The title is a quote from the framed embroidery over the Warden’s wall safe in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, which is a story about one man fighting the corruption of the penal system at the hands of the warden, who was using his position to profit, bully, and murder. Since the quote turned out to be wildly ironic, I thought it was appropriate for what’s happening to Dr. Willie Soon at the hand of green activists and the compliant media. I often think of the warden as a figurehead for people like Dr. Lawrence Torricello, who once called for the death of climate skeptics.
While the Bob Ward style smear campaign rages against Dr. Willie Soon, much like we saw against Dr. Richard Tol, such as this article on Soon which is in my opinion libelous and actionable, the media ignores the fact that green and climate science is a huge money machine, for which there is only one scientific opinion: “climate change/global warming is bad.”
Yet, how many times have we had a “consensus” of opinion only later to find that consensus overturned? Well there’s plate tectonics, phlogiston, Eugenics, Earth centric universe, stress caused ulcers, and now cholesterol. That’s enough times where the scientific herd mentality failed, and makes one think that consensus isn’t all it is cracked up to be.
And how is it, that magically, the billions collectively going into climate research, and the millions going to individual researchers, (such as 1.8 million dollars received by Dr. Michael Mann on a topic for which he is not an expert) which tends to have only one scientific outcome, is somehow pure, while research funding looking into linkage between climate change and the sun done by Dr. Soon, is somehow evil? They think it is evil because supposedly the outcome is paid for. That’s about as ridiculous as saying that because the Phil Jones Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the center of Climategate, somehow made specific outcomes in their climate research because CRU took money from “Big Oil” in the past.
From American Thinker:
Amid the thousands of files apparently lifted from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) last week sit two documents on the subject of the unit’s funding. One is a spreadsheet (pdj_grant_since1990.xls) logging the various grants CRU chief P.D. Jones has received since 1990. It lists 55 such endowments from agencies ranging from the U.S. Department of Energy to NATO, worth a total of £13,718,547, or approximately $22.6 million. I guess cooking climate data can be an expensive habit, particularly for an oft-quoted and highly exalted U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chief climatologist.
But it’s actually the second document (potential-funding.doc) that tells the more compelling tale. In addition to four government sources of potential CRU funding, it lists an equal number of “energy agencies” they might put the bite on. Three — the Carbon Trust, the Northern Energy Initiative, and the Energy Saving Trust — are U.K.-based consultancy and funding specialists promoting “new energy” technologies with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The fourth — Renewables North West — is an American company promoting the expansion of solar, wind, and geothermal energy in the Pacific Northwest.
Needless to say, all four of these CRU “potential funding sources” have an undeniably intrinsic financial interest in the promotion of the carbochondriacal reports CRU is ready, willing, and able to dish out ostensibly on demand. And equally obvious, Jones is all too aware that a renewable energy-funded CRU will remain the world’s premiere authority on the subject of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) despite any appearance of conflict.
And yet, no such latitude has ever been extended to scientists in the skeptical camp.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/11/cru_files_betray_climate_alarm.html#ixzz3SaJIib00
Climate action proponents would claim that the idea that CRU made specific outcomes in research due to such funding from Shell and others is ludicrous, but somehow Dr. Soon is automatically smeared as being “on the take”.
And it gets worse. David Mulberry writes on the WUWT Facebook page:
It will no doubt astound many readers to learn that there are more than 26,500 American environmental groups. They collected total revenues of more than $81 billion from 2000 to 2012, according to Giving USA Institute, with only a small part of that coming from membership dues and individual contributions.
“Cracking Big Green” examined the Internal Revenue Service Form 990 reports of non-profit organizations. Driessen and Arnold discovered that, among the 2012 incomes of better-known environmental groups, the Sierra Club took in $97,757,678 and its Foundation took in $47,163,599. The Environmental Defense Fund listed $111,915,138 in earnings, the Natural Resources Defense Council took in $98,701,707 and the National Audubon Society took in $96,206,883. These four groups accounted for more than $353 million in one year.
