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The Kochs, Scaifes & others have used their billions to construct a vast “Potemkin Village” (in the words of science historian Naomi Oreskes) of denialism, by funding groups like “Americans For Prosperity”, the “Heartland Institute”, the “Competitive Enterprise Institute” and a whole cadre of other front groups, organizations, and hired guns implicated in the campaign to discredit climate science and climate scientists. I should know since, as I describe in my book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, I found myself at the center of that campaign more than a decade ago because of my scientific work establishing the unprecedented nature of recent global warming.
Source: Huffington Post
Billions? Where? I gotta get me some of that. Meh, it’s the same conspiracy theory polka Mann and Oreskes have been doing for years, disguised as a book promotion. Mann doesn’t even have the mental cognizance to separate his imagined #Kochmachine funding from a free Christmas Calendar sent as a gift, printed at COSTCO, using my own credit card.
As far as I can tell, Mann has never actually done any real work like real people do, he’s always been the recipient of some grant, or been attached to some part of the public teat. So it really isn’t any surprise to me that he can’t fathom that somebody might use their own money to send a free calendar, no, in his world that sort of stuff is what you use other people’s money for.
Bishop Hill posits that Mann’s latest entertaining rant is a lot like Green Lizards from Alpha Centauri:
You wonder whether more level-headed upholders of the global consensus are at all embarrassed by this sort of thing. The “big oil conspiracy” theory of global warming scepticism seems to thrive among people like Mann, seemingly requiring absolutely no evidence to sustain it. The left-wing media seems to lap it up without question. But is the tale of sceptics feeding off Exxon’s millions any more credible than green lizards from Alpha Centauri taking over Michael Mann’s brain?
If it is a Green Lizard invasion, I’ll bet their home planet looks a lot like the DPRK from Space, energy for me, but not for thee:
As Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. once quipped:
If Michael Mann did not exist, the skeptics would have to invent him.
Keep ’em coming Mike! With your help, we are winning the Climate Wars.
More on BIG GREEN investing in fossil fuel companies. It’s worse than we thought.
2013
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/10/naomi-klein-green-groups-climate-deniers
http://www.thenation.com/article/174149/why-arent-environmental-groups-divesting-fossil-fuels
“— a whole cadre of other front groups, organizations, and hired guns implicated in the campaign to discredit climate science and climate scientists.”
Of course, the above doesn’t apply to the largest political PR machine ever assembled in the history of science I guess.
So true. Many times at the Guardian comments people asked me what was my motivation. They also cannot fathom that someone in a democracy might disagree with them for genuine reasons – WITHOUT being fossil fuel funded. They are the conspiracy theorists.
TIP for Warmists. Look at the numerous sceptical bloggers and look at their side-bars. You will often see ‘donate’, adverts, books leading to Amazon etc. Why do they need these funds when they get it from big oil, coal or gas? Fossil fuel companies give away hundreds of millions a year. They can easily get together $10 million a year to fund just 4 powerful and climate dedicated organisations as well as fund the top 10 sceptic bloggers.
” I have no association with PSU, but have always respected Joe Paterno. I still do.”
Me too. I think history will be favorable on JoePa when the hysteria is gone. Not so for Dr. Mann.
I still have many friends in the Meteorology Dept. Let’s just say that the folks that say “All scientists agree” haven’t hung out much in Walker Building. Many of the faculty and staff are dismayed at Dr. Mann’s behavior and reject his science. There is a changing of the guard at Dept Head. The outgoing dept head is a good guy but a devoted warmist. The new dept head is much more involved in weather and forecast modelling. I don’t know what he will do but I just hope that he will urge Dr. Mann to behave in a more professional manner that is becoming of a scientist. Name calling, rampant advocacy, litigious attacks, and science with an agenda have no place at my school. I expect large universities to have tenured profs practicing bad science. That is reality. But the I have no tolerance for Dr. Mann’s lack of professionalism.
Jimbo says:
“You CANNOT produce evidence of something that does not exist.”
