UPDATE: About an hour after this story was posted, Monbiot backs down, see below. – Anthony
===========================================
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
================================================================
UPDATE: About an hour after this story was posted, on his Twitter feed, Monbiot recognizes his error.
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After reading through the 150 plus posts it is painfully obvious that the science and scientific method is dead or on its last breath. The funding whores want more money and they will find the right findings to obtain more money.. That is the problem… Science is being used to propagate a lie. to gain control over the people by establishing a command and control government.
if you want real science then the findings MUST BE TRANSPARENT.. this means that the method and data must be available.. not hidden and kept from view…
i think there needs to be funding from multiple areas but the pressures to “get the answer” that will result in more or increased funding is nothing more than bastardizing the process… human nature and survival instincts must be removed for science to truly be science…
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!
James what are you referring to by “Pop Tarts”?
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.
Monbiot has a history of getting things wrong! I seem to remember he had to give space over to Richard North in the Guardian for a response to the garbage Monbiot produces!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/29/richard-north-response-george-monbiot
Shub lays the whole debacle out here…
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/george-monbiot-scrubbing-the-record-clean/
Mann Bearpig says:
July 1, 2011 at 1:38 pm
No one reads the Guardian anyway.
Sorry to contradict you Mann Bearpig, but the BBC staffers do read the Guardian. Nothing else, just the Guardian!
M.A.DeLuca II:
I read your response at July 1, 2011 at 7:25 pm to my post at July 1, 2011 at 3:58 pm which was an attempt to help you understand Sexton’s point. Clearly, I failed and I regret that.
Your response to me says,
” Yes, I assume some oil companies fund anti-Kyoto/anti-carbon tax activities because it’d be *stupid* for them not to.”
And therein lies your problem. Your assumption is plain wrong and displays a gross misunderstanding of the reality which several posts in this thread have spelled out (n.b. including the post from James Sexton at July 1, 2011 at 12:55 pm).
Indeed, here on planet Earth the oil companies have positioned themselves to benefit from adoption of policies such as the Kyoto Protocol and the UN’s FCCC. You “assume” they advocate against such policies but you cannot know of any such advocacy because it does not exist. To use your language, the oil companies would be *stupid* to advocate one side in such an argument because they would be climbing onto a limb that could break if the politics were to change (and all politics changes given sufficient time). And oil companies are not *stupid*.
Please consider reality instead of your assumptions.
And you could not be more wrong when you write to me saying of oil companies,
“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!”
I have not “fallen” for anything.
Oil companies fund PRO-AGW activism (through WWF, Greenpeace, etc.) and I know of no example of them funding anti-AGW activism.
And I have made no comment on whether or not funding would be “bad”. Indeed, if an oil company were to offer research funds to me then I would accept every penny, and I regret that no oil company has funded anything I have done.
I repeat, please consider reality instead of your assumptions.
Richard
Monbiot – ignoring the elephant in the room and obsessing over what falls out of its behind…
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.
I volunteered for CVNI (conservation Northern Ireland) while studying horticulture when I was 17 and they are funded by Shell Oil.
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.
Phil Clarke says:
July 2, 2011 at 5:59 am
“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.”
Oh yeah, Monbiot is such a sweetheart. I said he’s mentally unstable. Exhibit A: Monbiot climate d*nier card game:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/06/climate-change-deniers-top-10
He’s doing us skeptics a great favor every time he acts like a vile, raving mad slobbering lunatic. Go Monbiot!
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.
I got a tickle out of Dave W. Smokey Quote…. it’s rare you see the owner of the BDGIT drug into a climate debate.
Still I am reminded…..
Dwark: Smokey how hot is it going to get?
Smokey: How much money you got?
All Hail Smokey! Yes I know, WOT but the FireCracker is only hours away and it’s a celebration of a way of life that folks are trying to kill —– for our own good.
And: DON’T TOUCH THE DANG CAR!
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.
When it gets really cold, expect to see advocacy for a “Sunshine Tax”. If you don’t pay up, they’ll revoke your surface dwelling permit. Get back in that cave.
As for Monbiot, isn’t he the guy who wrote poetic praise (in the Guardian) for Nuclear Power while the disaster at Fukushima was kept under wraps…. for weeks on end?
DirkH – so that’s a ‘no’, then?
DirkH
Monbiot does act like a mindless advocate, doesn’t he. A tree is known by its fruit.
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.
the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant AF49620-02-1-0194)
Oh my goodness Willie Soon is funded by the Military Industrial Complex – run for the hills…
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 says:
July 3, 2011 at 2:02 am
“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.”
Don’t know about you as a speaker. I had the pleasure of listening to a German IG Metall agitator once, sent to our company to agitate us. And no, i still don’t like to be used as cannon fodder in some class struggle some very rich Union officials dictate and control.
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