One of the favorite smears from Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky used to try to diminish the arguments of climate skeptics is to create dodgy psuedo-scientific psychological studies with a bent on trying to prove that skeptics are conspiracy theorists. Except for the extremely gullible, such bleatings don’t appear to have any traction. But he does keep trying.
Meanwhile, right in front of his nose, there is a regular parade of conspiracy theory linkages happening daily. For example, get a load of this latest claim from Dr. Michael Mann:
You just have to laugh at the idea that the Koch brothers are paying people to write the sort of comments (27) as of this writing that appear on the Phys.org article: http://phys.org/news/2013-10-people-dont-high-climate.html
I dunno, how does one “smell” Koch in those comments? Is it anything like trained animals that can spot certain scents?
Practically every day now Dr. Mann imagines some Koch brothers connection to people who have honest disagreements about climate. Recall these recent ventures into conspiracy theory land:
Which I answer here: The other divergence problem – climate communications
It’s part of Mann’s recurring theme:Mann overboard! Pot, kettle, conspiracy edition
The reality is, Koch even contributes to Dr. Mann’s University: Oh the pain! #Kochmachine is in many American universities, including Penn State
IMHO, I think Dr. Mann needs to seek professional help for this affliction where he sees the Koch Brothers climate influence under every virtual rock and tree on the Internet. If nothing else, this affliction would make a good clinical case study for some psychologist.
Now watch, someone will alert Dr. Mann to this writing, and he’ll tweet something about it with some added smear, or retweet something from one of his followers along the same lines. It’s as sure as the sun rises in the morning, I don’t even need a computer model.
One of the aspects of genuine conspiracy theorists is that they have a strong bias in supporting data that supports their beliefs and failing to consider alternative hypotheses. Indeed, the barmiest conspiracy theorists find plenty of reasons to reject anything that a suspected opponent might say. Michael Mann’s conspiracist allegations are very much in line with his cherry-picking of climate proxies and statistical methods in his hockey-stick graphs.
The opposite of a conspiracy theorist, is someone who genuinely compares and contrasts various ideas and conflicting data.
I was reading a Donella Meadows book from 1982 this morning on the first decade of modelling and she kept saying over and over again that it was modelling of social systems to affect future behavior. Not to actually reflect reality.
I think Lewandowsky keeps mentioning conspiracies to avoid the admitted long term massive coordinated effort to use models like the IPCC to change policies and prevailing beliefs about how the world works. Ironic when you consider how many confessions and declarations of the “need to change human behavior” there are in print once you know where to look.
Conspiracy? What conspiracy?
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
Koch supporting universities? Sort of, to me “smells like” breeding/supporting individuals with similar world views as Koch.
“Through research, training programs and professional education, Charles Koch Institute works to connect students and professionals to opportunities to advance economic freedom.
Professional Education Programs
The institute’s professional education programs connect professionals and students with the knowledge and training they need to successfully advance economic freedom through their careers. Program participants engage in weekly educational sessions alongside internships and jobs at non-profit organizations. These sessions include discussions and lectures as well as workshops focused on Market-Based Management®, economics and other topics.”
http://www.kochfamilyfoundations.org/FoundationsCKI.asp
So, a whiff of plain anti-regulation ideology. Evidence of Koch paying Mann nowhere in sight.
Smells like Koch does it Michael? That’s rich coming from someone once described as “the Jerry Sandusky of Climate Change”!
Reposted my 3:37 comment (mod can delete original?)
Mark R
Yep…we are all just figments of Anthony’s imagination. Quite a bit of backstory building with some of us…
Hey, lay off Mike, we’re on your side just trying to save this lovely planet like all other fellow lovers of things green, greenbacks are our special love and we have plenty to invest in the climate change business,so long as there is more money in it for us,.
Never mind. He deleted my post. Anybody less surprised than I am?
David in Cal says:
October 23, 2013 at 3:35 pm
“With all these paranoid falsehoods on the record, I think Mark Steyn’s and the National Review’s lawyers will have a field day cross-examining Mann, if the suit gets that far.”
Sort of like this.
Perhaps Mann thinks that his claims of Koch backing will attract the interest of the IRS who would then attempt to “find” evidence of the millions of $$ that Anthony has hidden away in various off shore accounts.
@Alcheson
No, the source is the book “Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires” by David Folkenflik, MM quoted from it. Saying you don’t like MM does not refute the claim.
No, no, folk: Michael Mann’s place in history is secure, along with that of James Hanson. They will be immortalized, just like the frauds Lysenko and Paul Kammerer (and his mid-wife toad).
They will live in infamy, forever. ….Lady in Red
“I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an
investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his
thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests.”
