Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
According to a biased article in the Boston Globe, a man named Kert Davies, the Executive Director of something called the “Climate Investigations Center” (CIC) has penned a scurrilous letter to the journal Science Bulletin, accusing Dr. Willie Soon of a conflict of interest. The article says he was accused because in the past he received funding “from companies and interests supporting studies critical of climate change.”
Now it is important to know that Dr. Soon did not get a grant for the scientific study in question. That work was done on his own time and at his own expense. He does not profit from the work in any way, he was not paid for it, and thus he has absolutely no conflict of interest of any kind.
So let me get Kert Davies claim straight. For example, his claim is that if a scientist ever received funding from say Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund, in any future study whether funded by Greenpeace or WWF or not, the oh-so-noble Kert Davies thinks you need to disclose that.
Now there are dozens of scientists out there who have received funding from Greenpeace. Heck, a number of IPCC authors are not just funded by but have been employed by Greenpeace.
Curious, isn’t it, how Kert Davies seems to ignore the dozens and dozens of scientists who have received funding from a host of funders with a clear axe to grind … and focuses on Dr. Soon regarding work that he did on his own dime? I gotta confess, a man like Kert Davies that is involved in that kind of underhanded and deceptive action is … well … I fear my opinion is not fit for expressing on a family blog.
…
Now, after writing the above I had an interesting thought … I thought “I wonder who the CIC is when it’s at home?” And I have to admit, I laughed out loud when the first page I pulled up said this:
Who We Are
The Climate Investigations Center (CIC) was established in 2014 to monitor the individuals, corporations, trade associations, political organizations and front groups who work to delay the implementation of sound energy and environmental policies that are necessary in the face of ongoing climate crisis.
Kert Davies, Executive Director
CIC was founded by Kert Davies, a well-known researcher, media spokesperson and climate activist who has been conducting corporate accountability research and campaigns for more than 20 years. Davies was the chief architect of the Greenpeace web project ExxonSecrets, launched in 2004, which helped expose the oil giant ExxonMobil’s funding of organizations and individuals who work to discredit the validity of climate science and delay climate policy action. More recently, Davies established the PolluterWatch program at Greenpeace, which launched the report Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine.
Well, I guess that explains a few things …
But despite all of Kert Davies’ claims about “secret funding”, I don’t find one word on their website about who funds the CIC … although I did find this intriguing snippet on the web:
… the Climate Investigations Center, a collaboration between former Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies and the Guardian …
So Kert wants to bust others for where they get their funding, but either he doesn’t have the courage to divulge his own backers, or he thinks that revealing your funding is for the common people and doesn’t apply to him …
In any case, in the past I’ve had jobs working for both extremely liberal and extremely conservative groups … so freakin’ what? Unless they are funding my current work, I fail to see the relevance … and just like with Willie Soon’s study published in the Science Bulletin, nobody is funding my current work. But according to Kert Davies, I should have to put a conflict of interest statement on my work because obviously I’m conflicted from both sides, liberal and conservative.
Kert Davies, however, doesn’t reveal who is funding his current work …
In any case, I just used the CIC Contact Us form to send the following questions:
Dear Kert Davies:
You are attempting to discredit the work of Dr. Willie Soon, not because of someone funding a piece of work that he got published in Science Bulletin, but because of funding that he received in the past. This brings up a couple of questions.
1) Are you going to do the same with every scientist who ever received any funding in the past from e.g. Greenpeace, WWF, or any of the many AGW supporting organizations?
2) Since you are so concerned about funding, why is it that I cannot find out anywhere on your website just who it is that is funding the Climate Investigations Center?
3) Since you are so concerned about funding, are you planning to bust the ex- and current Greenpeace and WWF scientists and others involved in the IPCC Reports for not declaring their conflicts of interest? I mean according to you, because at some time in the past they received money from groups like Greenpeace and WWF who advocate and advance the anthropogenic warming hypothesis, their work is forever tainted and their conflict of interest must be declared in any future work … or does that just apply to people you disagree with?
My thanks in advance for your response,
w.
We’ll see how that goes over … their “Contact Us” form is here if you wish to contact them, please keep it polite …
w.
I didn’t get to the contact us page using the link above.
http://www.climateinvestigations.org/contact_us
As for contacting them, it seems like the same old CAGW dogma we’ve been hearing/reading for years… I don’t really see the point.
Hopefully they fade back into the obscurity they deserve.
Thanks, fixed.
w.
And you just have to love their attempts at subliminal re-definition by such things as ” “from companies and interests supporting studies critical of climate change.” Taking this literally demands seeing those “interests and companies” as supporting the notion that climate is always in stasis when not interfered with by humans. Of course, climate change only happens when humans are instigating it. Why aren’t these people embarrassed?
And FWIW the Boston Globe has as much ethical credibility as the Guardian so it’s no surprise they aid this kind of slander.
Right. We can also wonder about the competence and integrity of Sylvan Lane (sylvan.lane@globe.com), the Boston Globe scribbler who penned the hatchet-job on Willie Soon.
I remember many of the Boston Globe’s feats of journalistic prestidigitation. In the 1980s we had dozens of articles from tech genius Fred Kaplan about the wasteful spending on useless cruise missile technology and then whoa, Desert Storm! Oh yes and there was the months and months in 1986 when we had to wade hip deep in article after article that tried to pin the Challenger disaster on the Reagan White House wanting to have a poster child teacher in space in time for the SOTUS that year. Oh yeah credibility runs deep there.
Look at Boston’s current view of K-12 projects to teach science, citizenship, and the need for social justice. http://www.communityschools.org/assets/1/AssetManager/MBLT%20Boston.pdf
Training the students to be change agents it says. So they can be teachers, journalists, or politicians apparently.
In the absence of other data, I’ll assume that CIC is funded by Koch brothers.
Perhaps not too off topic with respect to the discussion topic, in terms of who’s funding whom, I note that HotWhopper’s January 23, 2015 blog-post, “Tim Ball does a Denier Don…”, attracted a remarkably candid comment from one the hive’s leading insiders, Victor Venema (January 25, 2015):
“A large number of people writing comments at WUWT seem to be paid by Greenpeace.”
Now, of course, everyone has pretty much already figured out that the low-rent gibbering-dorks, brainwashed bratty-teenyboppers, and low-bid eco-bots, who regularly troll WUWT, Climate etc., and other freedom-and-ethical-science-loving climate-blogs, are self-evident, NGO-retard hive-hirelings. Still, it’s good fun to have a bona-fide hive-worthy acknowledge the real skinny on this deal and dispense, for once, with the “BIG FIB” obfuscations and the ever-dreary, “conspiracy theory ideation!” misdirection-boogers, the hive customarily employs in these matters.
The title of this article is incorrect
From a picture of Kert Davies, it is clear that he is normal sized, and is not a “midget’
http://www.iisd.ca/ozone/exmp/pix/3greenpeace56-b.jpg
Intellectually, perhaps?
Or maybe he is a whole bunch of midgets clinging to each other and masquerading as a human?
It’s midgets all the way down …
How do we know he is not sitting in a room full of midgets in that photo.
Um, I don’t believe one can detect a mental midget from a photograph, but the phrase “you will know them by their works” seems appropriate.
/grin
I think that you can Look at the blank stare and the finger-sucking affect.
It makes sense to consider “mental midget” was implied though I think using the word midget in disparaging ways is nearly always inappropriate. I’d prefer “small minded”. Personally I think Kert is the result of bad parenting and a public school system somewhere owe the tax payers an appology.
is he smelling his finger?
dp January 27, 2015 at 12:01 pm Edit
Indeed.
I suppose that in this PC world that might be so … although it’s still fine to have a movie called “White Men Can’t Jump”. Go figure. But I’ve changed it to avoid attacks from other mental midgets …
w.
Mick,
These guys have a thing about their fingers:
One thing i have noted — politically correct language prevents sharply identifying problems.
Eventually these problems may not be named at all.
When problems can no longer be named they cease to exist.
When problems cease to exist they have been solved.
In this way politically correct language solves all our social problems. (This is really just 1984 stuff.)
That is how socialists solve problems.
Eventually people who continue to speak about these “solved” problems just disappear. Improper use of language becomes a crime against social cohesion — a crime against humanity.
I myself favor the term “pinheads”.
Eugene WR Gallun
The term coprocephalic springs unbidden to mind.
I trust y’all are aware if the transmission of your truck is making odd sounds or overheating – do not call it a tranny.
No, Mick, he’s not “smelling his finger”. He already smelled it and now he’s clearly tasting his finger.
The title of the story would not have been as funny using the description “small minded”. See by saying “mental midget”, you can visualize the midget biting his ankles. Then by describing that the midget is biting ankles you can visualize how really “small minded” he is because no midget is actually only ankle high. For the love of God, it’s f’n funny………
Morally, perhaps?
Well I have no idea who Kert Davies is or what his schtick is, but I do know who “Willie” Wei Hock Soon is (Dr. Soon), and beside him; many of us would be perceived as “mental midgets” (me included).
So perhaps the poster was referring to Mr. Davies in that “mental stature” frame of reference.
But as for what we can see of him in that presumably not photo-shopped image, he would seem to be normal sized; at least what we can see of him is.
G
Not going there, G, just not going there.
LOL
The accusation that skeptic climate scientists were ‘paid industry shills’ initially got its media traction via efforts by book author Ross Gelbspan and the top 3 people at the old Ozone Action organization back in 1996-2000, and O.A.which got merged into Greenpeace USA. I mention some of those details at my GelbspanFiles.com blog. The trio was John Passacantando, Phil Radford, and Kert Davies: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=1960
Kalee Krieder – Al Gore’s 2006-2012 spokesperson – claimed she was one of the founders of Ozone Action. http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=919 Accusers of skeptic climate scientists are just one happy little cozy family.
Russel, here’s another interesting take on the history of the climate change debate, focusing on the corporate involvement on both sides:
http://activistteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/dgr-in-my-article-entitled-global.html
A PORG a person of restricted growth.
Perhaps a PORMG a person of restricted mental growth is more appropriate?
/sarc
@ Pethefin Jan 27, 2015 10:11 pm Thanks for the link. Problem is, blogger David F. Noble there steers straight into a ditch within the first paragraphs with his bits on “… a growing consensus … a corporate campaign, which has by now been amply documented … modelled after [ / ] built upon the earlier campaign by the tobacco industry to sow skepticism … formed the Global Change Coalition (GCC), with the help of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller…” Each bit is literally unsupportable, with that last one being an outright error. Various other errors follow later in his piece, but since it is based on the false premise that there was an initial corporate effort done in a manner parallel to tobacco industry tactics, that undermines the balance of the piece to near worthlessness. As my own work in the matter shows, that alleged ‘tobacco industry-style effort’ has NOT been ‘amply documented’ in the least. Kert Davies and the collective lot of others promoting the ‘corrupt skeptic scientists’ meme instead show how there is only ONE source who ‘documented’ the accusation, and that source is plagued by credibility problems.
I just looked it up in Wikipedia. There are five million midgets in America. So it is not inconceivable that the five people in the photo are all midgets. If that’s true. Davies looks to me to be about three feet tall.
