I laughed when I got this press release last night:
CatoScience.txt – Fake ‘addendum by conservative group tries to undo federal climate report
A soon-to-be-released Cato Institute report, posing as an “addendum” to a 2009 federal summary of climate change impacts, discounts the science in the original. Cato calls it “a user’s manual” for reversing the EPA’s health finding on carbon dioxide. Scientists call it a fraud. 1060 words. By Douglas Fischer
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/10/cato-climate-science-report
Douglas Fischer is editor of DailyClimate.org, an independent, foundation-funded news service covering climate change.
Douglas Fischer
Editor
Daily Climate
My first thought was: “Is this all you’ve got?” It get’s even sillier when you read what they are complaining about. Gosh, they used a graphic of The United States on a report about The United States. The horror!
From TDC:
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A soon-to-be-released Cato Institute report, posing as an ‘addendum’ to a 2009 federal summary of climate change impacts, discounts the science in the original.
Cato calls it ‘a user’s manual’ for reversing the EPA’s endangerment finding on carbon dioxide.
By Douglas Fischer
The Daily Climate
A new “addendum” to be released as soon as this week purports to update with the latest science a 2009 federal assessment on the impacts to the United States of climate change.
The addendum matches the layout and design of the original, published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Cover art, “key message” sections, table of contents are all virtually identical, down to the chapter heads, fonts and footnotes.
But the new report comes from the conservative Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute. And its findings – that science is questionable, the impacts negligible and the potential policy solutions ineffective – are more a rebuke than a revision of the original report and of accepted science both then and today.
It’s not an addendum. It’s a counterfeit.
– John Abraham, University of Saint Thomas
“It’s not an addendum. It’s a counterfeit,” said John Abraham, an associate professor at the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota who studies clean power sources. “It’s a continued effort to kick the can down the road: A steady drip, drip, drip of fake reports by false scientists to create a false sense of debate.”
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Heh. “Counterfeit. False sense of debate.” That’s all you’ve got? No comments as to the substance? Note the fine print at the bottom of the TDC article:
The Cato Institute expects to release its report, Addendum: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, as early as this week. A draft version can be downloaded from its website [pdf].
So the whole objection is over the similarity of the cover and pages in a draft report, and they apparently can’t refute the contents, so resort to poisoning the well by calling the report “fraudulent” and “counterfeit” without actually addressing any of the contents. They apparently can’t refute it so they go directly to smear. Maybe Pat Michaels can hire Mike Mann’s tobacco lawyer for a defamation lawsuit, he’ll probably have a better case than Mikey has with Mark Steyn.
Meanwhile the collection of small animals and wannabe superheros (Stoat, Rabett, Supermandia) are all over this as if their comic opinions make any difference.
You can read the whole thing at this address: http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/10/cato-climate-science-report
“Once you understand cover is deliberately misleading why would you expect the contents to honest?”
Ummm , you mean like “Skeptical Science” 😉
OK we have now populated the given link with the proof copy, which is much better than the original first draft, which was the original pdf. You can download it here:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/Global-Climate-Change-Impacts.pdf
BTW the bars on our front cover are the last 20 years of US temperatures. After all the title of the report was “Global Climate Change impacts in the United States”. USGCRP shows the global record.
And yes we did put in clouds. Glad to see someone gets our sense of humor. Now would it be possible for anyone to actually compare the USGCRP and Cato reports?
Thx!
Similar Style, but different photo/illustration, Font, bar graph (bars style, data) and, of course,
the words: “Center for the Study of Public Science and Public Policy CATO Institute” might indicate to the literate that this was produced by CATO, not some federal agency. If they can’t read the big words on the cover, then they probably won’t be misled by the contents. If you can read the cover, you won’t be misled.
Where’s the case for counterfeit? If I make a round metal disk with a picture of Al Gore and the words “This Guy I Do Not Trust” embossed on it, it is not a counterfeit coin even if it is approximately the same size as a real coin.
Patrick Michaels,
In one of the early figures for Methane, it has a graph of d[CH4]/dt
The caption says that for part of the time the CH4 concentration was negative.
That is, of course, impossible and will draw ridicule. The caption needs to be
changed to read that the rate of methane production was negative or something
like that.
Bill,
My caption reads:
“In recent decades there are tims when the atmospheric concentration change has been negative.”
That is true, as shown in the graph which is taken directly from Dlugokenky. What’s wrong with that?
For heavens sake it says CATO INSTITUTE right on the cover.
A very clever “fake” indeed!
Typical that the contents are left unaddressed! Cowardly.
I’d go for CORRECTION or ERRATA rather than Addendum.