Michael Mann
I looked at the numbers underlying these claims, at least the ones reported by Greenpeace. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the Greenpeace numbers, but just taking them at face value, here are two links that has Greenpeace’s numbers:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/the-manhattan-institute/
and
http://greenpeaceblogs.org/2012/04/02/koch-brothers-exposed-fueling-climate-denial-and-privatizing-democracy/
In the second link, GreenP states:
“The top recipients of Koch money in the Climate Denial Machine include Americans for Prosperity ($5.7 million since 1997), the Heritage Foundation ($2.7 million), the Cato Institute ($1.2 million), and the Manhattan Institute ($1.2 million).”
At the first link they list the yearly amounts per organization. First notice that these numbers (e.g. 61.48 $M) are spread over almost 30 years. That makes the $61 M work out to about $2M per year total. For example the Manhattan Institute numbers have been running about $200K (note the K) per year for the past few years. The Manhattan Institute has about 5 centers, only one of which is involved in energy research. So that means maybe a few K might go to energy research. The others are ridiculously small. For example, the Environmental Literacy group got 4 grants over the 30 years, each of which was $50K. Most of the other organizations are either broad policy oriented or focus on entirely different issues, such as medical, media, or general politics, like the Americans for Prosperity, which lists 8 policy areas of research: budget and spending, health care and entitlements, taxes, labor/education/pensions, banking/financial services, technology, and energy and environment. Only the last of the eight is focused somewhat on climate.
So over 30 years, around $2M per year spread over largely general policy institutes. These grants are each about enough to fund one graduate student or researcher for a year or so, and the bulk of them have nothing to do with climate, instead focused on general conservative issues. So what the objectors to the Koch tiny investments in these institutes are actually objecting to is not climate but conservative political activities. It looks like at most about 10% of the funds might actually go to climate research, which works out to a grand and glorious $200K per year. This should be compared to the $2.6B U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is focused entirely on “official” climate change research and persuasion. I don’t know what the IPCC budget is, but it must be a lot to fly all those folks around the world to cushy hotels and great restaurants. I did not look at the budgets of Greenpeace or the plethora of other alarmist groups, largely because I don’t want to get involved in that kind of thinking. It is as petty as the claims of the alarmiss against the “evil Koch denial empire..” So in summary the Koch brothers put in about $200K compared to $2.6+++ billions for the warming scare crowd. These people have no shame.
Other information on Koch foundation grants and charitable contributions is available at its web sites and in its statements. The vast majority of the grants go directly to medical research, religious institutions (particularly catholic), universities, etc.
By repeatedly going after the Kochs, perhaps the alarmists are actually tipping their hand, namely that they are not really about climate change or science or truth at all, instead being truly focused on a more general liberal agenda toward increased taxation, government control, etc etc. Thats all well and good, that is a whole other conversation to have and should have nothing to do with climate science. They should just stop pretending that it is about science.
Mark R,
Not to acknowledge you any more and let you hijack the thread, but the book is hardly credible, and can be nicely contrasted with the WH today finally firing an Obama aide who was outed long ago as a sock puppet actively trashing all sorts of people who dared to not agree with Obama.
This truly unhinged obsession with the Kochs is getting scary. It would be scary for them to be seeing their names abused in this way. It is scary for the rest of us to see people demonized this way. It is dangerous – this is how violent regimes of the past have been able to justify their violence, with demonization. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/10/no-reason-just-hate-thats-a-modern-liberal.php
Can we just stop discussing Mann? Is there anything productive or positive to be gained from tracking his ridiculous tweets and comments and fulfilling his attention-seeking? He’s had his 15 minutes. No more unless there’s actual science to discuss. For that matter, add Gore and Lewandowsky to this scrap pile. Do I hear a second?
Sisi says:
“Evidence of Koch paying Mann nowhere in sight.”
Maybe that’s why Mann is being such an ass.
Athlete says:
October 23, 2013 at 4:50 pm
“I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an
investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his
thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests.”
Michael Mann
*
Is this the same as paying someone to make stuff up?
Mark R says:
October 23, 2013 at 4:44 pm
“@Alcheson
No, the source is the book “Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires” by David Folkenflik, MM quoted from it. Saying you don’t like MM does not refute the claim.”
So now we know what the esteemed Theoretical Climatologist Michael Mann reads on his free time. Exhibit A for Lewandowski’s new study.
@dbstealey
Is that your way of thinking? Mann being a rejected lover or so? Ha!
“…smells like coke to me…”
Penn State needs to randomly drug test Mikey.
Sisi,
This should make your day. It made my day! ☺
@dbstealey
No exciment here…
When you have no defense, blame the VRWC – see how well it worked for Hillary?
Is it just my imagination or is the lack of global warming causing Michael Mann to become more “extreme”?