The guy has a sort of McKibben resemblance.
or maybe Lurch !
Here’s another Leader of the Alarmist Cult:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/i/RayPierhumbert.jpg
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert actually quite (in)famous: called Anthony, Steve and Ross “clowns” and “noisemakers”, has been on the catastrophe side for a long time. But he now is busy with the climate of exo-planets. I guess he has given up on good ol’ Earth.
Timo,
It looks like Pierrehumbert is visiting from an exo-planet himself.
Speaking of noisemakers, I hope he’s heard the warning:
Play an accordion — go to prison…
…it’s the Law!
DBSteadly, the English definition of a gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
@ dbstealey
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert resembles any number of people The Git drinks with at his local. Not saying I’m at all offended here, just puzzled. Apart from his short hair, lack of spectacles and an apparent ability to play a musical instrument, there’s even a slight resemblance to The Git. Mind you, The Git wouldn’t be caught dead in those shoes! He wears cherry red clogs 😉
Actually, Pierrehumbert looks kinda conservative compared to my friend David.
http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2011/01/19/1225991/006440-david-walsh.jpg
David Walsh privately owns a substantial collection of art, a winery and the $75 Million Museum of Old and New Art or MONA the largest privately owned museum in the southern hemisphere. In July 2012, Walsh was involved in a dispute with the Australian Tax Office, which demanded he pay $37 million from the profits of his gambling system. The dispute was “entirely resolved” in October 2012.
You can always tell a hippie, commie lair just by their appearance, no?
That softish bump on top of his head looks ready to pop. Is it mean to say that? Am I being uncharitable and unfair? Is my first sentence an ad hominem remark? Possibly; I have been trying to reply on Dr. Kert’s own level. . . perhaps I should stop.
@ Jon M, you better, you might hurt your back.
In the best traditions of the ad hominem web, he’s a funny lookin’ dweeb.
An insult is rarely an ad hominem on its own. Indeed, the most effective ad hominems are truths about the subject.
Mark
Why is David Socrates disseminating a picture of Kert Davies? Especially an unflattering one. Is Kert using his finger to play with his lips?
Maybe David finds public displays of lip manipulation appealing, no need to share it here though.
Wouldn’t you think that someone utilizing the name “Socrates” would have skeptical tendencies? At least he should be asking questions instead of making claims.
I can’t tell. . . is he standing on something?
Didn’t the guy who wrote “Dress for Success” say “Never wear green!”
I’m all for researchers and associated groups disclosing their funding as long as it includes environmental groups, too. There is a news report out today that claims Russia may be backing anti-fracking efforts in the United States.
“A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests…”
In other words, it’s really environmental groups who are funded by “big oil.”
http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/
Perfectly believable. During the Cold War, the Soviets were funding anti-war groups, labor unions and others.
That is a big fat lie.
I was in the antiwar movement in Berkeley in 1968-1970. We joked about this. I even joked that the Chinese communists gave me $600. The next day, that was a headline in the SF Chronicle. I called them and told them there was no money, never was any money and if anyone wanted to give me $600 I would be delighted.
They had to retract the story. 🙂
Emsnews… Not a lie it is the truth
emsnews: not a lie, although they certainly weren’t funding every anti-war group and labor union. I should add I have absolutely no doubt the CIA did and continues to do essentially the same thing.
Conspiracy faithful of all shades and leanings need to read G K Chesterion’s The Man Who Was Thursday. In fact, when you consider the interwoven threads of “interests” involved in forming the thought of the ’60s, who knows, possibly the USSR was funded by the FBI.
I call BS on that one. You already admitted:
No paper would retract a story if you later claimed “I was only joking”. How would they know you weren’t telling the truth the first time, and only simply joking now? They can’t, so they would do nothing until there was proof one way of the other. You word on its own would no longer be believable. And the situation remains unchanged even to this day.
$2 per gallon gas will put a huge slowdown on fracking or any other oil/gas exploration.
Actually, it will force fracking to become cheaper in order to survive to everyone’s gain
It will also embarrass the “renewables” even further because those are tax funded and don’t understand the concept of fair competition in a free market.
Ironically, Kert has an article amongst his “investigations” from 2014 linking so-called American oil companies with Russia…
Well the single biggest financial benefactor of “Big Orl” is Uncle Sam. The United States Government gets more from big oil than do the share holders in big oil companies.
And since most of these liberal organizations are wards of the government and owe their support to US taxpayers, including big oil, then they should shut up or risk losing their funding.
Just saying.
Willy Soon has put up with far more undeserved personal attacks than anyone should have to tolerate. Heartland recognized that and gave him an award for “Courage in Defense of Science Award”
All round nice guy and incredibly dedicated.
http://climateconferences.heartland.org/willie-soon-award-iccc9/
Is it as bad as the horrific personal attacks endured by that poor, hardworking, reluctantly in the public eye, scrupulously honest, darn good looking, affable and wonderful Nobel Laureate M. Mann?
(yes, that was sarcasm)
my screen is now wearing the coffee I was drinking.
Hypocrisy on the side of climate alarmism?
I am shocked, just shocked.
Check out the oil funded green bodies.
Here is a taste from the long list of green and climate bodies funded by fossil fuel companies HERE. The hypocrisy is quite amazing.
Jimbo, could it be a matter of knowing your enemies?
No. The oil industry is very happy the EPA is taking action against coal, because this will force consumers over to natural gas, which will raise the price of natural gas and as a result raise oil company profits.
Without coal as an option, big oil is back to its monopoly position on energy, and once the $2 oil has driven the little guys out of the market, the price will come back higher than ever – as will the profits.
US Presidents have recognized this going back to the Arab Oil Embargo 40 years ago, and the government promoted the use of coal for electricity production because the US has 200 more years of proven coal reserves.
The current administration in the US is cutting the use of coal, leading the US back to the days when big oil had a monopoly on energy production. This will not be good for consumers.
It would be better to just find Kert Davies and kick his ass. Metaphorically, of course.
From what I have gathered, at least for the last several years in order to get a research proposal funded by the government it must contain a statement describing how that research should help to reinforce the CAGW meme. So he should also add those scientists who ever did climate research funded by government grants to those with a conflict of interest.
I wonder if we could get funding to start a watchdog group to watch watchdog groups?
Well, in a dog eat dog world, why not?
Great idea. Apply for a grant. The way this administration likes to piss away money, you just might get it.
It’s already there: Greenie Watch
http://antigreen.blogspot.nl/
Willis,
Thank you for your work. I only wish you’d have taken your “contact us” request a bit further and requested:
1) Specific issues with the science.
2) Their (his?) defitnition of ” of sound energy and environmental policies that are necessary in the face of ongoing climate crisis.”
3) a link to their (his?) chastisement of Greenpeace re: damage in Lima.
It seems responsible journalism would focus the magnifying lens on all sides of the discussion. Especially lacking the definitions in #2 above, how can they self evaluate and insure adherance to their proclaimed mission.
Now, in fairness to them, I did not see on thier site where they declared themselves to be either responsible nor journalists.
Willie Soon has been a target, especially for White House science advisor John Holdren. It is possible he has orchestrated or prompted this latest attack. Here is portion of my book, “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science” that details the outrageous actions taken by Holdren to try and silence Willie Soon and Sally Baliunas.
“There were two attacks. One still unknown to many and unreported by the mainstream media involved denigration and vicious attacks on Soon and Baliunas. Maybe it went unreported because it involved, in a truculent nasty manner, a member of the Obama White House.
There is a multitude of small but disturbing stories in the extensive leaked email files. For example, I’ve known solar physicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon for a long time. I published an article with Willie and enjoyed extensive communication. I was on advisory committees with Sallie when she suddenly and politely withdrew from the fray. I don’t know if the following events were contributing factors, but it seems likely.
Baliunas and Soon excellent work confirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) from a multitude of sources. It challenged attempts to get rid of the MWP because it contradicted the claim by the proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Several scientists challenged the claim that the latter part of the 20th century was the warmest ever. They knew the claim was false because many warmer periods occurred in the past. Michael Mann got rid of the MWP with his production of the hockey stick, but Soon and Baliunas were problematic. What better than to have a powerful academic destroy their credibility for you? Sadly, there are always people who will do the dirty work.
A perfect person and opportunity appeared. On 16th October 2003 Michael Mann sent an email to people involved in the CRU scandal;
“Dear All,
Thought you would be interested in this exchange, which John Holdren of Harvard has been kind enough to pass along…”
At the time, Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy & Director, Program in Science, Technology, & Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Later he became Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology—informally known as the United States Science Czar.
In an email on October 16, 2003 from John Holdren to Michael Mann and Tom Wigley we’re told:
“I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my “Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or less self-explanatory.”
This is what Holdren sent to the Wednesday Breakfast group:
“I append here an e-mail correspondence I have engaged in over the past few days trying to educate a Soon/Baliunas supporter who originally wrote to me asking how I could think that Soon and Baliunas are wrong and Mann et al. are right (a view attributed to me, correctly, in the Harvard Crimson). This individual apparently runs a web site on which he had been touting the Soon/Baliunas position.”
The exchange Holdren refers to is a challenge by Nick Schulz editor of Tech Central Station (TCS). On August 9, 2003 Schulz wrote:
“In a recent Crimson story on the work of Soon and Baliunas, who have written for my website , you are quoted as saying: My impression is that the critics are right. It is unfortunate that so much attention is paid to a flawed analysis, but that’s what happens when something happens to support the political climate in Washington. Do you feel the same way about the work of Mann et. al.? If not why not?”
At what point does the end no longer justify the means?
“There is a multitude of small but disturbing stories…”
I guess you couldn’t get a proofreader for your book. My condolences.
Jeff – are you suggesting a grammatical error? How would YOU rewrite it without becoming stifling?
To me, “multitude” as Tim uses it is singular – an agglomeration of SPECIFIED stories, particularly as offset, and characterized by the words: “small but disturbing”.
Likely a matter of choice – no “proofreader” nag is warranted.
Sorry Jeff, there’s nothing wrong with that sentence.
My theory is that when all that someone can find to complain about is your grammar, you’ve won the argument … but in any case, Jeff, I find this:
Regards,
w.
I would have written it as “are a multitude” as in a great number. Would you say “there is a great number of stories”?
Just one example. I often find myself shaking my head at Dr. Ball’s grammar and punctuation.
There really isn’t an argument to win or lose, Willis. It’s his opinion, therefore it is what it is.
Jeff Alberts January 27, 2015 at 10:13 pm Edit
The curious thing to me is that English as it is both spoken and written is often very different from what the rule-makers would have us believe. For example, many folks including myself say something like
“There’s a lot of ways to skin a cat.”
Now of course, by all the rules that’s wrong … but then so is the sign that says “Ten Items Or Less” at the supermarket, and yet people know exactly what is meant by both statements.
I see the English language as an evolutionary process. My rule of thumb is that if a construction is short, unambiguous and clear, it will likely survive at the expense of another way of saying the same thing which is either longer, more ambiguous, or less clear. This goes double if the first construction is also interesting or emotionally moving in some way.