That pays for a lot of lobbying at the state and federal level. It pays for a lot of propaganda that the Earth needs saving because of global warming or climate change. Now add in Greenpeace USA at $32,791,149, the Greenpeace Fund at $12,878,777; the National Wildlife Federation at $84,725,518; the National Parks Conservation Association at $25,782,975; and The Wilderness Society at $24,862,909. Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection took in $19,150,215. That’s a lot of money to protect something that cannot be “protected”, but small in comparison to other Green organizations.
If you wonder why you have been hearing and reading endless doomsday scenarios about the warming of the Earth, the rise of the seas, and the disappearance of species and forests, for decades, the reason is mind boggling
Follow the money.
More reading, see The Merchants of Smear
I think the ethical problem was supposed to be Soon’s failure to declare his funding.
That’s what’s being investigated by his employers, anyway.
The ethical problem, the money trail, has been elucidated quite well, in this case. We live in dangerous times, as intolerant and non-science based believe systems seem to flourish.
So, do you imply – as you apparently have been instructed to by your handlers – that it is the “uninformed” and “less intelligent” (republican, right-wing, conservative, capitalistic, oil-money-paid, religious fundamentalist, illiterate, anti-homosexual stereotypes) party that is intolerant and refuses to review the evidence?
Who has an anti-science attiude? The party that believes the same government that lied about Iraq and 911 and was too incompetent to lead the nation between 2000 and 2008, but is absolutely correct and perfect between 2008 and 2016, the same people who believe it fervently now that Big Government is saying something it wants to believe, despite the evidence against CAGW in all its forms and implications? Despite the harm CAGW policies bring bring real people while rewarding ONLY those in Big Government and Big Finance and Big Science? The same people who don’t believe engineers about steel and concrete and pressure waves and metal strength, now believe actors and politicians who can’t pass divinity school about complex heat transfer equations and intrinsic feedback mechanisms of 3d fluid flow and radiation?
Or the 75 out of 13,500 Big Government-paid self-selected elite priests who refuse to acknowledge the evidence that CO2 is not affecting global average temperatures significantly, and that fossil fuels benefit ALL who live on the planet right now – including the plant life now growing 15 to 27% faster, longer, taller, more fruitfall and more drought-resistant?
And, if $25,000.00 dollars spent 10 years ago buys a skeptic’s opinion, how many Big Government-paid scientists can Big Finance buy for 92 billion dollars spent to justify 1.3 trillion dollars in new taxes to Big Government to support 30 trillion in carbon futures for Big Finance so Big Science can spend its next 92 billion dollars?
Say RAC,
Why don’t you tell us what you really think, instead of beating about the bush ?
G !
@ur momisugly RACookPE1978
Good comment. I would just add that anyone who thinks government is “on [their] side” is just ignoring all historical [evidence]. Government is like the mobster who breaks your legs and then loans you some crutches so you can go to work.
dont you mean “belief” systems?
and i agree…the money trail that links groups like greenpeace to big oil is obvious and in the public domain…hundreds of millions of dollars received and accepted from big oil certainly taints greenpeace’s perspective, no?
The latest paper he did with Monckton et al was on their own time! What is so hard to understand? They got NO money from anyone.
“The latest paper he did with Monckton et al was on their own time!”
It’s not clear that that paper was one of the 8 papers described in the report cited.
The NY Times has the list of contracts made with Southern Company Services via the Smithsonian and the “deliverables” here. A long PDF collection is here. On p 36 is a Final Report, listing a number of papers as “deliverables”.
Here is one of those papers. It has a long list of acknowledgements (mainly people), but not including SCS.
Its not clear when it should have been. A pretty obvious smear.
Nick Stokes, you’ve published many posts here, yet you’ve never acknowledged your past revenue sources. Any conflict there?
Nick Stokes, you have published many posts here, I have yet to see you acknowledge past or present revenue sources. Any conflict there?
Nick,
Much has been made of the use of the term “deliverables” including your comment above.
Should we also be concerned that Dr. Hume at CRU received money from WWF UK to produce pamphlets that were described as “deliverables?”
