing of the science they’ve funded. If the science is done well, and the results are transparent, and can be replicated, then the science increases human knowledge. And it is immaterial where the funding to do it comes from.
I don’t want to be the devil’s advocate here. But it seems like, on the subject of research funding, the big oil companies are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. If they weren’t funding any research at all, they’d be accused of not giving anything back. And they’d really catch hell. If they didn’t fund those research programs, and organizations, who would?
Personally, as an independent researcher, struggling to come up with the funds to do field work, I am completely shameless. As long as I don’t have to commit a crime, or sell myself, I don’t give a rip where the money comes from.
There ain’t no such thing as free lunch. And there ain’t no such thing as ‘clean’ money. If researchers are to eschew the tainted moneys of ‘Big Oil’, who else has pockets so deep?

Wiglaf says July 1, 2011 at 6:24 am

George Monbiot seems to be a communist based on his actions and words.

You can read all about it here. Probably better to spend the cash on a decent cup of coffee and an iced bun though.

D Holliday, “Is there a single prominent AGW supporter that isn’t funded by the Government, an Environmental Organization, or some save the world foundation?”
Yes several of them are funded by oil companies…. No really! Shell, BP, Texaco all have extensive environmental research grants which end up funding the natural climate change deniers. Not that these climate alarmists would ever dare admit to such funding.

“There ain’t no such thing as free lunch.”
My company gives me a free lunch once in a while.

So…correct me if I’m wrong, but when a journalist/reporter does not check for accuracy, they lose their job. Right? Ask Dan. He did. So Moonbat needs to pack a little cardboard box filled with his desk nicknacks. Yes?

Though I am a full blooded CAGW skeptic, I can see a degree of humility and sincerity in George Monbiot missing in many of the fanatics. He went against the grain in declaring qualified support for nuclear power, and will admit when he believes he is wrong.
He may turn out to be an unlikely ally

Hector M.
I believe that Paul Dirac is usually given the credit for predicting anti-matter (positron) and Carl Anderson for its discovery, although others were involved in earlier speculation on the subject. I’m not sure in what sense Teller was right wing, let alone a warmonger; maybe you know something that I don’t.

Wiglaf comments: “George Monbiot seems to be a communist based on his actions and words. The communist is the ultimate materialist. So, of course, funding sources is very important to him.”
Nope. This is so-called vulgar materialism, alleging economic motivations for each individual act, which has nothing to do with Marx or communism, which were thinking (much like Smith or Ricardo) that economic facts “define the general conditions for social life”. Marx, in fact, was funded all his life by the profits his pal Friedrich Engels was getting from his family’s cotton factory in Manchester, i.e., his hours and years digesting economics books at the British Museum and writing mighty tomes on capital and economic theory, were directly financed by the surplus value created by Victorian workers labouring countless hours a day for miserable wages, and appropriated by the mill owners, the Engels family.
The idea that science responds to “interests”, and that said interests influence science contents and infect its validity was advanced mostly by jaded French post modernists “philosophes”, comfortably debating their ideas at some Rive Gauche café or sedately expounding in the Sorbonne. Chiefly by folks like Michel Foucault, who regard knowledge as a form of power and see “interests” dominating the whole of science. Also by guys in the so-called “strong programme” of the sociology of knowledge, like David Bloor or Bruno Latour, claiming that external reality has nothing to do with science statements, which are governed instead by the petites guerres among lab scientists, and largely determined by “interests” funding them.

Bernie Kelly says July 1, 2011 at 8:05 am
Bernie, you’re obviously in dire need a new shirt. One of these should do the trick 🙂

A few months ago Monbiot seemed to be dialing things back, apparently chastened by Climategate. But now he’s apparently back to being his old Moonbat self.

I am astonished at the behaviour of these people. it’s as is someone has pokes a stick in a wasp’s nest. Just what has spooked them so?