Which is why I have little patience for folks who think that others should play English by their rules. If you want to play by some imaginary set of rules, that’s your business … but me, I never was much for coloring inside the lines. I’m a reasonably good wordsmith, and I recognize no rules but those that lead to moving, gripping communication … and far too often that involves coloring not only outside the lines, but completely off of the page.
My thanks to you, Jeff, it’s an interesting topic,
w.
Tim’s book says: “There is a multitude of small but disturbing stories….”.
Jeff (apparently) says he would write instead: “There are a multitude of small but disturbing stories…..”. This “are a” juxtaposition jars my ear.
If Jeff wishes to use “are”, he should make “multitude” an additional descriptive modifier (along with small and disturbing), i.e.: “There are multitude small but disturbing stories…..”. That is, “a multitude of” (noun) becomes just “multitude”. This construction I would find proper, extending “are” to plural “stories” – but suffocating!
No, Jeff, I would not say (your example): “There is a great number of stories”.
But neither would I say: “There are a box of books on bird behavior on my shelf.” To my mind, ”a multitude of” agglomerates just as “a box of” does.
Ha – Willis – I supposed only I was bothered by “10 Items of Less”. None the less (!) we both get in the line if we have 10 Items or Fewer. I count, and I bet you do too. Not everyone does.
The Less/Fewer is one of my two major pet peeves, and I don’t mean just the non-counters in line. The other peeve is “begs the question”. But we have lost that one.
multitude is, multitudes are.
10 years an english teacher at a university.
Another elephant? “or does that just apply to people you disagree with?” Ending with a preposition? My theory is this caused the deletion of Willis’ letter. 🙂
(Sorry Willis, but I chose not to resist)
Willis Eschenbach
January 27, 2015 at 9:45 pm
You’re right, Willis. When I see it, I envision somebody on their knees, scraping fingernails in the dirt searching for horse-nuggets…
The sentence is grammatically correct. “Multitude” is singular.
Jeff Alberts:
There are many cases in English where “correct” and “idiomatic” conflict, and what is idiomatic varies between countries and regions. Correct is “with whom were you speaking?”, but among modern US speakers this would be widely considered stilted, if not pretentious. Correct British English is “The committee have reached a decision”, but in the US we would use the singular and say “the committee has reached a decision”. British consider other collective nouns as plural, such as corporation, government, etc. I do not know whether this usage applies to well-known nouns of multitude such as flock, pride, school, etc., but in any case in the US we do not and usage is always singular.
Knowing that many posting and commenting at WUWT are not native English speakers (a condition some on the other side of the pond would extend to cover Americans), I try to be charitable when finding grammatical errors. I of course prefer that people write clearly, but it is much more important that they think clearly; I can decipher a good thought poorly expressed much more easily than the other way around.
I personally would use the singular “There is a multitude …” as WIllis has, but I would not jump on someone who used the plural solely for that reason. I also tend to treat the word “none” as if it were written “no one” and therefore also singular, (e.g., “none is so foolish …”) but I think I’m definitely in the minority.
English is an irredeemable illogical language, especially in regard to spelling. It also evolves, unfortunately sometimes for no better reason than most people don’t learn proper usage. The word “presently” used to mean “shortly”, or “in a little while”, as in “the manager will see you presently”. In modern usage it has come to mean “at the present time”, or “now”, as in “we are presently enjoying the lowest fuel prices in 10 years”. Considering there was a perfectly good word “currently” with the identical meaning, there was no reason to hijack “presently” for the same purpose, as it only makes it necessary to find another word to mean what “presently” used to. But this is one of the ways language evolves and if you try to stop it, at a certain point you become peevishly ridiculous like the French Academy.
Now just why did you bring your knowledge of that topic for us to be lectured on out of up for?
I would like to apologize to everyone, but mostly to Dr. Ball.
There are a lot of things going on in my life, and I keep getting fixated on stupid little things. I just need to stop commenting, since I obviously can’t contribute in any meaningful way. I’ve become a troll without realizing it.
I am truly sorry.
To intrude in this discussion, while I am not a native English speaker, I’ve translated technical English professionally for a number of years, and in American English the rule is that collective nouns (a multitude of stories, a pride of lions, a plethora of politicians etc) are (almost) invariably regarded as singular. In British English they can be either singular or plural, depending on context and stylistic criteria.
So Tim’s usage is correct for American English, and not incorrect for British English.
[But is not the plural of “politician” a “poop” of politicians? .mod]
AP Stylebook: “multitude” as used in this sentence is a collective noun. It takes a singular verb: “There is a multitude of [adjectives] stories.” One of the adjectives is “small.” If, however, the “multitude” was large, AP Stylebook recommends rephrasing the sentence to emphasize the size of the multitude: “Over 1,000 stories were. . . ”
If it was stated as, “A multitude of small but disturbing stories . . .” then you would use a plural verb.
My understanding is that both singular and plural are correct, with “is” being the British convention and “are” the US convention.
I concur with Bernie. The sentence is correct as written. “Multitude” is singular. It is sometimes written “there are multitudes” but that actually describes many collections, each of which is singular.
Compare to “There is a crowd at the stadium”. One crowd, one multitude, one throng, one gathering.
But if you had sixteen families each of which constituted a gathering, then you would have “gatherings”.
A pedant might have written “Many small, disturbing stories…” which gets rid of the passive voice “There is” and eliminates the “but” which is unnecessary. It implies that small stories are not normally disturbing BUT these are!
I had a college professor who gave only 3 points on a paper; and you lost one of them for each instance of “there are” or semantically similar passive phrases. Still, the passive nature of science writing almost compels this style.
I’m reminded of the gradual drift in “data”. It is plural. The singular form is “datum”. But common usage has rendered “data” also singular perhaps because it is a quantity rather than a number (water is a quantity and can be more/less, data is supposed to be countable and thus more/fewer).
I also am annoyed when I see “less” when it should be “fewer”.
“Here is the data” is incorrect but extremely common. “Here is the datum” would be correct, or “Here are the data” which is correct but sounds odd at least in the USA. Try it and see how many corrections you get.
Holdren was author of one of the worst books I have ever read. The title was something like “Energy: a crisis in power” or maybe the other way around, but nevertheless the various predictions made in it (in 1972, I think, a Sierra Club battle book no less) were proven spectacularly wrong within only a few years and look downright doty from my perspective today. Smartest man alive. Uh, huh.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this construction. “is” refers to “multitude”.
Jeff’s mistake is in thinking “is” refers to “stories”, and therefore “are” should be used. Just because “multitude” refers to many, there is only 1 multitude, therefore “is” is correct. Had there been multiple multitudes, then “are” would have been correct.
The comment I produced below was meant as a reply here, but it went astray. This is a test to see if I can produce an anchor to correct the mislocation. If it all goes wrong, my apologies.
Thank you Willis and Tim.
Sallie’s withdrawal from the scientific community was a tragedy for the USA and the world – she IS that competent.
Willie Soon is obviously a very capable and principled individual who has withstood extremist persecution and has carried on.
I admire Sallie and Willie very much, and appreciate that you have both shed light on some of the odious vermin who have persecuted them.
Again, thank you Willis and Tim.
Best, Allan
Isn’t Willy Soon the CO2 Science guy? He runs on donations or subscriptions from the general public. American Apple Pie stuff. Truly democratic (in the classical sense of the word) and populist stuff.
Beyond reproach. Unlike the GASPROM funded Sierra Club, Natural Resource Defense Council, Food and Water Watch, League of Conservation Voters, and Center for American Progress astroturf.
You’re thinking of the Idsos…
“In any case, in the past I’ve had jobs working for both extremely liberal and extremely conservative groups … so freakin’ what? Unless they are funding my current work, I fail to see the relevance … and just like with Willie Soon’s study published in the Science Bulletin, nobody is funding my current work.”
Funding doesn’t matter: Typical definition is “A competing or conflict of interest is anything that might inappropriately influence (bias), or which might be perceived to interfere with, the full and objective presentation, review or publication of research findings or review-type material.”
Soon’s Heartland connection certainly counts, and I’m betting there are other connections in the his oil and gas connections, millions of $$ there.
BTW note the word “perceived”. That covers a lot.
Thanks, Pippen. Although the word “perceived” covers a lot, so does the word “inappropriately”.
In any case, given the current climate of political correctness, even the most innocuous statements or relationships can be “perceived” as a conflict of interest, even things that happened years ago. I’ve gotten accused of bad intent because of things I did in my twenties, so obviously someone “perceived” it that way.
So the “perceived” part is meaningless. Somebody somewhere will perceive any given thing as being an inappropriate influence.
w.
You’re betting? How much then. Millions, Schmillions, CAGW people only get out of bed for Billions
“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” –Hon. Joseph Welch
Pippen Kools comments above re: Dr Soon have to be some of the most petulant and asinine I have read on WUWT, and I have been reading here for years.
Dr Soon’s work and achievements stand on their own merit, and are recognized by all sides in the debate, except by the mental dwarves like PK and Kurt D above.
John M,
This is what made the alarmist cult go ballistic:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/archive/pr0310.html
Pippen Kool either can’t or won’t understand that by pointing out the 20th Century was not as warm as the MWP, Soon & Balunias became their targets.
Pippen,
Find problems with Soon’s work, not his connections. You say “millions of $$ there” so how much has Mann received since he got his PHD?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/24/some-christmas-gift-notes-for-dr-michael-mann/
Now that is uncalled for , do you know how many cornflakes packets you have to collect, with their special labels, to get a PHD in climate science? Quite a few, and they’re not cheap! So he needs all the money [he] can get.
Well he is funded, indirectly, by Koch Bros.
Pippen, what do you perceive?
Jimbo,
No fair!! You’re using facts again!
Jimbo, what I say below you have said so much more persuasively! If financial support implies conflict of interest, which implies biased research, it’s game over.
Jimbo, Pardon but the graph looks familiar, have you thought to overlay it to one of the CRU’s IPCC’s climate model graphs? Of the same time period? I’m probably wrong it just looks so familiar….
smile
michael
And there is the hidden hockey stick!
Jimbo, you’ve produced the first accurate hockey stick I’ve seen in climate science.
Pippen Kool. It’s important to apply the same standards to both sides (or all sides). As implied in Willis’s Q1 to Kert.
PK,
We await your formal rebuttal to the paper. I’m not holding my breath.
Pippen … you have any problems with Barry’s connections to known terrorists ?
How about BHO’s connections with known environmentalists and “green energy” big shots?
Pippin, one should truly educate themselves on a topic before commenting on it. Always you trolls like to bring up “perceived” oil and gas connections. Heartland Institute and Dr. Soon have both said publicly they would gladly accept funds from the Koch brothers, or any other corporation or organization. Given the lack of announcements or proof from the left, one can assume that they are still waiting.
Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars of oil and gas money have been given to organizations like Green Peace and WWF, annually. There is plenty of documentation to support that fact. It is not an allegation. I haven’t run across any announcement stating that these well-funded organizations are going to return any of that money. The funding of Heartland Institute is a small fraction of that of those organizations.
By your definition studies produced by scientists associated with CAGW-agenda driven organizations are also biased by their associations. Therefore, there is no such thing as an unbiased climate science paper. You may be right, in that regard. But I personally don’t think so. Most of us who read here can readily discern what you are and who you represent.