Of course you can, just ask Gleick.
I guess mother nature is for sale after all , and it took Koch’s billions and billions to buy her off.
He’s even more desperate than David Suzuki, both throwing bad analogies around in their scramble to find connections to persuade fools.
Jimbo,
In reply to your list of universities that the Koch’s support – what’s wrong with supporting universities? You don’t like education? Low information voters is your goal?
It seems you are trying to insinuate that the Kochs are trying to institute science denialism in their donations. But where are the facts?
Picking one entry at random: Azusa Pacific University
(Ok, it wasn’t random, it had a funny name near the top of the list, so I looked there first)
http://www.apu.edu/articles/18696/
“Eight APU students emerged from a competitive scholarship process as Koch Fellows in fall 2011, each receiving a $1,000 scholarship. The program supports students entering their sophomore or junior year who express a keen interest in understanding and promoting political and economic freedom.”
This is a student scholarship program that has been going on since 2010, giving freedom-oriented students money.
Oh the horror! Such blatant anti-science bias!
Of course the “big oil conspiracy” theory is credible. It just doesn’t happen to be true.
As far as I can make out, the oil companies long ago figured out that
a) They didn’t have to fund sceptics, because they fund themselves
b) It wasn’t in their interests to do so, anyway.
With almost perfect symmetry, the alarmists seem to have decided
a) It’s too much trouble to manufacture evidence of a “big oil conspiracy”
b) They don’t have to, because people will believe it anyway.
Increasingly it is clear that a Koch Derangement Syndrome (KDS) is developing in the US and probably elsewhere. Seems to be taking over from the Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Here’s part of an email I received today from MoveOn.org. It’s those Koch Brother again…..
“Dear MoveOn member,
America has a Koch problem—and it’s coming to a head this November.
Right-wing oil billionaires Charles and David Koch are two of the wealthiest people in the world. They don’t hesitate to buy politicians and policies that advance their own business interests. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United and recent McCutcheon decisions, there’s virtually no limit on what they can spend.
The Koch brothers are gearing up to pour at least $125 million into November’s elections—backing candidates who’ll vote to decimate Social Security, overturn voting rights, block any shot at curbing global warming, and make it impossible for people to get health care or earn a decent wage.2
In order to neutralize the Koch brother’s pernicious impact on our democracy, we must first understand it. That’s why MoveOn members are gathering on Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29 at hundreds of “America Has a Koch Problem” movie parties to watch Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, the critically-acclaimed new release from our friends at Brave New Films. After the film, we’ll begin planning a powerful nation-wide campaign to end the Koch brothers’ toxic influence on our democracy.”
They are right, of course, America has a Koch problem – a KDS problem – from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi through MoveOn through Michael Mann……they all see the Koch’s as THE cause of all their problems.
Tom Z,
Jimbo is pointing out the hypocrisy of the greens skrilling from rooftops about evil oil funding when they are the recipients of the vast majority of it. He did not include the $100 million ‘stipend’ to Stanford to start up their Green Climate Change Depts. Nor did he list the vast $ sent to other countries for their Climate change studies and depts.
I believe that Jimbo supports endowments as do the rest of us.
But to claim that a $25,000 donation is paying for people to argue the climate warmists is extreme defensiveness…either trying to hype up support or pity.
Since low info voters are ginned up for evil oil, they swallow it.
I noticed the night satellite photo of North Korea still has a couple of spots of light. Maybe Meltdown Mann will move there to stamp them out?
V.UIL said:”they all see the Koch’s as THE cause of all their problems.”
Do they? Or do they just see the Koch’s as the perfect target to demonize? Gotta give this “evil” a face right? You see, they think that the majority of Americans view “the rich” as “evil” and therefore putting the Koch’s face on everything should make us automatically equate them with evil too.