Does anyone have any statistics on how much of the research/educational grants paid by oil companies ends up funding AGW beliefs versus non AGW beliefs? My guess is 10 to 1 in favour of AGW.

At least Monbiot had the grace to apologize for his error about Dr. Soon. I’ll give him that, and I don’t typically give eco-whackjobs any leeway at all.

Alarmists have been suckling on the taxpayer teat for years. The EU alone donates millions to their cause year on year. Oil and energy companies fund alarmist campaigns. As does the UK Government.
Then someone on the other side of the fence earns a few grand and declares it? There’s no comparison. Monbiot’s ‘big oil’ argument is a nonsense.
BTW: The paper he works for just discontinued their international edition. A harbinger of further cuts to come perhaps?

I agree with Rod Everson . That was a non-apology, just smearing even more. We need to hold his feet to the fire on that as well!

Joshua says:
July 1, 2011 at 7:15 am
Ah yes, another day, another thread at WUWT …………………….
============================================================
So, you believe we should ignore the facts and allow the alarmists to continue to fabricate information and continue to attempt to assassinate the character of any and all skeptics. Is that what you’re saying? And, if we say anything about the character assassination and fabrication, in your mind, we’re hypocrites?
Nice try…….. but I do love your lack of logic and reason. Thanks Joshua.

RockyRoad says:
July 1, 2011 at 5:11 am
Monbiot is a tweeter hack. That’s it. He’s completely irrelevant to the discussion. (Or is “useful tool” a better description?)
Useful or not, he is a tool.

I have to agree with Bernie. At least Monbiot admits error. He changed position In this case, and in the case of nukes.

“unlike many”
You mean like the Air Force and NASA are also in big oils pocket?
All this anti-global warming fossil fuel funding from NASA and the Air Force….
…give them enough rope………..what a dimwit

Rod Everson says:
July 1, 2011 at 8:16 am <blockquote.
…
The quote: “Unlike many, it turns out he (Soon) has” (listed his oil funding). Again, who are among the “many”? It seems reasonable to ask him for names. You have an excellent point, Rod, so (because I’m sure Monbiot reads these comments), I’ll ask:
Hey, Mr. Monbiot, who are the “many” in your statement (quoted above) that you claim are taking oil funding and are not listing it? First and last names, please.

When facts, science and sense go against the warmista what else can they do, bang dustbin (trashcan) lids. It’s just the noise of losing it!!

This is funny – even Exxon gives credence to the science behind AGW. Are they going to do anything significant to curb carbon? No, it’s bad for business… But still. It’s telling.

Monbiot is mentally unstable IMHO. Maybe bipolar.

Rod Everson,
” …’Unlike many” comment’… ”
My thoughts exactly!
Also:
1. Energy/oil companies and governments will invest in promising alternative energy research through grants and other funding. Hopefully, only the former will buy out any good ideas and companies started, to put these ideas to market. I don’t want the government running energy. The large companies doing it now are far better prepared to provide the equipment and services for alternative energy and related products than the government. It’s their business.
2. Money from the US government is run through NSF, NASA and other taxpayer supported government organizations. It’s my opinion that NO tax supported research company has either copyright or intellectual property rights. They have been paid for their work and the results belong to the citizens. I would think the same would be true in the UK. What significant resources does CRU have, beyond grants?
3. I believe activism is mostly supported by the Kochs and Soroses of the world. They help to show what they think is needed, which in turn helps to generate funding from other sources and action from politicians. I hope the socialists aren’t successful.

Monboit:

I suggested he’d never declared his fossil fuel funding. Unlike many, it turns out he has. Apologies.

Until Monboit produces substantive evidence to back up this allegation (other than third-hand anecdotal evidence) that “many others” hide their fossil fuel funding, I will take him to be a dishonest shill for the green technology industry.

Someone might to tell Moonbat that when you openly admit your sources of funding and acknowledgments, it isn’t ” covering up.”
Now I’m sure that this little exercise has showed ol George the error in his ways, and he is now going to release a paper showing every single one of his supporters.
I’d be very interested to see it.