Pippin certainly did achieve part of his goal, I’m guessing. It was probably to stir up a lot of hate and dissent. I’m glad to see what he actually stirred up was a lot of facts, figures, and discussion his side doesn’t want to be made public. I believe that is important as it educates those who are new to this topic and demonstrates that skeptics are not the “haters” the CAGW crowd says we are.
Hmmm. I wonder if Mr. Davies or the Climate Investigations Center, or any of his or its affiliates, has/have ever received any Russian money. “Foreign Firm Funding U.S. Green Groups Tied to State-Owned Russian Oil Company” http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/
The elephant in the room is government funding. The government is wealthier than any corporation, and if we conclude, with plausible evidence, that government has a thumb on the scale when it comes to awarding grants, the debate would truly be over.
No, I think the elephant in the room is State Owned Russian Oil Company funding just about every enviromental crank and concern troll still extant.
It appears that, the CAGW Hypocrisy room is big enough for more than one elephant.
A sizable portion of government grants and taxpayer-backed loans result in a nice quid pro quo campaign cash bonanza for democrat candidates, most notably, BHO.
Speaking of funding groups – read article on Drudge relating to Russian oil companies funding the environment movement to the tune of $23 million. Then talk to us about Soon.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/
Nicely done, Willis. When Kert was Greenpeace executive director, he and I once debated on TV. So long ago I can’t recall the program or exact topic. What I do vividly remember is that he was all hail fellow well met in the green room before the broadcast, then in the on-air segment accused my organization (Competitive Enterprise Institute) of denying that cigarette smoking causes. Not content to compare me with a tobacco scientist, he in effect asserted that I am one. I had some interaction with his predecessor, John Passacantando, who had a similar ‘code’ of conduct: friendly in private, nasty ad hominem on stage. He used a debating trick Joe Romm also uses. When the other guy objects to the defamatory slurs, Passacantando and Romm will play the victim, protesting “You’re interrupting, I didn’t interrupt you!” A word to the wise: While it is worthwhile debating ISSUES with people who passionately disagree with you, it is a sheer waste of time debating YOUR CHARACTER with people who want to defame you.
After this revelation from Free Beacon via Instapundit (http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/201550/) it’s pitch fork and torch season for these character assassins. I am fed up. Why is that guy’s teeth all still intact?
The desperation increases as the wheels fall off the bandwagon.
I had not known before that greens from Greenpeace even wear green shirts. Explains why so much of what they do is in bad taste.
I Googled Kert Davies to see where Socrates obtained his impressive image of said individual . Not on any Google images that I could see nor on the Davies Greenpeace blogs – perhaps it was a “selfie” shared between friends .
However what did impress me from looking at the Davies/Greenpeace sites, but not pleasantly , is the sheer volume of propaganda directed at any organisation or individual in anyway sceptical of the official line on AGW .
The idea that the wheels are about to fall off the bandwagon is wishful thinking given the torrent of money directed at the “evil deniers “. I cannot see scepticism winning this war frankly,
Few people on this site doubt the potential of CO2 and CH4 to cause global warming, but argue about the real effects and they seem small compared to so many of life’s other difficulties. The cures for the problem seem worse than the disease judging from the policies from the US Govt , EU and particularly from Milliband and the Greens in the UK.
The Titanic was an expensive ship and look at where its at now. Reality will sink this ship and the rats on board will fade away into obscurity.
The photo was taken at a 2004 meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol.
Scroll down the page linked, to find the pic:
http://www.iisd.ca/ozone/exmp/march25.html
————————–
“…perhaps it was a “selfie” shared between friends .”
________________
One would likely find that several of the anonymous trolls appearing in these pages, are well- placed individuals within the climate fearosphere. Their deeply flawed reason and logic, along with the vitriol which they display, explains much about the workings and machinations of climate activism.
The information war has been won. It just needs to be finished. Real polls show that consistently. Also, many large nations are turning away from the Green Agenda, since it requires their governments to surrender sovereignty and causes needless suffering of their citizens. The problem to solve is how to stop desperate politicians and bureaucrats from blindly putting their religious beliefs into restrictive and devastating laws in this country. Desperate people become dangerous people.
Ernest Bush said:
” Also, many large nations are turning away from the Green Agenda, since it requires their governments to surrender sovereignty and causes needless suffering of their citizens. ”
Only true of those governments interested in maintaining their sovereignty and the wellbeing of their citizens.
whois lookup on the domain name for climateinvestigations.org produces some info presented here…hope it’s helpful:
Registrant ID:CR151142645
Registrant Name:Kert Davies
Registrant Organization:Greenpeace
Registrant Street: 702 H St
Registrant Street: Suite 300
Registrant City:Washington
Registrant State/Province:District of Columbia
Registrant Postal Code:20001
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.2024621177
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email:kertmail@gmail.com
Say isn’t that the same building that GISS occupies?
National Weather Service to evaluate work after missed call
– MYFOXNY.COM/AP – A National Weather Service official says the agency will evaluate its storm modeling after a storm that was predicted to dump a foot or more of snow on many parts of New Jersey and the Philadelphia region delivered far less than that.
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/27950449/missed-call
over and over and over again. It’s missed calls all the way back to the giant turtle the universe is supposed to sit on.
Be fair they probable used an old coin that had worn out more on one side .
Actually, the storm did happen and it was quite impressive. Also, as predicted, cold follows. The track of the storm was 50 miles east of the coast as the storm went north from the Carolinas and, so, mostly missed NYC. Nassau and Suffolk counties got hit as did Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. The following is a bit old now, but have a look:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/26/nyregion/snowfall-totals-around-the-region.html
It’s not over yet. Weather Street is showing probable snow in the whole region for Thursday and Friday. Meanwhile, highs will be near or below freezing and I’m glad I’m not there to deal with the low temps. Just because the jet stream isn’t causing mayhem in Texas doesn’t mean it is ignoring the northern tier and northeast states.
Their October 16, 2014 weather forecast for the US winter said it was going to be warm east of the Rockies with little snow and cold, unlike the previous year. Can’t find link.
Twice in the last month Willis Eschenbach has resorted to namecalling.
At least this time it refers to a major publication.
Last time it was just to attack an obscure blog/blogger.
Is that the accepted standard here at WAWT?
It’s sad, lots of ‘otherwise good articles’ and great nautical stories.
Pissing contests are useless except for the smallest of fires.
Please get some ankle guards and stay focused!
🙂
If the shoe fits. Calm in the face of outrageous behavior is no virtue.
I believe it was a counter attack on a malicious obscure blog/blogger.
At least Willis posts his real name. Where’s yours? Got something to be ashamed of?
tolip ydob (There is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane) January 27, 2015 at 12:45 pm
I’m sorry, Mr. Won’t Sign His Own Opinions, but if a man is acting like a blackguard, I will say so. I did the same thing with the miscreants whose machinations were exposed by Climategate, and they roundly deserved it.
From my perspective, the problem isn’t that I’m too passionate or too upset by such underhanded tactics.
The problem is that you, as well as the mass of otherwise honest climate scientists, are neither passionate enough nor upset enough by these kinds of attacks and malfeasance.
You know about karma? Someone I know once described it as hitting a golf ball in a tiled bathroom … well, consider me like internet karma, in that I give back what I get.
If someone gives me reason and science, I respond in kind.
And if someone makes a scurrilous, one-sided, underhanded attack, yes, I will certainly call that person by such accurate and descriptive names as are appropriate to their actions.
I’m curious, however. Kert Davies is doing his best to blacken the name of a good, decent, honest scientist. He is trying to get him discredited and fired from his position, merely because Kert doesn’t like Dr. Soon’s scientific conclusions.
So my question is, why are you here whining at me, rather that taking whatever noble actions that your noble principles might allow you to take in order to stop Mr. Davies from his underhanded actions. Your complaint would have much more force if you were doing something more than using one hand to recreate the offense of the son of Judah …
w.
Love the golf ball analogy Willis.
I,m stealing that for sure.
I don’t think expressions of rage are an effective tool against the AGW position.
I think they are counterproductive.
I think it is sad that WUWT does not appear to see it my way.
I am only addressing the ‘headlining’ of same here @ WUWT.
There are better ways of making the same point.
For having the temerity to voice my opinion you literally accuse me of sin in biblical terms?
What god or Torah have I committed my offence towards? you? your works?
Is any/all dissention among the ranks evil?
Sounds like an anti-cult cult tactic.
A weak ‘appeal to authority’ if I have ever seen one.
Ad hominems regarding my anonimity fail to address my arguement on merit.
I consider todays battles as no less than round two in the Copernican revolution!
I don’t think the AGW folks are beyond hope.
I also don’t think calling their baby ugly promotes discussion.
My approach involves encouraging them to discover for themselves.
As to your assault on my character,,,
I am guilty as charged, an evil-anon-mistyping-dissenter among the ranks.
Go ahead and engage in and encourage rage against dissent.
Run me off even.
I’ll bet you could get 99% support for that position among your loyal followers!
Also recall your own stated belief in internet karma while you’re at it.
Someone somewhere sometime will use it against you.
tolip ydob (There is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane) January 28, 2015 at 11:03 am
Quite possibly … so why are you here whinging about what I do, instead of being out there doing what you think is productive? I’m doing what I can to fight the good fight, and you’re doing what you can to complain about how I’m doing it … you see the problem?
What I said was:
So nah, I didn’t “literally accuse [you] of sin in biblical terms”… I just accused you of wanking instead of doing something productive. You see, the “son of Judah” was Onan, and according to popular belief, he … aw, never mind.
Your argument seems to be that expressions of rage are not effective. I fear that is an opinion that cannot be addressed “on merit”. Like most actions, sometimes expressions of rage do nothing, and other times they are highly effective. I would note, however, that my “expression of rage”, as you term it, has led to a long and fruitful discussion of the issues involved … so I’d say that yes, it has been effective.
Wonderful! Great! I don’t have a clue what you mean by that! But I like the exclamation mark!
See, this is where your anonymity bites you. You claim to have an “approach”, but there’s no way we can determine either what it is or how effective it is because you are unwilling to sign your own words.
Rage against dissent? I’m raging against the attempt to bring down a good scientist, not by attacking his science, but by attacking his funding. Your claim is a huge misrepresentation of what’s going on here. It’s just a straw man that you can attack, it has nothing to do with me.
And “Run you off”?? Good heavens, you are paranoid as well. There’s nothing I can do to you, this is the internet and you are a random anonymous popup. I have neither the intention nor the desire to run you off, quite the opposite. You are a useful foil because of the foolish positions that you take. You make demonstrating the weakness of your beliefs easy, and that’s always valuable. I’m glad you’re here.
So having erected your homo paleas, you now burn him down, and are impressed by the sparks … I don’t hold that position, Anonymoose. I have no wish to “run you off” even if I could, and I can’t. That’s just your sick imagination at work.
Better women/men than you have tried and failed, for two simple reasons. First, because I sign my own words, I’m careful about what I say. This is because unlike you, I have to defend my own words, both now and into the indefinite future. And so I do my best to only say things that I’m willing to stand up for and defend, either now or on any tomorrow.