But they don’t UNDERSTAND how normal, regular people think. The majority of American’s don’t hate the rich. They don’t buy into the message that the rich are stealing all the wealth from everyone else. And they don’t buy this “Koch” message either. In fact, every time we hear it, it’s like one of Pavlov’s bells….we automatically know the person saying it is part of the Propaganda Group. And we ignore them.
They are so pathetically out of touch with the vast majority of the American people, it’s almost hilarious. Just look at DC and the media reeling from Eric Cantor’s loss this morning! They are predictable. We can use that to our advantage when the time comes.
Joe Change at 9:09am nails it. Maybe this will be the impetus that brings North Korea back into the global fold. tee hee
This is a bit off topic, but I’m reading “The Lysenko Affair” by David Joravsky. It’s about the corruption of science under the Soviet Union. But there’s not an absolute division between the USSR and the USA. It’s just that in the former, there was more government-sponsored pseudo-science. One interesting point about pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko is his persuasive power with journalists. He persuaded the media, the media persuaded the public, and to some extent, the Russia government had to take notice. There’s not a complete dichotomy between this story and how Western society works.
Does Dr. Mann have any toes left…he’s shot himself in the foot so many times, he may only have ankles remaining.
Mann v. Steyn is crow soup. Here’s why:
In public figure defamation,the plaintiff must show that the accused author published derogatory statements that he knew to be false, or published with reckless disregard of their truth or falsity, with the effect of harming a public figure’s reputation.
The first Judge read the plaintiff’s complaint. Acting on the principle of accepting the pleadings as true, she denied defendants’ (then 4) motion for dismissal.
Two assertions mad by plaintiff would have gotten any (new to the) facts-ignorant but competent judge’s attention:
(#17, p. 6)
In 2007 Dr. Mann shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the other IPCC authors for their work in climate change, including the development of the Hockey Stick Graph.”
(#21, p. 8)
“The Exoneration of Dr. Mann” [sic]
I can’t copy and paste parts of PDF, so to summarize, Mann asserted that no fewer than 7 respected agencies/ persons: Penn State U, U East Anglia, UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the US EPA, and NSF ALL conducted investigations into allegations of scientific misconduct against Dr. Mann and colleagues, and found no basis to the allegations of scientific misconduct or manipulation of data.
Now if you were a Superior Court judge, and if these assertions were true, would you not have decent reason to allow the case to proceed, in order to find out, did Steyn and Simberg know these facts, especially exoneration of the good doctor, by no fewer than seven investigating bodies,and then willfully ignore these facts in his possession, before vilifying The Hockey Stick as fraudulent. A competent jury could examine this, and make conclusions of defendant’s “malice”.
But Steyn et al. DID NOT KNOW THESE “FACTS”. No one could have, because they were utterly false assertions.
“Dr. Mann shared the Nobel Peace Prize.” Every scientist knows what sharing the Nobel Prize means. In sciences (Physics, Chem, Med or Physiology), the committee names 2-3 Prize winners more often than it awards a single person the prize. “Sharing the Prize” means you are invited to Sweden (or Norway), to attend the awarding ceremony, all expenses paid by the Nobel Foundation, the King of Sweden (or Norway) hangs a medal on your chest, it’s yours to keep, you give a talk, usually an autobiographical memoir, and you get a check, ca. $1M, OR its fraction according to the number of your co-winners (no more than 3).
Did Dr. Mann get an all expenses trip to Oslo (paid by the Nobel Foundation, or Peace Prize Committee?) Did he get a medal that he proudly displays in his office? Did he receive any fraction of ca. $500,000 (IPCC share, AlGore pocketing an identical amount)?
No, no, and no. He did get a nice full-color replica of the Nobel certificate, along with 2000 other IPCC participants, bonded to a larger piece of paper, with his name on it, SENT TO HIM by the IPCC. But no replica medal of the actual Nobel Medal, no check from IPCC, let alone the Nobel Foundation, for $250.
Did Mann lie to the court in his initial pleadings? Lie is a strong word. Maybe he suffered a delusion of grandeur, not a crime, but a mental disorder.