“This document sets out the work plan and deliverables for a contract
between UEA/CRU and WWF UK for the preparation and publication of a series
of 15 (?) national/regional climate change scenario brochures, together
with a global overview leaflet, by 11 October 1999, i.e., one week before
COP5.”
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=3169.txt&search=Deliverable
Further, having accepted funding from environmental activists would Dr. Hulme and any other scientists involved in this project be obliged to disclose in peer reviewed literature their ongoing conflict of interest?
As I asked weeks ago – funding for what ? This paper or other work ? Which should be reported and when ?
If I’m not mistaken, Dr Wei Hok Soon’s “employers” are the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
So far as I know, those were his employers when he wrote his book: ” The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection.” Which I have read several times, and I can’t recall seeing the word “oil” in there anywhere.
I’m sure that whatever funding he has received, was based on the fact that he was working at such a prestigious Institution, and it is essentially that body that has been the recipient of the beneficence of Soon’s grantors.
I had the pleasure of exchanging several conversations with Dr. Soon, in relation to his Maunder Minimum studies, some years ago. Back then he was an occasional visitor to a web site with a name something like “Tech Central Station.” That site was where I first engaged myself in getting informed about the global climate and weather system, and its components.
Yes I believe that Tech Central Station also had Energy company connections. Never ever received any solicitations from any energy or other natural resource based entity, seeking any support from me of their positions; well they never ever even stated their positions on resource based industries that I was ever aware of.
As for Dr. Soon, I found him to be a very communicative chap with a genuine passion for his studies, and he didn’t just brush me off with any “thanks for commenting” one liners.
If the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics does not know the origins of research funds which come their way, without asking Willie Soon, then they are the ones who should be more aware.
The trouble with Willie Soon, and also Dr Sally Baliunas, who used to work in the same arena, is that perhaps they have been too successful, in separating the fact from the fiction, in this saga, and in exposing the charlatans, who feed at the public slush trough, rather than get a real job, using their skills. And I have no doubt that most of them do in fact have marketable skills.
g
In the Interest of full and complete disclosure: The above research was funded in part from the proceeds of a grant from the Government of New Zealand. That grant facilitated four years of research into the necessities of a useful education of mathematics and physics to meet the needs of industry. That early portion of the study encompassed the years of 1954 through 1958 incl.
$81 billion and still most people see through them….
Add these two scientific truths to the “consensus” of opinions that were later overturned: Bathybius haecklii and Polywater. The former was alleged to be lurking in the ocean depths like today’s missing heat. The latter was sure to escape the laboratory and turn all the world’s water into jello, destroying life as we know it.
Arguably, the biggest “consensus” overturned in the modern era is the “inevitable” advent of state socialism in the early 20th century. It is worth remembering that state socialism was explicitly atheistic, “rational”, and “scientific”. All of the best, enlightened, up to date people were on board back in the 1920s and 1930s: Orwell, Hemingway, and a very long list of economists, academics, and deep thinkers generally.
I see contemporary environmentalism as this century’s version of 20th century state socialism. State socialism was history’s greatest mass killer with 100 million victims and billions enslaved. If one had to bet on the great mass killer in this century it is surely environmentalism:
The No Pressure Ad
Quote by Club of Rome: “The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”
Quote by John Davis, editor of Earth First! journal: “Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.”
Quote by Paul Ehrlich, professor, Stanford University: “A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer.”
Quote by John Holdren, President Obama’s science czar: “There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated…It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
Quote by Christopher Manes, a writer for Earth First! journal: “The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
Quote by Ted Turner, billionaire, founder of CNN and major UN donor, and large CO2 producer: “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Quote by Jacques Cousteau, mega-celebrity French scientist: “In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day.”
Quote by John Davis, editor of Earth First! journal: “I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
Quote by Ingrid Newkirk, a former PETA President: “The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on Earth – social and environmental.”
‘Nice’ quotes and after writing a comment mentioning der Leiter des Dritten Reichs I came to a milder conclusion: most of these people are extreme-left in a certain sense, which means they are idealistic, with self-hatred related to their white-western group. They also expect that intelligentsia they belong to should be touting for a brute need of reduction of population.