Second, when I’m shown to be wrong, I admit it. It’s painful, and I don’t like doing it, but it’s the honorable path and I take it as necessary.
You, on the other hand, are free to build all of the straw men you want, you never have to defend your words, and rather than admit error, you can conveniently disappear and reappear as “pirdeson diputs (there is no such thing as intelligence on my planet)” or some other alias, and completely escape responsibility for your actions.
w.
tolip, you sound like an idiot. And its WUWT, not WAWT.
Ah, Funding!
History of the Climatic Research Unit
Link:-
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history
I wish I could find the history I located and downloaded that described how most science research was funded in the US before 1950. It was done by large private corporations and a few foundations donating to universities. The point was made that large US corporations had a lot at stake in knowing the science that affected their business was right; in addition, they wanted independent proof.
“… the Climate Investigations Center, a collaboration between former Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies and the Guardian ”
made me chuckle
Its getting a touch idiotic. Ideally, science is a method that anyone can repeat and confirm the findings for themselves. Only where you need to have faith in the researcher because its impractical to redo the work is the funding of the work important. Its not a substitute for when you are too lazy to write a rebuttal of the argument.
I was discussing attacks like this with an accountant friend, and pointed out that there were so much overlap between the groups (and that, like Monty Python’s Life of Brian, many of the groups are “splitters” of teeny, tiny numbers).
His reply may have been relevant: “Well, there is a reason why there are so many holding companies and shell corporations. It can take years for trained beancounters to get to the bottom of “who paid for what”.
Can’t Greenpeace use its current stable of political ankle-biters? Can’t the Guardian use its current media reach to preach?
Or is this just another shell in the game?
I looked on the IRS site to see if Climate Investigations Center was registered as a 501c3 organization or had ever filed a form 990-N and it appears the answer is no to both. I don’t see anywhere on their site that they solicit donations.
If they do have a 501c3 application in the works, it would be interesting to see how long it takes to process, considering some Tea Party organization are still waiting after 2 years or more.
CIC are not in Guidestar either as a charity. It may only exist as a web page. Since Davies works for Greenpeace, he may be funding the web page by himself or a few others.
I think you will find that if you point out a conflict of interest because a scientist is employed by Greenpeace, many people sympathetic to their cause will laugh out loud. “Utterly absurd!” they will yell out loud. They simply do not understand that there could be a conflict of interest. This is because Greenpeace is “morally good” and all the private enterprises whose taxes ultimately actually pay for useful things such as roads, healthcare, pensions, are “morally bad”. It’s really as simplistic as that.
Sad but very, astute.
Progressives are never stopped by their own hypocrisy. Quite the opposite. They live and wallow in it. Dr. Jonathan Gruber was just the latest, vivid example. Gruber has become infamous because, as an academic progressive (the adjective-noun order is deliberate), he committed a breach of Progressive protocol by openly acknowledging the deceptive methods employed by Progressives in furthering their agendas.
That Kert Davies engages in biased claims in order to mislead the public is not really news. And the Boston Globe is All In on the Progressive lie.
But men and women of good conscience can longer sit idly by as the Left destroys our society, one deception at a time.
They picked a bad day to be in the destroying society with GASPROM money business. I am feeling very inspired by the Son’s of Liberty series and Samuel Adams in particular. I won’t be alone in that. It’s got to be a nation wide type of inspration.
If Dr. Soon and his science is not to be considered because of a percieved conflict of interest, should I not consider Mr. Davies and his conclusions due to his conflict of interest re: Greenpeace?
Oh yeah, I already don’t….
Are Pippen Kool and Rooter related?
I’ve never seen them together. Just saying…
Kert Davies on Facebook
“Director at Climate Investigations Center
Former Greenpeace
Lives in Washington District of Columbia”
Probably to ride the Green Gravy Train:
BOOMTOWN: DC REGION HAS NATION’S HIGHEST MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
They have to go pretty deep into VA and MD to get that. Fairfax County VA has been one of the wealthiest for a long time.
And the others? L
Please comment on Kert Davies Climate Investigations Center Facebook post on Willie Soon
https://www.facebook.com/climateinvestigations/posts/799597690076867
Strange that they picked the acronym “CIC”. This is the one currently occupied by “Climate Industrial Complex”, describing the group of investors, manufacturers, marketers, politicians, and activists supporting the introduction of regulations supporting… the Climate Industrial Complex. Some scientists do belong with the CIC as well, but they’re in the marketing department. There is no science department.
Uh, one should note that “CIC” would be pronounced “sick”.
A descriptive “selfie”?
CIC = Combat Information Center
Any sailor on a U.S. Navy surface combatant knows that.
Commander In Chief…
No, thats “CInC”
Is it pronounced “sick?”
So Kert Davies is concerned about conflicts of interest?
I can’t wait to read what he says about Al Gore!
Is CIC receiving funds from Russian Oil?
Foreign Firm Funding U.S. Green Groups Tied to State-Owned Russian Oil Company
PS Willis comment has already disappeared from CIC’s web site.
How long will my comment stay on their facebook page?
http://en.wikipedia.org/…/Harvard%E2%80%93Smithsonian…
Harvard-Smithsonian is funded by
In FY2010, expenditures by funding source were as follows:
NASA: 70%
Smithsonian federal funds: 22%
National Science Foundation: 4%
United States Department of Energy: 1%
Annenberg Foundation: 1%
Gifts and endowments: 1%
Other: 1%
CIC, could it actually stand for Climate Insane Clowns?
Willis,
I took the liberty of plagiarizing you question (without attrib.) and putting it to them again, myself.
I hope everyone here will do the same . . . .
I would be interested to know what specific research of Soon’s was funded by the American Petroleum Institute, Texaco Foundation, ExxonMobil Foundation, and the Koch brothers. When scientists receive grants from federal agencies, there are strict reporting requirements and any publications resulting from that would should expressly acknowledge the funding. Have any of Soon’s previous papers acknowledged these funding sources? If not, then it would seem unclear as to what was done “on his own time,” wouldn’t it?
Why aren’t you more interested in whether any of Dr Soon’s funding is demonstratively a corrupting influence? Why aren’t you curious that, over the last 20+ years of this repeated ‘funding = corruption’, NOT ONE prominent promoter of that talking point has ever offered any of us physical evidence (full context document scans, undercover video/audio transcripts, leaked emails, money-transfer receipts, etc.) proving skeptic scientists were paid to fabricate demonstratively false science papers, reports, assessments or viewpoints?
How much more obvious does it have to be, that without evidence that the money corrupted the scientists’ viewpoints, the insinuation about the funding is 100% worthless?
I didn’t use, or imply, the word “corruption,” but I would just like to see more full disclosure. Why is there so much secret funding of these researchers and institutes?
Barry – because of the slander and libel by such as Kert Davies.
@ BarryJan 28, 2015 6:17 am: Who says the funding of the researchers is secret? Michaels & Singer disclosed their funding long ago. Heartland used to disclose their donors until the harassment of them over corruption insinuations suggested it was the catalyst for the unjustified harassment. Question is, why did you sidestep my two questions instead of answering them?
CRU was funded by BP and Shell. So we should toss out their “research” as well. Got it.
I’d be interested in knowing where your money, and Kert Davies money comes from Barry. Russian Oil? They are wasting their money IMO
I noticed whenever I mention a certain pair of brothers, my comment undergoes moderation. Interesting. In this case I was just quoting the cited article.
(Sigh)
There are a number of words that can trigger a closer look by the mods. Our host’s name is one of them.
I imagine the brothers you mention are on the list because of some of the nonsense said about them. If what you said wasn’t nonsense, it will likely show up. But sometimes whatever mechanism triggers a closer look just goes directly to, I think they call it, the spam filter. You called it to their attention. Give them a chance to check it out. The mods aren’t on the payroll of the brothers you mentioned. Give them a break.
I hate to get personal, but once I noticed this I cannot seem to shake it out of my head. Why do the more vocal Catastrophists all have funny shaped heads ? or grossly ugly mugs ?
I know it’s not scientific, and it’s probably not fair, but check it out. A definite correlation
Have you never seen a pic of Willis?
(ducks under desk)
OK, He’s no Brad Pitt, but at least you don’t think of him when you are opening a can of kidney beans
In case anyone wants to take me to task for my smartaleck remark, let me say that I had some fun poking my friend Willis in the ribs. Now, we’ve never met, and he might not share my sentiment, nor even want to, but knowing a man by his words and his works, Willis Eschenbach is my friend.
The scientific method deems that you shake it out of your head, and get back to causation.
One of the ‘fun parts’ of the whole funded by evil fossil fuels BS has been that when you look at it the IPCC , CRU and a whole host of green meanies you see how many of them got funded from BP , Shells etc .
But it would seem that has in Christianity, where via transformation water can be turned into wine, within AGW faith ‘dirty’ money can be made clear when it used in the name of ‘the cause’
For some without a “moral compass”, for lack of a better term, the end justifies the means.
Often CAGW is called a religion. I understand what is meant by that. “Belief without scientific proof.” OK. But a difference not to be forgotten is that a belief in God (for me, the God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead) recognizes a “higher power”. For the CAGW crowd, they want to be the “higher power”. What they would do with that power bodes ill for all of us.
(I’d say more but I recognize and respect that I’m in someone else’s “living room” and the views of the author of this post.)
They studied the ways of religion, feudalism and capitalism and now want to get a piece of the action, like a teenager fighting for their rights but ignoring their responsibilities.
Despite all their flaws, they lasted because they provided the community with something. You can’t progress without appreciating that.
If you need the threat of eternal damnation in order to have a “moral compass”, then perhaps you should re-think your beliefs. Doing the right thing for the sake of it should be enough.
Huh? Threat? The only “eternal” I have ahead of me is a promise. I endeavor to do what I do because I’m grateful.
But let’s not derail things. My main point was, “For some without a “moral compass”, for lack of a better term, the end justifies the means.”
If people were never told that stealing was wrong, they’d figure it out the first time somebody stole from them. Would they then steal in return?
“The end justifies the means” crowd would be among the first to steal.
Why would he wear that tie with that shirt and sports coat? Ugh.
Hmmm,, Green shirts. It has been sometime since I have read “Gulag Archipelago” But wasn’t that part of the attire of the commissars? Also NKVD? just an observation no comparison intended. (well just a little)
michael
Perhaps green shirts are the new brown?
@ mandobob, that tie is awful (as is the shirt and coat) but if you look close the little laves on it theyresemble a familiar plant grown in South America and according to those that chew them aids them during working hrs at high elevations ( Maybe Kert thinks he is at “high elevations” working in DC).
C’mon guys, be nice. His mother may have dressed him and it is impolite to make disparaging comments about someone’s mother.