Why isn’t he agast that the USAF and NASA also funded this research?

Climate Majority says:
July 1, 2011 at 10:55 am
This is funny – even Exxon gives credence to the science behind AGW. Are they going to do anything significant to curb carbon? No, it’s bad for business… But still. It’s telling.
==============================================
And you’re buying ethanol where?
Who do you think is going to be selling you this green energy?
…and who do you think you’re going to be buying it from?
It’s not chance that GE got that tax break.

“Unlike many” so he sticks to the meme. I like PaulM’s idea. Let’s uncover EVERYONE and see who gets what.

Now, I ask, will someone quote me the advocacy position of Exxon? Or the Air Force? Or any oil company? Can anyone?
BTW, the gossip column wasn’t from Harken, but from John Vidal.

It looks like I’m a bit late, but you have to love the “unlike many” remark. I’m all too familiar with that argument tactic. “Person A doesn’t have this quality, but many others do.” Then I ask for a source. “Go look it up.” Then I ask why it’s my burden to disprove such a claim. They can’t reply, but they never concede defeat. It’s so frustrating.

@latitude: I ride a bike.

Climate Majority says:
July 1, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Oil companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make money. No oil company exec is going to run with an advocacy position that contradicts their mission to SELL MORE OIL. Otherwise, shareholders would serve heads on platters.
That’s not how the world works. The oil companies are in business to make selling oil profitable. If they sell less at a high price or a lot at a low price doesn’t really matter. In fact, if they can work their way into the alternative energy market against oil they do that do to, to maximize profit.
It’s the luxury of managing the single most essential product on the planet. They know they can sell oil, but selling less oil for more money and making some money on the side in carbon credits where they get paid not to produce oil (raising prices again) is good business…. and that is what they are doing.

Climate Majority says:
July 1, 2011 at 12:35 pm
@latitude: I ride a bike.
==========================================
Do you even know what a cow looks like?

Twit 1:
Secret funding of climate change deniers exposed again: bit.ly/m6Yjlp. Key issue here is that interests never declared.
Twit 2:
Is there a single prominent denier who won’t turn out to have been funded by an oil or coal company, or by the Koch brothers?
Twit 3:
I got something wrong abt Willie Soon. I suggested he’d never declared his fossil fuel funding. Unlike many, it turns out he has. Apologies.
Thus Monbiot is saying that Soon has yet to declare his secret Koch brothers funding?

If we really want to assess who is personally profiting from their advocacy of various points of view regarding the climate it pays to look at the big picture and not to focus on trying to tally every financial transaction over the last twenty years.
To paraphrase Smokey Yunick’s line about auto racing, if you want to end up with a small fortune from pushing climate skepticism, it’s best to start with a very large fortune. On the other hand the landscape is literally teeming with those who have ridden their selfless concern for Mother Gaia to wealth beyond most folks dreams of avarice. The NGO’s that are trying to limit the energy options of the world’s poverty stricken masses generally reward themselves with compensation packages which, while not in the hedge fund manager class, are very often in the mid 6 figure range. Clever entrepreneurs in alternative energy, electric cars, and carbon trading collect subsidies, grants, and loans from willingly gullible politicians and bureaucrats on a massive scale, before pocketing the cash and heading for the tall grass as their ill conceived ventures spiral into bankruptcy.
A recent report suggests that the US government alone has poured well over $100 Billion into the climate rathole. The spending in the EU is probably even greater. Add in the contributions from the rest of the developed world and the tally is probably approaching a half a Trillion and what do we have to show for it. The carbon situation may have improved slightly, but if all those hundred of billions had been allowed to flow to the best ideas in a market environment, I don’t doubt it would have improved more.