What they failed to understand is that the population growth is already much based of better health care, fertility being very low excluding a small portion of countries. Also they don’t understand that the countries with high fertility are the countries they in other circumstances want to protect from ‘the western oppressors’.
Yeah, since ‘problem’ is a very human thing.
Character asassination. That is what it is, and the NYT stands accused of it in its article about Willie Soon. And the reaction of the bloggers? Hoe many of them have ever read one of Soon’s thoughtful articles?
Hi Harry! Good to see you here!
You’re absolutely right – it is charcter assassination, pure and simple, and from the same New York Times that gave a pass on Joseph Stalins’s murder by starvation of ten million Ukranians in 1933. Oh, that was 82 years ago, but the Times has never acknowledged its massive wrongdoing and it is still the same organization. I went on this rant about the NYT last month on WUWT, so I’ll repeat here.
From Jan. 4 WUWT http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/04/baked-alaska-propaganda-film-suggests-children-in-alaska-have-no-snow/#comment-1828914 ….
“To put it bluntly, the NYT has been a bastard medium since 1933, when their top reporter, Walter Duranty, wrote a series of apologetics denying Stalin’s murder by starvation of millions of Ukrainians. This has to be the greatest example of agenda-driven journalistic malpractice in the history of the printed page, and the NYT has never disowned its role. An interesting take on this is at http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/duranty_revocation.htm ”
The point is that the NYT has a history of conflict of interest, bias, advocacy, and currying favor with mass murderers. The Times lied, millions died, as they say. And they claim the moral authority to complain about someone maybe working for a company that legally provides a necessary service.
As for Greenpeace, they’re just applying Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals number 12: Destroy the Individual “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
In other words, character assassination from folks who have defended mega-assassins.
The federal grants from agency X are awarded to A, who pays B to manage, who then pays C to lobby congressman D, who funds agency X. The tax payer gets the bill.
If someone disagrees with Willy’s work let them find fault with the work, if all they can do is find fault with the person, then they probably can’t find fault with the work.
Precisely. I don’t give two hoots who, what, where, why or when funds the work – the evaluation is based on the data.
People often ascribe motives to others when these are their own motives – it is because these people are so used to monkeying around with the data to get a desired result that they assume everyone else does the same.
Yes. PEOPLE OFTEN ASCRIBE motives to others when these are THEIR OWN MOTIVES.
When dealing with anti-scientific critters like AGW alarmists–or when dealing with political trolls or any other trolls, we need to make use of this fact. The howlers’ motive indeed seems to be money. That means they think that they themselves are vulnerable on funding sources and motivation.They are–and we need to step on this much harder than we do.
Another one is the “don’t you believe the scientists” argument. We need to highlight 1000 times more than we do the reality that a main motive of most skeptic activists is a horrified and desperate effort to restore the meaning and respect for actual science after the TRASHING of this precious thing by a Mann whose name is a laughing stock amongst actual scientists because he has no clue about the proper handling of statistics in his own research, another who wants to “redefine” null hypothesis to mean my ideas are true unless you prove them wrong, misleading graphs in Nature magazine, and a National “Science” Foundation that makes it quite clear that it wants Politically Correct results.
Totally correct.
These creeps think that just because they would make up stuff for money anybody else will.
The “consensus” is that controlled nuclear fusion is just 10-15 years away… and it has been that way since the mid to late 1950’s. One can only wish it were so.
Love this one. Just saw another article just two days ago promising fusion just around the corner.
They left a sign on the front door:
BACK IN
5 MINUTES.
GONE
FISSION
It appears there has been for decades, a consensus of authority that we should not switch from Uranium to Thorium. This is detrimental to economical electricity in the future.
The “consensus” was that Obama was a uniter and not a divider. Also Obama was going to return science to being an important contributor in decision making.
Well the nation has been the most divided it has been since the Vietnam war and like the previous administration, science is only used if it takes the role of whore to political expediency.
So consensus and a dollar will buy…well just about nothing now a days.