The CATO link failed for me (times out or gives up after about 24/90 MB). In any case the report appears to be a typical response by CATO to the well-funded and hegemonic alarmist establishment. For those who appear to not understand or agree with the style, perhaps I can explain from my perspective as a CATO supporter for about 20 years with at least 10 as a sponsor.
CATO is an invaluable advocate for liberty including the protection of private property and market choices from the whims of government to include resources or activities that produce CO2. I certainly don’t agree with CATO on every issue and would frankly not want to have a purely libertarian government. But I cannot morally pick and choose among freedoms although there are other worthy organizations that I belong to (e.g. NRA) or could belong to.
The protection of freedom is not cheap or easy. One might think an large supply of money from the Koch brothers would produce a steady stream of material to counter the CAGW establishment. But one would be wrong. The mission of CATO is very broad and they cannot afford a large staff of scientists to tackle one issue. The Koch brothers have also been very difficult to deal with and recently forced the resignation of CATO’s cofounder.
It remains to be seen what effect the recent agreement with the Koch’s will have on CATO’s independence and output. But in all likelihood CATO will have to get by with merely countering some of the steady drumbeat of alarmist reports, and get publicity where they can such as the method they used above (a cover which is part parody, part rebuttal). It looks like a promising start but I’ll have to read the report to be able to judge it.
michaelspj says:
October 22, 2012 at 3:39 pm
I agree with Bill. This is what I see for the caption to the figure on p. 13:
Robert of Ottawa says:
October 22, 2012 at 4:15 pm
How about; “There. Fixed It For You.”
michaelspj says: October 22, 2012 at 11:48 am Imitation, in this case, is a form of mockery.
Dr Michaels – Actually, I like that. The clouds are fun, too, I’m wondering if you could add a few more over Arizona since we could use a bit more rain.
“Addendum”, while basically true, lacks punch. In some internet forums where a person goes off the rails, a commenter will reword the error, but precede it with “FIXED IT FOR YA”.
Not an elegant phrase for the cover of a report, though…..
That’s too harsh. But they should have called it a “Counterpoint” or “Corrected Version”, if only to avoid giving their opponents a means of creating a diversion.
Bill etc,
It was obviously corrected in the proofing process. You will see that in the final edition, due out in about ten days.
Just looked over the CATO addendum. Looks very good. It certainly restrains themselves, as compared to consensus alarmists, in stating plain data and showing graphical represention.
Which makes all of the alarmist whinings about cato ‘mimicked’ the other reports cover just another ‘boo hoo’ moment for the terrible tantrum throwers.
Ahh, go lay on the floor and kick your heels too. Instead, perhaps you’d like to read through the CATO corrections and whine about some other little inconsequentials?
What makes the CATO addendum somewhat criminal is the fact that they had to put in a report, what should have been in the original. Plus they avoid repeated allusions to portending disaster and man’s causing the disasters along with snide comments about the ‘altruistic’ eco-green way to salvation. Hallelujah! Sorry, I got caught up in one of them Lewandowsky/Gleick/Mann praise be moments. Don’t worry they promise me that I can be completely cured, probably after incarcerations occur.
All-in-all a good read. The document flows well. I will warn potential downloaders that the PDF is 85mb in size, so be prepared for waiting. Read WUWT, CA, JONOVA and many other sites while the download proceeds and it’ll be there. Don’t look for gory, deep details and calculations as this report is for a larger audience than us Obsessive Compulsives detail diggers.
It may not cause ‘the team’ to bolt, yet, but it should cause many an eco-banana-green-nut some worry’s as our elected ones ask pointed questions and then nail false worries/threats with wooden stakes and silver blades. Time to put all of those undead climate fakes back in fairie land where they belong. And I hope not one fawning climate fake worshipper is there. Let them gnaw each other’s spleens. (Is it Halloween yet? I think the TV lineups are getting to me.)
“In recent decades there are times when the atmospheric concentration range has been negative.”
range should be change?
There is an update on their website:
“Correction (Oct. 22, 2012): The Cato Institute describes itself as a libertarian public policy research group. Earlier editions of this story incorrectly described the think tank as a conservative group.”
Photo from a more northerly position, includes Hudson Bay, etc. Also less distorted; Baja and Florida are grotesquely exaggerated in the original.
Dr. Michaels – I’ve been waiting for this – like the cover – cheeky! I like the addition of clouds (is there a hidden message?).
The “About this report” statement begins “This report summarizes the science that is
missing from Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States”. That means it’s an addendum – something added – simple really. Can you produce an addendum to someone else’s report? Indeed – Cato’s just done it!
While I’m reading the addendum, could the discussion here steer itself towards the contents and not the cover? Most of you are falling into the trap laid for you in the Daily Climate apology for a critical article.
Not very confusing if you read the title. Tells me a lot about the people complaining.