I find it so ridiculous that who paid for a study is even important. Of course, greenpeace is going to spend money to support their cause. Of course Heartland Institute, is going to spend money to support their cause. What is the problem here? The ONLY thing that matters is the arguments/studies/information/science that is being presented. Is it factual? Is it a sound argument? What are the counterpoints? I am a liberal who started down the path of believing in AGW until I started hearing statements that made NO sense to me- (Mostly- global warming is causing the global cooling) So I set out to read the arguments/science on BOTH sides to see which argument/science made most sense. Unfortunately for the liberals,I found that the argument/science being presented by conservatives made much more sense. The fact that I have YET to hear a scientific argument that counters anything Dr. Moon/NIPCC/James Steel/Bob Tisdale/Willis Essenbach/Christopher Monckton/Bob Carter has said, makes me believe them all the more. I have yet to see an IPCC report that debunks the NIPCC report – when I ask questions (that I REALLY want answers to) that pertain to an article such as the Globe posted- all I get in response is name calling and discrediting me for (incorrect) assumptions about my political beliefs…. When a greenpeace article stands up and presents logical scientific evidence that counters the skeptical argument, ( instead of being concerned about where the money came from,) then and only then will I listen. Who spent money on what is of no interest to me in researching the science.
I’ve read both the IPCC reports, and the NIPCC reports- I continuously read skepticalscience.com as well as wattsupwiththat.com . Whenever someone from MSM directs me to skepticalscience.com for explanations I laugh out loud! Despite “sounding” scientific, I find most of their articles missing the complete point of the argument they are supposed to be countering. Often their logic is circular (certainly their references are) … So often they quote a paper that quotes the IPCC to prove that the IPCC is correct…. Drives me crazy. On the other hand the blogs/article and information at wattsupwiththat.com is so much more persuasive. I’ve learned so much over the last year, thank you Anthony! 🙂
The only people that really make a stink about perceived (not obvious) conicts are alarmists. It is projection: the are often horribly conflicted themselves and assume everyone else must be as well.
In reality, the only conflicts that truly matter are those in which your actual livelihood ultimately depend upon. Serving on a committee that approves regulations that impact a product a company you own sells, for example, is a really obvious conflict. Being associated with an organization that disagrees with the so-called “mainstream view” of climate science is not. In fact, it is sort of expected (another duh).
Mark
So true. I am often accused of being right-wing because I haven’t seen any evidence for catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. It is illogical. I happen to be far to the political left of most here.
But logic is the biggest weakness of the alarmist crowd. Circular arguments are the norm. Followed by name-calling and smears.
Then censorship.
Strangely, the weakness of the case is known by those doing it. If you quote the IPCC as evidence against Dana at the Guardian – your comment will be deleted.
They know the truth and aren’t interested. In the long-term that isn’t viable. But too many people have got too much invested in the fear.
Was he dipping his finger in a bowl of water but dipped it in a bowl of glue by mistake, because the picture seems to show his finger stuck to his upper lip?
He was taking his finger out of his nose.
I find it amusing that nobody here actually looks at the elephant in the room: why the fossil fuel industry funds so many anti-climate science people.
The reason Big Oil, Coal and Gas funds campaigns against climate science is blindingly obvious: they profit from the very substance that causes it. Nobody here can deny that, surely? Whereas non-profits are – erm – non-profits, ie they don’t profit from a substance that causes global warming. Less of a vested interest, perhaps?
That Willie Soon has received no funding other than from the fossil fuel industry in the last ten years, and that he’s challenging the science of climate change must be a coincidence, I guess. It doesn’t appear the Smithsonian is paying him anything at all, except for what he gets in grants from the Big Guys.
I also find it amusing that given Davies is such a midget, WUWT has dedicated a whole post to him.
Non-Profits,eh? They PROFIT with MONEY (many billions of tax-free money), with power, with publicity, with access to the politicians, with exposure, with a moral sense of duty and honor from their peers, with a religious fulfillment and a sense of duty and sacrifice not seen since the Crusades you so viciously criticize. They profit – and, by the way, they “profit” much more – about 65% more! – BECAUSE they can claim a “non-profit” reward from a corrupt and Big Government friendly IRS.
Big Business needs to send a little more than 50% of their net income to Big Government as total taxes … Non-Profits? None. With NO accountability either.
Who does Big Oil fund? Please, be specific.
How much do they fund these people with each year?
How much tax-payer money is spent by Big Oil funding these people?
If Big Government is stealing the lives and business FROM “Big Oil” does “Big Oil” not have a right – A Duty even! – to fight back with their own money?
Big Government is deliberately out to destroy the energy businesses. Our President, our Secretary of State, our Department of Defense head have all said that Climate Change – used as propaganda and without cause by Big Government to justify destroying their industries – is the number one challenge, the most Dangerous Threat facing our country today. Is that not an explicit statement of war on the energy industries?
Now, if Big Government were destroying the entertainment industry or Big Universities or Big News inside ABCNNBCBS – instead of embracing its donations and its publicity and using its propaganda – would you be demonstrating full-voice against it? Instead, you accept the lies from Big Government because they fit your propaganda and your religious views of life. Not Liberty. Not Freedom. Not Individual Rights.
See “Big Government spent 92 billion funding government-paid “scientists” running government-built lab in government-funded institutions and universities to program government computer running government climate change programs to create a cliimate change industry of Big Business donars and Big Business cronies to spend taxpayer money on limate change. Which will not change the climate one bit. Further, Big Government spent these 92 billon dollars on the people claiming that climate change needs more money and more control!
So, YOU claim $25,000.00 buys enough “skeptics” that they can promote enough “skepticism” so well that the world’s temperature has not changed in past 18 years.
How many government paid “scientists” will gladly dance on the head of a pin to promote 1,300,000,000,000.00 per year in new government tax receipts?
How many “scientists” have been bought with your 92 billion dollars in climate change money?
RACookPE1978,
I’ve not invested time in to the argument that FF industry funds this or that. I have to assume that these are quite intelligent and forward looking folks running these huge public companies with stockholders to whom they report. And folks that do this funding would in fact NOT being doing their jobs should they not plan for any and all eventualities. These include the need for profitable alternative energy sources and the “potential” of climate change related business planning. As we know, the climate changes. http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/current-issues/climate-policy/climate-policy-principles/overview
So when I see anyone “accuse” FF of funding either/both sides of the coin methinks: That’s good business. The “accusation” is only intended to raise blood pressure.
I wish “Big Oil” would throw some money at the postal service. Then maybe my check wouldn’t keep getting lost in the mail! 😎
Patsi,
First, take the log out of your own eye, before declaring a speck in our eyes.
Tell us about funding for the various Green groups. How about $25 million paid to Greenpeace by a nat’l gas player in order to demonize coal? What about certain Russian funding paid to various US and int’l green groups in order to demonize shale gas recovery methods? What about IPCC funding by a consortium of financial institutions (read: private banks)?
You are either ignorant of green funding, or you are making hypocritical statements.
I’d love to see evidence of the Russian funding paid to various US and international green groups to demonize shale. LOVE to. Apart from a former NATO guy’s accusations, show me the paper trail on that one.
But in reply to RACook, and to repeat my earlier sentiment: when someone with real skin in the game (ie where oil, coal, gas company products cause global warming) starts funding science saying it’s not real, they have a MOTIVE. Just as nobody here (well, maybe not nobody, given where I am) would trust a tobacco-industry-funded piece of science challenging smoking/health connections, we should all be a little bit circumspect when looking at science funded by those who are causing the problem.
Apart from some spurious notion that scientists are “in it for the money” (all those mansions?), I can’t see any more obvious examples of skin in the science game as this funding by big oil, coal and gas. Sure, Willie Soon isn’t rich, and hasn’t gotten huge sums, but it’s the ONLY MONEY HE GETS.
Patsi.
EVERY PENNY of the climate change scientists government-paid budget is 100% paid-for BY the Big Government that IS rewarding them (Hansen, Mann, Schmidt, Holdren, etc.)and everybody else in that 97% of government-paid scientists” who support more government-funding of climate “science”
A fossil fuel company at least provides something for the money they earn, the money they spend, and the money they pay. All of their profits they chose voluntary to pay off climate groups or to do real research is voluntarily spent.
EVERY penny that Big Government “scientists” earn, EVERY penny that Big Government “scientists” spend on t heir admin, their travel, their computers, their labs, their vacations, their holidays, their travel assistants and their books and their publications and their billion-dollar exotic climate control junkets is TAKEN from the taxpayers and GIVEN to the Big Government “scientists” BY Big Government bureaucrats who are PAID salaries and power and influence BECAUSE they are supporting Big Government climate interests.
Corrupted by money? Big Government. Corrupting with money? Big Government.
trying to earn money because people want to spend their money to live better? Fossil Fuel.
Who is corrupt? A man who earned $25,000.00 once? Of an agency who depends on 92 billion GIVEN it by people who need to use that 1.3 trillion they don’t have yet because of private independent “skeptics” are right.
Patsi, Governments have motive; they want to get re-elected. The path to re-election is to keep the voters scared.
You want proof that the Russians are funding green groups to demonize shale, but do not ask for proof of scientists being paid to demonize ‘global warming’.
They used to call it hypocrisy.
The elephant is that Willie Soon became a sceptic before he received any funding from Big Oil or Coal. He became sceptical when the only outcome was grief from the establishment. According to David Suzuki
“According to Greenpeace, every grant Dr. Soon has received since 2002 has been from oil or coal interests”.
He was Scientific Advisor for Greening Earth Society (1997-2001) http://greeningearthsociety.org/Global-Warming
He appears to be lukewarm rather a ‘denier of the science’. His first sceptical paper from 1996 has
” A review of the literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th century have produced no deleterious effects upon global climate or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates as inferred from numerous laboratory and field experiments. There is no clear evidence, nor unique attribution, of the global effects of anthropogenic CO2 on climate. Meaningful integrated assessments of the environmental impacts of anthropogenic CO2 are not yet possible because model estimates of global and regional climate changes on interannual, decadal and centennial time scales remain highly uncertain.” http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v13/n2/p149-164/
So his opinion wasn’t tainted by money from oil or coal. Now stick to the arguments.
Patsi,
Like Will Rogers, I only know what I read in the papers (internet sources.) Here’s one interesting article about Russian funding, tear it apart as you may:http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/
I notice that you didn’t have anything to say about references to Greenpeace or IPCC funding…
In re your other remarks: it is a first order mistake to assume/claim that massive “green research” funding from government or any private source has an altruistic agenda. Nice try on your “mansions” strawman, but a lot of those whom you call (climate) scientists, would have zero funding (just like you claim for Willie Soon,) were it not for funding to support the green agenda.
[Rather “(unlike what you claim for Willie Soon)”? .mod]
Only if you do not understand basic economic theory. And you also fail to notice that Bug Oil spends more on alarmist science than anything (because they stand to profit more from it).
Thus is definitely one of the stupidest, and easiest to disprove, arguments you folks make. Freaking learn to use google.
Mark
Patsi says:
I’d love to see evidence…
Ooh. Can I play that game, too?
Patsi says …the fossil fuel industry funds so many anti-climate science people.
What’s your evidence? Names, please. Funding amounts. And in what year(s)?
What specific man-made global warming research was funded by the American Petroleum Institute? Or by Texaco Foundation? Or by the Exxon-Mobil Foundation? Or by the Koch Bros? Anything you can cite, I can cite much bigger amounts, paid to Michael Mann alone. And not by government agencies, unless you think the WWF is a government agency. Go ahead, call my bluff — if you can.
What other skeptics were funded — by name, amount and year? I’d love to see your evidence… “Patsi”.