George is a campaigner as well as a journalist. So double standards are part of the armoury. For example, I get regularly attacked for having my views in the daily tabloids – front page of the Daily Express a few months back, the Mail, and Al Jazeera, but they don’t mention the Times Online, because that is more credible. I therefore ought to qualify as ‘prominent’ – having also had a book published (and reviewed in The Holocene, a relevant science journal). I certainly get villified for misleading the public on issues that have ‘already been refuted’. But of course, I would not argue I was prominent in the sense that Willie Soon is…an academic at Harvard. Still, worth slinging some mud…..problem is….I am not funded by anyone. And Monbiot knows this very well.
He regularly contacts me in my field of biodiversity strategies – in which he has a developing interest in ‘rewilding’ (I wrote the main Uk treatment of the field). And he followed a blog-debate I had with Prof Alistair MacIntosh, author of ‘Hell and High Water’ (an orthodox AGW treatment). So these guys all know my work, my record on the environment, and that I am not funded by big oil, big coal or any right-wing think tank.
Gradually, this mud-slinging denier-crap is antagonising a lot of older environmentalists – including my former colleague, Jackson Davis, who co-wrote the Kyoto Protocol. We are now working together – again, without funding. An ex-TV journalist paid toward my airfare last year to get out to Boulder, Co., so that Davis and I could set up a working relationship. That is the sum-total of our funding…about £300. Eventually, we will have enough for a TV documentary. We are working at the meta-analysis level, gathering data already produced and reviewing papers. We are both old campaigners too…..and very successful (the banning of nuclear waste dumping, incineration at sea, plutonium discharges, new toxic substances legislation to prevent marine pollution), but we relied on using rational argument, data and forcing debate, not trying to debase the opposition.

I bet Soon and Balliunas did not cook the books and play around with data, like that lot of ciminals at the CRU did.

“Well I once had a Shell Oil credit card for which I got cashback credits on purchases, so I guess that makes me guilty.”
LOL
Have a great 4th of July

I saw a few people defending the Monbiot, and I think you should be clear, his apology was nothing of the sort really. He as others pointed out had to hurl an insult along with it, and the only reason he supports nuclear power is that he has finally realized that its the only carbon free energy source that can really support a modern country. Nothing intelligent or really smart there, just the same spreading of false information as others.
Kind of like articles on slashdot that make a big deal about OLD news…climate sceptic funded by big oil….and this is one of the reasons I stopped reading slashdot unless referred there. I used to contribute there daily and always had moderator points, etc once upon a time, but then they became political….I guess its just one of those things that tends to happen…they could have kept their site apolitical and still had quite a few more people (Its always been more of a programmer news site then anything…) But its really a run-down piece of trash now…just look at the articles and the quality of them. I started at the site 11 years ago roughly and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. So as far as slashdot goes, just don’t bother…they post articles such as that and comments on that article such as “Don’t call them sceptics, call them deniers because they deny everything including round Earth theory, AGe of the Earth, and other facts.” – this particular comment is one of the highest ratest comments on that site.
So you can see, the site is definitly not impartial…its one of those things that you can see clearly. Its sad to see sites such as that lose their way so to speak. Kind of like google recently…they turn political and its the beginning of the end for them. Just watch and see….
As far as funding for AGW and sceptics alike, this is all meaningless. I think several people have mentioned this, but I could care less about where money comes from as long as its legal and freely given. The fact that they make big deals about this tells us how bankrupt their science really is. They can not argue on the validity of their science, and as such must resort to personal attacks. Sad, its self-destructing so quickly..I thought it had at least 3 more years left of life, but at this rate we are looking at a Christmas present…who knows though?

James Sexton,
I don’t get the point of your reply to me at all. How does proof that Soon acknowledged his funding sources in a paper prove that he acknowledged them speaking before Congress? If Greenpeace’s claim that Soon told congress that he had “… not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor received grants from any organisation that had taken advocacy positions with respect to the Kyoto protocol or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change” is true — and considering the source that’s a big ‘if’ — then it’s irrelevant what Soon said in any paper; he lied to Congress.