On the “exoneration” assertion, the pleading was weasel-worded to conflate Mann with “colleagues”. Six of the seven investigating bodies were only looking at “colleagues”. Penn State alone “exonerated”, in an investigation chaired by PSU press Graham Spanier, who also “cleared” Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky is now in prison, and Spanier was forced to resign (or be fired), and under indictment for perjury, child endangerment and obstruction of justice. Simberg and Steyn lampooned this.
In summary, had the judge known that Mann’s original assertions as to his stature, were false fabrications, she might have granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. In any case, Mann’s attorneys presented these falsities to the court in order to evade an immediate dismissal. If a reasonable judge knew that keystone points of a plaintiff’s complaint, directly going to the heart of whether an accused libelist knew or should have known that the plaintiff won the Nobel Peace Prize (a humanity saver!), and had been exonerated by no fewer than 7 august investigatory panels, were utter fabrications, that reasonable judge would have dismissed the case. “Don’t bring me utterly false allegations again, in order to establish grounds for a lawsuit!”
Mann and his masters (remember somebody chose him to be an IPCC SAR Lead Author when he was still a grad student, or just graduated and his concocted “temp record” done in graduate school was shown 5+ times in the summary report.)
Dr. Mann is a set-up. He graduated “with honors” from Berkeley. This is one step above “No Distinction”. He took 5 years to graduate. Then at Yale, took 9 years to earn a PhD. Normal-good students take 4 years for bachelor’s, 5 years for PhD. 14 years age 32 vs. 9 years. age 27.
But Berkeley’s brilliant students enter at age 16-17, earn their AB’s in 3-4 years, and earn their PhD’s in 3-4 years. for PhD years, becoming doctors at ages 22-25, not 32.
Firthermore Berkeley’s High Honors and Highest Honors physics students go to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Princeton, Chicago, Cornell, and Columbia. Yale was second-rate in physics.. No Physics Nobel prizes, only 4 NAS Physics members (now down to 2). Somebodies at Berkeley down tracked Mr. Mann. For example, his Berkeley profs who apparently didn’t say, “Mr. Mann is one of the best students my class.”
I worked with a lot of second and third-tier scientists. They couldn’t win a nobel Prize,or be elected to NAS. They published, and made refreee status, but couldn’t make Editor(s) page. They did honest work. That would have been Dr. Mann’s legacy, until he was enticed by someone to become “very important.”
When he goes down, he could blow the whistle, but he won’t., because blabbers get killed along with their families. He’ll just sink quietly into the sunset.
chicagoansyorkers and new Here’s an interesting fact:: New Yorkers, hicagoans, and Minneapolists keep migrating to the South and Southwest. “Too hot”? They don’t think so. /to cold where they wre born, yes they think so.
Lemmings or smart people. You decide.
It might be the flying bullets and progressive cronies as much as the temperatures that causes them to flee.
I guess that anti science name caller, hockey stick make-up artist, runaway debater, Koch-Exxon Mobil skeptic organization funding conspiracy theorist Michael Mann is an interesting man to analyze for a professional psychologist.
The rest of us just laugh.
O/T During the cold war, my ex was a captain on the V Force, Vulcans. He said that Russian technology on their planes was woeful. Mind you it was OK to bring down the U2 spy plane, eh?
@Bushbunny – the U2 was downed, but so far Russia is not saying it was a war plane or a ground to air missile that did it.
O/T Seems our press is possibly exaggerating by stating ‘Obama says climate denialists are ignoring science..’ Not very nice is he?
Perstrandberg, if it was a missile that high he would not have survived. Garry Powers was actually stood trail for espionage and was released eventually.
No it was a surface to air missile. He was jailed and sentenced but released on prisoner exchange in 1962 for another Russian spy. But initially came under flack for not destroying his plane before parachuting out. Although working for the CIA, at the time, this incident was not good for the summit between Krushcek, Macmillan and Eisenhower. I remember reading about it and wondering if we would have a nuclear war, that hung over our heads at the time.