…Well there’s plate tectonics, phlogiston, Eugenics, Earth centric universe, stress caused ulcers, and now cholesterol. …
Actually, many of those are poor examples. It was reasonable to be suspicious of plate tectonics – proposals for the mechanics didn’t exist at the time. Phlogiston was simply the same gas in reverse, as it were. Eugenics is a perfectly science-based concept – we don’t like the idea for ethical rather than scientific reasons….
The best example by far is Piltdown Man. That was a fraud, perpetrated by someone who had close establishment connections, and the fraud fitted establishment thinking at the time perfectly. So all the big guns – the Brit Mus., the Smithsonian, the Royal Society – all accepted it and produced statements saying that it was proven.
The few scientists who uncovered discrepancies and suggested that the science wasn’t sound had their careers broken. The fraud was quite obvious if you looked skeptically at the evidence, but no one did. The match with Climate change is almost exact. Indeed, you will find Climate Change apologists have got to the Piltdown wiki entry and crafted it to try to turn attention away from this close analogy.
It’s worth mentioning this at regular intervals…
It’s been said before: Meltdown Mann
I was thinking more comparisons to the Bernie Madoff scandal. “No One Would Listen” is a very powerful book that reminds me a lot about the CAGW scenario. The fact that Madoff’s returns were impossible was easy to see, there were lots of people who should have seen it, and many others who MUST have seen it but were taking advantage of it.
However, no serious action was taken against Madoff until the scheme collapsed by itself.
I saw a documentary on this. A woman claimed that she brought it up at a dinner and was hounded for being anti-Semitic so she never mentioned it again.
Eugenics is not “science based” in any sense except that of selective breeding for specific qualities. The idea behind it was that there was “perfect” human form, and that we could describe that being and breed for it. That doesn’t even reach the level of good science fiction.
Even within animal breeding, the “ideal” race horse and the “ideal” roping and cutting horse do not have the same physiological. A plough horse is physically different from either. There is no single, ideal form of horse. The same goes for humanity, There is no such thing as an ideal form.
You are absolutely right about mentioning events like Piltdown and the effects of finding or being handed just what you expect.
I recall that the biggest motivator was not so much breeding in “good” qualities as breeding out “bad” ones. Feeble-mindedness, sloth, tendency to drunkenness, and bad moral character were presumed as determinable as hemophilia, Tay-Sachs, or color blindness. The future did not contain a single perfect model, but more a description of what the model was not.
For that part of the human condition determined by genetics, I think there is little doubt that eugenics could be effectively deployed. I for one do not wish to live in the sort of world it would take to make it effective.
There’s something a bit odd about one of the linked articles:
http://www.microcapobserver.com/scientist-falsifying-research-papers-on-risks-of-global-warming-funded-by-energy-industry/236431/
The whole web site appears to be written by children. For example, on another page I found this:
WTF???
From the same source, this headline:
“Washington Governor Scot Walker (R) also join (sic) in the bandwagon of former New York City Governor Rudy Giuliani`s comments.”
The first sentence is:
“According to Washington City Governor Scott Walker (R) he is not sure if US President Barack Obama love (sic) America.”
Not only appears to be written by children, but children from a foreign country, who not only don’t have a working knowledge of the English language, but don’t know the difference between Washington and Wisconsin, then refers to Wisconsin State as Washington City.
Indeed … WTF??
http://www.microcapobserver.com/washington-governor-scot-walker-r-also-join-in-the-bandwagon-of-former-new-york-city-governor-rudy-giulianis-comments/236436/
Wow, that is a direct accusation of falsification. Popcorn.
Was he required to declare any funding for any reason from sources which may have appeared to have conflicts of interest or not? That seems like a pretty simple question. Not that it would have affected outcomes, but the rules are the rules.
I’d be interested in seeing a copy of them.
You can read the written policy for yourself. http://Www.scibull.com in english. Under imformation for authors, section I. Conflicts that might influence the work (the subject of the paper). Includes research grants, project sponsors, speaking honoraria (a common pharma ploy). Does not seem to require disclosing support/affiliations for projects unrelated to the paper being submitted.