Watch the pea under the shell, folks. Because whatever “Patsi” wants to discuss has nothing to do with science. It’as just more ad hominem misdirection. The alarmist cult doesn’t have anything else, do they?
Nope. The planet is doing the same as always. Nothing unusual or unprecedented is happening. “Patsi” is emitting propaganda and nonsense.
So please, “Patsi”, stick to verifiable facts for once, and quit deflecting.
K?Thxbye.
Hey Patsi exciting news for you. I found out who is getting money from big oil! And we’ve got evidence! Shell and BP have been funding these guys. They must be frauds pushing for big oil to make a profit. Some crowd called ‘CRU’. Go after them!
patsi,
You and your pals are missing the mama elephant because you’re so taken with the baby elephant.
Yes, Big,Bad O,C,G are giving money away and it is distressing.
They received that money from me and a bunch of others because we wanted them to dig up O,C & G and deliver it to us. Every dollar they waste on appeasement of their detractors gets added to our bill and we wind up having to burn more OCG to subsidize their green-washing.
I am surprised to discover that you and your pals are not members of our august company and am curious to hear how you contrive to get around the country and heat your homes without benefit of O,C & G.
It’s puzzling that you have, in your perceptions, reversed the rôles of the players in this drama.
We are paying them; they’re working for us. Even Volvo drivers are in on it.
Patsi January 27, 2015 at 3:25 pm
I find it amusing that you don’t realize that Big Oil gives much more money to pro-AGW organizations than to anti-AGW organizations.
I also find it amusing that in your world scientists are so venal that they would slant their results based on the source of their funding.
The climate science department at Stanford University, former home of the former Steven Schneider, is one of the most powerful and vocal pro-AGW organizations I can think of. Here’s how it is funded:
One hundred megabucks is much, much more than Exxon has given to all skeptical organizations combined.
Do you find that amusing? Is that the “elephant in the room”? Is it a reason to consider the work of all Stanford climate scientists tainted beyond redemption?
In fact, my amused anonymouse, whoever funds someone is immaterial. The only question worth asking is, are their claims true? It doesn’t matter if they are funded by God or by Beelzebub, the real issue is, are their claims true or not?
And that is the true elephant in the room—the blatant attempt by folks such as yourself to distract people from the science by an attack on the funding sources.
w.
Leave him alone Willis,he’s too easy
Thanks, JB, but I write for the lurkers …
w.
Willis, The Boston Globe is a useless liberal rag who cater to the cronies. You should have seen them try to cover up First Wind’s association to organized crime.
They are silent about the failure of Cape Wind, and I will let you know that various renewable/environmental concerns are ‘under a very large microscope’ for various financial and other serious problems… There will be nothing the Boston Globe can do about that. Will let all know in Tip’s and Notes when TSHTF.
Eh.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/climateinvestigations.org
Global rank: 5,072,759 (The rank declined 2,023,549 positions versus the previous 3 months)
If Kert Davies was honest, he would say that he thinks that double standards are ok, because the economic model we use is tipped towards a free market, therefore it is ok to criticise funding from the free market if it supports the continuation of the free market.
In his view, government needs all the help it can get, including double standards. This is part of the concept of ‘equality’, or ‘redistribution of wealth’ from the free market. Double standards are required in order to address the imbalance.
I don’t agree with this warped logic, I just think that is what he thinks.
thingadonta says:
If Kert Davies was honest…
As the Spartans said to Philip:
“If.”
dbstealey congratulations I can’t off the top of my head place the dialogue. I think you are referring to Philip of Macedonia father of Alexander the Great, but the time and occasion escape me. Now I have some reading to do.
I am the smartest man in the world..
until I find someone who knows more then me..
Then I learn what that person knows…
Now I am the smartest man in the world again! (excluding spelling!)
michael
Hi Mike,
Maybe not the perfect analogy, but glad to see someone got it.
For those who [like me] would normally be too lazy to look it up, when Philip of Macedon told Sparta that if he won the war against them he intended to lay waste to their land, rape and pillage, etc., the Spartan embassy answered him with a famous one word reply: “If.”
Same-same here: if Kert Davies was honest. But I don’t think he is.
When activists use the smear by association trick, the best remedy is to remind them that they are accusing someone of scientific fraud.
I shut down a Greenpeace activist during a radio debate using this method.
Funny, I saw “mental midges”, as some are of the biting, bloodsucking variety.
It’s funny how another social disease which has infected public discourse dovetails nicely with climate science.
It’s called political correctness.
Political correctness attempts to shut up, denigrate or intimidate opposing views and climate science does the same.
Progressive ideology has become maliciously regressive. No ideology that suppresses open speech and a free exchange of ideas should ever be called progressive.
Yeah, I’ve posted this before but nothing teaches you more that they are totalitarian regressive wannabes than the fact that they call themselves liberal progressives. Some people were just born to lie their way through life.
But, but, but …
Willie Soon is a Koch brothers, big oil, industrialist funded tool. Greenpeace, IPCC, environmental NGOs, Kert Davies and the Climate Investigations Center are working for the Nobel Cause (and therefore get a pass).
I’d bet Kert Davies is funded by his mommy.
Hilarious, I read metal midgets. Immediately it brought to mind a a swarm of small metal bots sent out to bite the ankles of Willie Soon. I guess the difference in this case is the materials they are made of, not the software they are running on.
Borg nanoprobes
Is it Kert or Kurt?
http://heartland.org/media-library/MP3s/070512LIGLOBALWARMING.mp3
Donna Laframboise might be worth a ring-up.
http://heartland.org/media-library/MP3s/070512LIGLOBALWARMING.mp3
http://heartland.org/media-library/MP3s/070512LIGLOBALWARMING.mp3
The reason I ask
http://blog.heartland.org/2012/07/global-warming-debate-on-laura-ingraham-show-heartlands-james-m-taylor-vs-kurt-davies-of-greenpeace/
Follow that link
Heartland Institute Senior Fellow for Environment Policy, James M. Taylor, was invited on the Laura Ingraham radio show the other day to debate Kert Davies of Greenpeace.
OK, I’m back from the WUWT test page.
KDaviesMP3
[Thank you for using it profitably. .mod]
dead air, for me
Now it works… oh well.
Why do they [alarmists] always play the man, not the message?
To all involved – on the side of the warmists – you really must try to do better than this, otherwise we’re all going to have our thoughts confirmed………………oh WAIT!
Here’s a scientific rebuttal of the paper http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/01/factcheck-scientists-hit-back-at-claims-global-warming-projections-are-greatly-exaggerated/
?
Really? Your version of a scientific rebuttal is a blog site linking to a magazine article?
You are aptly named Patsi.
Do you actually know what the word “scientific” means?
Mark
From your link, PAtsi:
“Allan tells us it is not appropriate to compare long-term projections of future changes in surface temperature made in 1990 with recent observed temperature change, calling it a comparison between “apples and oranges”.”
No, it’s called the Scientific Method. If the predictions are wrong then so is the science. It’s really that simple.
If they want to change their predictions out to 2050 to 2100, which is new trend, that’s fine. In 2051 and 2101 we can discuss whether their theory was correct, until then it remains falsified. It’s really that simple
wrong paper Patsi
Back in 1988 James Hansen told Congress that natural variation couldn’t explain the spike in temperatures.
Now we have Lovejoy saying,despite increased CO2 since then, “the pause is no more than natural variability”.
http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Anthropause.GRL.final.13.6.14bbis.pdf
Can you find any Big Oil ties?
Patsi
Your post at January 27, 2015 at 6:21 pm says in total
OK. I have read every word in your link but I have failed to find any “scientific rebuttal” in it. Conclusions based on stated evidence are scientific information, and mere opinions are not evidence.
Please cite (preferably quote) the “scientific rebuttal” in your link for the benefit of those of us who have failed to find it.
Also, your complaint is that Soon has – you assert – obtained funding you disapprove, so please state who you are and who has funded you otherwise it has to be assumed that you are afraid to reveal your funding which discredits you.
Richard
This is my new response to all of the liberal warmanistas I encounter who claim the science is both solid, and settled.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3041493/body-week/why-a-fake-article-cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs-was-accepted-by-17-medical-journals
You’re a good man, Willis.
Thanks, Willis. I had a laugh!
Dr. Soon stands tall on his record.
Two years back, Greenpeace invited me to present a talk on agriculture vesus climate change in Mumbai. They paid for my trip. They also invited a contributor to IPCC’s AR5 -II report relating to India from Pune. Also Greenpeace regularly send me mails for support. What does this means??? Am I working for them!!!
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I worked in Brazil on a project funded by World Bank to EMBRAPA and executed by IICA a USA consultancy. I wrote several notes against World Bank. Two years back I countered their report relating to climate change – agriculture, appeared in the daily newspaper Deccan Chronicle along with world bank report [published on the same page].
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
[Will you please provide a link to that paper? It may become valuable as a thread here on WUWT. .mod]
Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad, 20th June 2013 — title of the report is “World Bank releases report, paints grim picture of future: Global Warming to dry up rivers, inundate cities”. This was taken from the World Bank report release titled “Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts and cause for resilience” warns that by the 2040s, India will see a significant reduction in crop yields because of extreme heat. —. Below this report my version is presented with the title “Too much heat over global warming”. — I don’t know how to copy this report and paste it here.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
maybe this is what you are talking about:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climatechange/publication/turn-down-the-heat-climate-extremes-regional-impacts-resilience
The family – with 2 brothers – mentioned above appears every time someone new arrives to jump on the catastrophic warming bandwagon. Several years ago when I first heard this (and yes that too had to do with the MWP paper of W. S. & S. B.) I found the paper and read it. It is worth reading. Then I investigated the charitable contributions of the brothers and the families. They have given millions of dollars for medical research, hospitals, art, and on and on. Very impressive. These folks have used their abilities to build companies and employ thousands. There is so much that they have done that it is not easily summarized. Go and find some of it – and be glad they exist.
Saw a Youtube video of a lecture he gave. His spelling skills appear to be primary-school level (can’t spell basic words) and the influences he cited on his own life seem to indicate poor decision making or perhaps a tendency to be easily led by others.
Who?
michael
After he quits trying to look thoughtful and finishes removing his finger from his nose, he will pose with “the tilted head of concern.”
[Snip. Sorry, but apparently posted on the wrong thread. ~mod.]
How about Monbiot who works for the Guardian, his employers write editorials which pressurise politicians to act to avert climate change and then there are journalists who work for New Scientist, everyone of them should be fingered as biased.
If I were to name the most important figure in the history of the corruption of climate science who was openly in the employ of an environmental lobby, it would be Michael Openheimer working for the Environment Defence Fund while on the organising conmittee of the Villach-Belligio climate policy conferences in 1987. His influential activism as a scientific expert continued through the first two assessments of the IPCC. There was no hiding his affiliation and no question of double standards in the vilification of Big Oil. That was the whole thing: there were no constraint on that side and no one would ever have compared the interest of EDF with, say, the interests of a drug company in drug trials, and certainly not withe the fossil fuel lobby on the other side. There was no comparison. It just would never occur to them. Never. I know because they have told me.
