UPDATE: About an hour after this story was posted, Monbiot backs down, see below. – Anthony
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Sheesh, can’t these people read? I find the timing of this more than coincidental.
George Monbiot tweets:
Secret funding of climate change deniers exposed again: bit.ly/m6Yjlp. Key issue here is that interests never declared.
Soon and Balliunas 2003:
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by funds from the American Petroleum Institute (01-0000-4579),…
Paper here (PDF)
here’s the full acknowledgment:
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by funds from
the American Petroleum Institute (01-0000-4579), the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant AF49620-02-1-
0194) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(Grant NAG5-7635). The views expressed herein are those of
the authors and are independent of the sponsoring agencies.
We have benefitted greatly from the true and kind spirit of
research communications (including a preview of their
thoughts) with the late Jean Grove (who passed away on January
18, 2001), Dave Evans, Shaopeng Huang, Jim Kennett,
Yoshio Tagami and Referee #3. We thank John Daly, Diane
Douglas-Dalziel, Craig and Keith Idso for their unselfish contributions
to the references. We also thank the Editor, Chris
de Freitas, for very helpful editorial changes that improved
the manuscript. We are very grateful to Maria McEachern,
Melissa Hilbert, Barbara Palmer and Will Graves for invaluable
library help, and both Philip Gonzalez and Lisa Linarte
for crucial all-around help.
There’s been a swarm of such news items happening this week in an attempt to discredit climate skeptics. ICCC6 is getting some press, and in response these claims of “secret” get circulated. How transparent. The other LOL is from washed up science writer David Appell (who runs an angry blog called Quarksoup) expressing “being stunned” that WUWT readers haven’t denounced a supposed recent death threat that occurred in Australia 5 years ago that was “repackaged” for the present. Trouble is, the press is onto the scam.
Monbiot also tweets:
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?
Well I once had a Shell Oil credit card for which I got cashback credits on purchases, so I guess that makes me guilty.
Bishop Hill quips:
Now obviously there’s a bit of Monbiot “puff” going on here, but I think we should look on this enthusiasm for disclosure of conflicts of interest as an area in which widespread agreement should be possible.
Perhaps George would like to consider a joint call (a) for the IPCC to activate its COI policy for all AR5 working groups with immediate effect and (b) for climate journals to require disclosure of conflicts of interest in the way that medical journals do. I’ll write and ask him.
How about it Monbiot? Goose, gander, and all that.
h/t to reader PaulM
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UPDATE: About an hour after this story was posted, on his Twitter feed, Monbiot recognizes his error.
“Unlike many”
Even in an apology, he still has to throw dirt…
Why isn’t he agast that the USAF and NASA also funded this research?
Let me introduce you to the genius of Mr, Monbiot:
In one particularly illiberal piece he wrote for the Guardian a few months ago, where he asserted that there should be a ‘footprint’ for living space and anyone with spare rooms *must* give them away for accommodating others, he made this claim:
In the UK we have to pay ‘council tax’ for local services. It is a certain amount for each household. People in a single person household get a 25% discount. Monbiot claimed that this meant that everyone else was “subsidising” the council tax paid by people in single person households. Anyone else spot the colossal error here?
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.
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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.
M.A.DeLuca II says:
July 1, 2011 at 10:19 am
Crap.
I hate to do this folks, but Monbiat’s a distraction. Wasn’t the original claim, as put forward by Greenpeace and widely circulated, that Soon had *testified before Congress in 2003* saying that he had not received funding from “big oil”?
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No, that’s not what was stated. If we’re going to play the gossip/innuendo game, we may as well play it right. Here’s what the previously mentioned slashdot had to say….
“This somewhat contradicts that [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.”
First, there are no links, but it earlier stated, its source was, “Honken writes with a report from The Guardian that ..” So, …….
“Unlike many” so he sticks to the meme. I like PaulM’s idea. Let’s uncover EVERYONE and see who gets what.
Poor George.
Doesn’t know what he believes anymore.
Typical warmista.
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.
Somewhat OT, but it appears that even when Hollywood lefty celebs agree with you they don’t forget their copyright. Lucasfilm’s lawyers have evidently dropped the hammer on Greenpeace for their VW: Death Star video
Not at all. Personally, I think that while potentially instructive – where a scientist gets his/her funding is proof of nothing with respect to the veracity of his/her findings. I find such arguments being made by the “pro-consensus” side to be to weak and unproductive.
[snip]
@Mindbuilder 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?”
This is from the U.S. government web site GPO Access and hence is the *one and only* authoritative reference to the exact quote:
Question 37. Have you been hired by or employed by or received
grants from organizations that have taken advocacy positions with
respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change, or legislation before the U.S. Congress that would affect
greenhouse gas emissions? If so, please identify those organizations.
Response. I have not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor
received grants from any such organizations described in this question.
http://frwebgate1.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=nsoGyL/0/1/0&WAISaction=retrieve
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.
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.
Greenpeace’s ad was brilliant. Sad to see it go, but we all knew it was coming.
@latitude: I ride a bike.
AW: they got East Anglia at last
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/07/01/climategate-fallout-hits-university-of-east-anglia/
Re Singer yesterday. If you saw his presentation he basically said he did not believe in the second rise in temps (1970 – current?). Basically fraud (that what I think anyway).
RockyRoad:
At July 1, 2011 at 5:11 am you ask:
“Monbiot is a tweeter hack. That’s it. He’s completely irrelevant to the discussion. (Or is “useful tool” a better description?)”
No. A “tool” is a better description.
Richard
[Snip. D-word violation. ~dbs, mod.]
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
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.
Greenpeace’s ad was brilliant. Sad to see it go, but we all knew it was coming.
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No, that’s incorrect and I wish you guys would educate yourselves before spouting incorrect thoughts. The oil companies don’t give a damn about how much oil they sell. If demand goes down, they’ll simply cut production, (thus supply) and increase the rate of return. This isn’t hypothetical, we witness this dynamic often.
Here’s something else they know, that apparently no alarmist has figured out. Regardless of your desire to limit oil or gasoline consumption, it will do nothing but increase. This is why you see the oil companies funding both sides. One, they’re hedging their bets and two they want to know the truth so they can position themselves properly. But if you think they’re worried that we’ll pass laws that suddenly end oil consumption……. well, they’re literally laughing all the way to the bank,…….. at you and the rest of the alarmists.
Climate Majority says:
July 1, 2011 at 12:35 pm
@latitude: I ride a bike.
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Do you even know what a cow looks like?
Also, Manbiot apologizes for getting his one bit of evidence wrong that he used to support his argument that deniers don’t acknowledge oil money…. but then turns his evidence of the rule into the exception to the rule that he is now fresh out of evidence to support.
Seriously, he should have resigned after his article acknowledging the great damage to AGW credibility in the CRU emails… he could have gone out on an up note.
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?
Climate Majority says:
July 1, 2011 at 12:35 pm
@latitude: I ride a bike.
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lol, yep, no fossil fuels involved in that little enterprise, is there?
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.
The best part of all of this argument is the old thing your grandmother always told you: “it takes one to know one.”
Whenever someone hollers about the source of funding they are also saying outright that they personally would change the outcome of their studies for the money. The rest is just projecting their obvious lack of integrity onto everyone else. It is odd that they can not see the damage these kinds of attacks do to their own credibility.