Shouldn’t Monbiot also be raising the AGW scientists under or seeking money from BP etc… its no different the other way around, and “green” companies are just as capable of being “evil” as they are still trying to flog stuff to people and make money in the same way. I know the industry I work for like to push AGW as its a work stream for us, and when times are tough the rhetoric is raised – its all about the MONEY!

Tweets are for twits. There is a good reason do discuss things in more than a few characters. If that is all the twitter can muster, I guess I have no regrets that I do not and will not use it. I can see its value in “battle” situations but beyond that, forget about it.

Denier says:
July 1, 2011 at 10:22 am
Ah, lay off Monbiot.
At least he sputters while swallowing the Kool-Aid.
I’m inclined to agree. Monbiot is the sceptic’s warmist. He is currently a true believer, but his faith has been shaken badly over the past couple of years. He still clings to the remnants of that belief, but he is hanging on by his fingernails now. And I understand where he is; I once walked that road, and it’s not an easy one.
Inside a year or two, his epiphany will come, if it hasn’t already. The question is, will he continue to push the CO2 agenda – it is his day job, after all – or will he have the moral fortitude to tell it how he really sees it? We’ll have to wait and see.

BTW – the whole Willie Soon and Sally Baliunas story is on youtube in 5 parts.

Monbiot shows such contempt for truth, to anyone seeking it, it is obvious he is paid as a disinfo agent…
What is sad, is that people seem to care what he says, but maybe less than used to.
His column is censored & policed & heavily populated with paid sock puppets to create a false consensus.
The house of cards is taking more & more to keep it propped up now…

I’m not Monbiot’s no 1 fan but he has been talking more sense recently (this example excluded). I even retweeted him yesterday! I think (generally speaking) sceptics/lukewarmers actually share some common ground with him in terms of nuclear power and the conduct of climate science.
He’s wrong to make such a comment but fair play he admitted he was wrong.
Thanks,
Joe

Richard S Courtney,
I don’t think James and I are having a debate, per se, but rather we’re talking past each other. Similarly, I don’t think I agree with the position you make, either. Yes, I assume some oil companies fund anti-Kyoto/anti-carbon tax activities because it’d be *stupid* for them not to. There’s so much money invested by competing industries to undercut them through politics and technological advancement, and so much money spent by “pseudo-commies” who hate anything that isn’t controlled by left-leaning governments, that I can’t possibly understand how politically-savvy companies like Exxon, BP, Sunoco, etc. would ignore opportunities to fund counter-arguments. And do so while showing “how much they care for the planet” by giving money to those same pseudo-commie environmental groups.
Not only do I expect them to spend money on anti-AGW activism and research, I think that’s a good thing! Yet you seem to fall for the same warmist propaganda that suggests it would be bad!

Does Monbiot have any Tweets about David Suzuki receiving funding from oil companies? He wouldn’t have to back down from such a Tweet.
Had Monbiot ever Tweeted about Stanford and Stephen Schneider receiving $100 million from Exxon? That would be another Tweet he wouldn’t have to back down from.
All such Tweets about David Suzuki, Stanford, and Stephen Schneider would be true.
I won’t wait for such Tweets though since George Monbiot is a rabid advocate for global warming.

Shub lays the whole debacle out here…
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/george-monbiot-scrubbing-the-record-clean/

Big Oil is buying “points”. Outside research funding and donations generally come from the Marketing budget in such companies. It’s pure image manipulation.
Their scientists and engineers and top execs know perfectly well that AGW and renewables are bullfeathers; but they are confident that when it all collapses they are the energy source of first (and second and third) resort, by necessity.
They can’t lose.