Thanks, berniel; I consider you authoritative on the history of the genesis of this ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Herd’. Insofar as this madness was instigated, you seem to know who breathed and bellowed together.
=========
Look, there Kert Davies has stated his false premise that invalidates his criticism of Soon.
Kert Davies’ self-stated false premise is that he claims his assessment of the climate situation must be ‘a priori’ true.
Soon, on the other hand, is critically assessing the actual climate situation and he is showing that false premised positions like Davies’ are not supported by open science..
Davies’ criticism of past funding is absolutely irrelevant to the validity of climate assessments.
John
The thrust behind this thread has appeared here and elsewhere many times, and it is based on the false assumption that money is the driving factor in much of this. Yes, of course money can corrupt but it is rarely the main driver. Ideas are the driver: Tie your flag to the flagpole of an idea, and you’ll find yourself defending that flagpole even at some personal and financial cost. Thousands of intelligent boys and girls are currently leaving comfortable European homes to fight for ISIL in the mideast. They have been seduced by an idea, not by money. It’s the way human beings are made, and in that sense the work of Lewandowsky et al, appalling standard though it is, is not exactly barking up the wrong tree. We are all driven by forces we little understand, and that goes for warmists and sceptics alike. Our duty is to recognise that this is happening, and to leave our minds open to logical persuasion and ultimately, to strive for truth, despite the deep instincts we may feel to hold on to the ‘idea’.
As to the more specific issue of ‘Big Oil’ funding, I actually doubt that much of this is going on, as they recognise the bad public relations and the poor chance of influencing the outcome, and they may as well save their bucks. But many corporations – Big Oil included – are providing very large funds to lobby FOR alternative energy, and what is more, having those funds multiplied handsomely by governments. Fossil fuels are hard to get, rewards uncertain, and are taxed to a vast extent, but windmills and solar are FREE MONEY to these guys. They don’t have to work, and governments will pay them under guarantee whatever the markets do. If there is a damaging financial corruption then that’s where you should look for it. Only in the cold light of history will all this become apparent.
mothcatcher,
Very well thought out comments. Thanks. Whitman’s and Ferd’s, too. This is a good thread.
While I agree with you that ideas not money are the driving force for both sides.
In this case the lie that money is the driving force for Dr Soon is being pushed just to make him look insincere and thus worthy of being ignored.
It’s a dirty trick from a Greenpeace officer.
You do well in pointing out this thread has evolved in a rather thoughtful way. At the root, I think Willis has often teed up thoughtful discussions at this wonderful venue of Anthony’s.
John
I wonder if they would be so kind as to investigate me, then I might be able to make some sort of claim against big oil for any outstanding payments as so far I have received none.
when the facts are on your side, argue the facts. when the facts are not on your side, argue the man.
thus, by arguing the man, greenpee shows the facts are not on their side, and they know it.
I just want to know what IPCC = ________ ” _________” on Einstein’s chalkboard in the image behind Dr. Soon. My view of it doesn’t have definition enough to read it. My imagination is running wild.
Gigantic Caca. (that’s Austrian Yiddish urban slang for “big pile of smelly poop.”)
In normal science the funding is less of an issue because the results drive the conclusions that are published and the results and methods are published can be replicated and if necessary refuted. If the methods when repeated somewhere else don’t produce the same results then you have a cold fusion or stem cell fiasco. In other words the results are objective and not dependent on beliefs. You do the work to refute it. It’s only after research is refuted that a discussion of motivation is to be had.
In post-normal science we have arrived at a situation where the conclusions are less objective. It’s easy to detect with a simple semantic test, look for subjective wording like ‘could’, ‘might’ etc in the abstract. Naturally funding will colour the subjective results. And it should be a red flag to reviewers and editors. The fact that it isn’t shows that they are in a post-normal mindset where ‘inconclusive’ can become ‘medium confidence’ by agreement.
So the question’s that need to be answered are: Is Soon’s work verifiable? Do the conclusions contradict the results? Can the inputs or references be questioned? Can the results be because there is a problem with methodology and data? Are the conclusions open to any other interpretation?
I have to admit I’m nowhere near qualified to say.
If the answer to those questions is no then it doesn’t matter who funded it. It is the current objective understanding of the science. All that is left, if it doesn’t fit your narrative, is to attack the motivation.
This works both ways of course. Just because green money is involved it doesn’t invalidate research if proper method has been followed.
I agree with much of what you say about funding. Thank you for articulating it so well.
John
Kert Davies most recent Greenpeace report states, as its first sentence, “The Koch Brothers: Funding $67,042,064 to groups denying climate change since 1997.”
This sort of statement about “groups denying climate change” is common from alarmists. It deceptively is intended to give readers the false impression that the recipient groups are devoted entirely to denying climate change. Here’s what a WUWTer had to say about a similar, earlier claim by Greenpeace:
The following link claims to link ‘big oil’ to green groups.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/
Will be interesting to observe the AGW reaction if it is proven to be true.
There is another aspect to corporate funding which is consistently not reported, or mentioned only minimally. Many US corporations match some portion of employee gifts. My employer for example matches charitable gifts dollar for dollar (or “one for one”) up to $2,500 per year. I take advantage of this. Coca Cola matches employee gifts two for one up to $10,000 per year, and every Coke employee I know uses this provision to the extent they can afford. Corporations report these gift matches on their US federal tax returns, which reduces corporate net taxable income, but they don’t control the gift recipients; the employees do.
So it is not at all uncommon to see the same corporation “giving” money to groups on both sides of every political divide you can think of.
Is there no limit to the sleazy underworld political interference perpetrated by the Guardian? This “newspaper” is not solvent financially but is subsidised with millions of pounds annually by a UK government which bizarrely feels the need for a publically funded extreme socialist North Korea style media mouthpiece. The Grauniad is a criminal organisation which should be broken up by the UK serious fraud office.
@ willis E.
The Copernican Revolution as it relates to AGW was a victory of science over religion.
The revolution is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, but he was not the first to put forth the theory.
He championed the heliocentric model of the Heavens.
He challenged the geocentric model championed by the church-state attributed to Ptolemy.
He did so very carefully in a toxic environment, without rage.
He advocated further research to prove or disprove same on merit.
Your biblical slight in my direction invited that response.
I prefer to take the secular approach and champion science and repeatable experiments.
Namecalling and pejorative statements are by definition displays of contempt.
I posit that frequently they are ‘contempt prior to investigation’.
If we consider that you do not know me, and pass judgement for stating what you happily declare, I don’t get it, what is your objection? You do advocate personal attacks as valid.
The fact that you tell me that I am not doing enough or that you fight the ‘good’ fight and I do not is my example. I consider it nothing more than a rallying cry for you to round up support and discourage dissent among the ranks directed at you.
Your behavior towards me here is your sample of what they can expect. Well played.
I find your denial regarding you accusing me of sin to be outside your self stated MO.
Another flaw with namecalling IMneverHO is the frequent implication that the names confirm intent on the part of the recipient.
I don’t read minds and I don’t write headlines that imply I do.
It is rarely apropriate to declare you know the intent of another.
Even when you guess correctly it is a weak arguement IMneverHO.
A notable exception is Climategate, they display intent and actions to disguise same.
I think it is sub optimal even when it is accurate.
You champion rage, I do not.
Your primary tool is the put down IMneverHO.
I don’t get much satisfaction from shouting down opponents.
I prefer to convert opponents into allies.
Then _they_ declare my arguement superior.
You are welcome to re-declare yourself the winner, just don’t expect or demand I champion your MO.
I don’t expect you to even listen to my arguement.
You state that it is poorly articulated.
I suggest you have not tried to understand my point of view.
You have declared rage as your goto tool.
Raging persons rarely listen.
Can you follow that logic?
Unlike you, towards others with whom you dis-agree, I have assumed you posess the mental capacity.
Rage is often accompanied by violence.
The AGW crowd does have a few proponents openly advocating violence.
You have declared you respond in kind.
Do you also advocate violence?
I do not advocate violence or rage unless I have used up more effective options.
Do you STILL not get the jist of my arguement?
Preaching to the choir does not float my boat.
You do appear to have a willing market right here.
Challenging the effectiveness of a popular contributors behavior definately has risks.
I expected more to rise in your defence.
Perhaps they feel it unnecessary as you claim to have defeated me or my position.
An amazing feat considering you also stated I am unable to convey it effectively.
Time will tell if A.W. encourages or discourages the headlines I find counterproductive.
His playground his rules.
Contrary to your accusation that I would resurface with a different alias, I am capable and willing to not post further if I am asked.
I don’t claim to be capable of not lurking though. I visit one or more times a day and rarely am I motivated to opine. My posts prior to my exchange with you have been poor attempts at humor or links on topic.
Other than sparring with you, a willing mutual combatant, I refrain from personal attacks.
I have made the occasional quip directed at the AGWists. <<–example.
I defend my position without shame.
Unless I am mistaken anon tags ARE allowed here.
There are often repeated examples, shall I cite some for you?
The email address I provide is valid and I trust A.W. to not make it public.
I invite A.W. to email me and I'll provide more accurate info.
He can also change or enforce unenforced rules, I'll respect that.
I still don't get your logic that my anon has any bearing on my position.
I consider it a valid position regardless of source.
At any rate I thank you for sparring, I do occasionally indulge via jungle rules 🙂
Your one handed jibe was spot on. I call it a self test. At my age I'm just thankful it still works without chemical enhancement. Guilty as charged but not while surfing! 😉
Regarding your declaration of fact as it relates to my mental health. (paranoia)
Dayum, you DO read minds! Again I must admit defeat, with skills like that your declarations of fact regarding others mental capacity in the headline of this thread of must be spot on. Your exibitions of similar behavior may only be a necessary part of the process. My previous thought that you were unqualified to make that judgement was obviously in error, but you already knew that didn't you?
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005, in defence of legitimate climate scientists Baliunas & Soon and Veizer & Shaviv.
The thuggish conduct of the global warming alarmist gang has been demonstrated again and again, and was fully proved by the ClimateGate emails.
Warmist thugs have caused several principled and competent scientists to be dismissed from their positions, and have incited their lunatic fringe to death threats and actual acts of violence against skeptical scientists. In a rational world, some of these warmist thugs would be in jail – and that may yet happen.
Hypothesis:
1. The next act of this farce will be characterized by global cooling starting by about 2020 or sooner, cooling that may be mild or severe. Global cooling will demonstrate that climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 is so small as to be insignificant. The scientific credibility of the warmist gang will be shattered and some may face lawsuits and/or go to jail.
2. The scientific community will gradually accept the fact that CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales, and that temperature (among other factors) drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.
3. The foolish green energy schemes to “stop global warming” will be shelved and dismantled, but not before they contribute to a significant increase in Excess Winter Mortality, especially in Europe and to a lesser extent in North America, where energy costs are much lower (thanks to shale fracking).
4. The warmist thugs will still be bleating about a warmer world, wilder weather, etc., all caused by the sins of mankind, but nobody will listen.
Regards to all, Allan
Full article at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/#comment-811913
Drive-by shootings in Kyotoville
The global warming debate heats up
Energy & Environment 2005
Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature.
Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2. Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect. Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
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