Pete H Re; ‘I seem to remember he had to give space over to Richard North in the Guardian’
Just to set the record straight, the Guardian did grant North a right of reply, and North also complained to the UK Press Complaints Commission about that piece.
And he lost. http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NjgzMg==
Monbiot makes errors, as we all do, however (unlike many) he is generally diligent in correcting the record where he has made a factual slip. If anyone is aware of him making an error and not correcting it, I would be interested in seeing it.
He has in fact doumented ‘many’ scientists and journalists funded by fossil fuel interests; there is a whole chapter in his book ‘Heat’ dedicated to the topic. A direct quote will be snipped for use of the ‘d-word’, howeve there is more such evidence on his website in the ‘Climate Change’ category.

All the apologists for Monbiot on this thread are Quislings IMHO. Here the great Monbiot is downplaying the Climategate incident live and in color – i find him unbearable to watch; he always sounds like a trade union stooge to me when he gives a talk. You see this guy as a potential ally? Then you’re a warmist troll.

Richard S. Courtney, did you not read Soon & Balliunas’ paper? *That* is reality, sir. They really do acknowledge funding from the American Petroleum Institute for their research. I can’t imagine a more obvious example (that you claim doesn’t exist) than the very paper this exact thread is talking about. Is support for research into alternative explanations for climate change the same as advocacy? If only you and I could have a /friendly/ discussion on that issue, but you blew that! API, Exxon, Sunoco, BP, etc. make lots of public claims about carbon dioxide that play right into the narrative advanced by Big Green, but that’s just good PR. It’d be foolish, however, for them to ignore research that could dispel notions that climate change is heavily influenced by mankind. Research like this 2003 paper by Soon and Balliunas. Spending money on both positions isn’t counterproductive, it’s a form of diversification, and quite sensible for exactly the reason you postulate: changing political winds.
Oh, and … until you lose that condescending tone when addressing me, I’m done with you.

DirkH – so that’s a ‘no’, then?

Seems a pretty grudging, mumbled apology, as much trying to maintain the point that he’s still right in general, if not in this particular case.
Compare it to Monckton’s gracious and completely unreserved and oft repeated apology, The man has no class.

DirkH says:
July 2, 2011 at 6:56 am
All the apologists for Monbiot on this thread are Quislings IMHO. Here the great Monbiot is downplaying the Climategate incident live and in color – i find him unbearable to watch; he always sounds like a trade union stooge to me when he gives a talk. You see this guy as a potential ally? Then you’re a warmist troll.
Garethman responds
This is a remarkable post. It is the complete mirror image of the behaviour of the Ayatollahs on skeptical science. The type of attitude on both sides which bedevils this debate. I am a a trade union official. It’s my job to represent the rights of employees in my profession. I am also a socialist and an ecologists, and here is the rub. I am also a skeptic with regard to climate science. In the eyes of the skeptical science site that makes me a denier with no rights. In your eyes it makes me a warmist troll. So I am a figure of hate from both extremes. I’m obviously then as far as climate science goes about half way across the spectrum of debate , in the reasonable area along with the vast majority of thinking people. Thank you for your paradoxical reassurance. You may also find George Monbiot does make mistakes, but he seems to be slowly learning. Lets celebrate that and hope that such philosophies become in time more widespread in all areas.

Gareth Phillips
A short comment on:
“It is the complete mirror image of the behaviour of the Ayatollahs on skeptical science. The type of attitude on both sides which bedevils this debate.”
I think there is some truth in that. If we could separate the politics from the science and filter out the outrageous there might be some sensible debate.
When I add comments (i.e. raise an issue) to AGW proponent websites I get shot down – labelled an ignorant fascist (and also a ‘tone troll’ for being polite – apparently you’re not allowed to be polite on web discussions!).
This is also true the other way round, although I don’t think the sceptics are as rude and offensive (in my experience that is – it maybe my selection of websites). This may be a symptom of the ‘heretics’ having to be more polite to get their minority point across, I don’t know. (Or I may be wrong.)
But I find you have to fight through a lot of politics, quasi-conspiracy theories, assumptions of intrinsic evil, and tit-for-tat ad homimens before you get to any real debate.
Thanks,
Joe