I have just been reading the Cowtan and Way article in Quart J Roy Met Soc(vol 140, 1935, (2014)).
It finishes with this statement:
“Acknowledgements
This work was produced without funding in the authors’ own
time; however, KC is grateful to the University of York for
providing computing facilities and to the organizers of the 2013
EarthTemp network meeting (NERC Grant NE/I030127/1) for
enabling him to benefit from the expertise of the other attendees.
The authors also acknowledge the reviewers for their invaluable
comments, the online community of professional and amateur
climate scientists who have provided advice over the 18 months
of the work and also John Kennedy at the Hadley Centre, who
provided useful feedback on some very rudimentary initial results.”
So how is this different from the position and disclosure of W Soon?
No-one is trying to impeach Cowtan.
Given the highly politicized nature of this whole issue, I’d probably have attached a list of anyone I ever got a dime from just to avoid this kind of thing. But I’m not from the academic world.
It’s rather more specific than Rud’s paraphrase indicates:
“Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but not limited to the following:
• Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
• Honoraria for speaking at symposia
• Financial support for attending symposia
• Financial support for educational programs
• Employment or consultation
• Support from a project sponsor”
That’s interesting phil-dot.
Do you suppose his eminence spoke for free here?
http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-lehighvalley/Local/dr-michael-mann-warns-global-warming-will-create-a-fundamentally-different-planet/19963572
How about the books he sold?
Are you saying the SCIENCE is wrong because of the funding? Or, are you admitting the science is good and you just don’t like the science?
The source of that embroidered sampler was a fragment of Ecclesiastes 21:5 (KJV).
That book only has 12 chapters. The twelfth chapter begins with a symbolic description of growing old:
“Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the difficult days come,
And the years draw near when you say,
“I have no pleasure in them”:
While the sun and the light,
The moon and the stars,
Are not darkened,
And the clouds do not return after the rain;
In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
And the strong men bow down;
When the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look through the windows grow dim….
When one rises up at the sound of a bird,
And all the daughters of music are brought low.”
This is followed by the famous philosophical observation,
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
It concludes the discussion of the book with:
“And further, my son, be admonished by these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.”
As renowned Australian geologist Prof. Sam Carey once noted: 50 million may believe in a fallacy, but it’s still a fallacy.
Reminds me of the punchline of an old joke…. 50 million flies can’t be wrong!
re: Professor Carey
Read his books. He as a young and middle aged man was one of the successful promoters of “floating continents, plate tectonics” but as an old seasoned geologist believed he erred and argued for an expanding earth hypothesis. He was not afraid to change his mind. He remains an example to me of a dispassionate scientist, seeking truth above all.
Dan Kurt
This just gets my blood boiling. To go after a man and his livelyhood is WAY out of bounds on trumped up rhetoric. This is copy of an email I sent to the director of Harvard Smithsonian Charles Alcock.
“So are you going to be complicit in this public scientific lynching of Dr Soon? Because that’s what it is.
As long as I’ve followed the climate debate (since 2007 thanks to Al Gore) the alarmists are have been screeching from the rafters about some of Dr Soon’s funding. It’s not a secret he’s taken money from the energy sector, just as many other non-skeptical researchers have. Furthermore his latest paper was on his and his collaborators own dime for gosh sakes. It would behoove you to not cave to the caterwauling class and be-smirch the reputation of the CFA.”
I would encourage you to send along your own thoughts to the director and your DC representative.
Shell is one of the big green supporters, and why not? Good brownie points.
They know we can’t live without oil, no matter what the govt does.
http://blogs.shell.com/climatechange/
Yep, big oil gives to big green, who lobbies big government to act against big coal, to convert to big natural gas so big oil wins.
I am not so sure about Shell, I think it’s more extortion. What happened with the platform(Shell-Gazprom) in Russia and the jailing of the crew, I think this was welcomed by Shell
Big Oil gives to warmists to keep the scam going, usually because they have lots of natural gas reserves (as well as oil), and if they can get coal replaced by natural gas then they will make billions.
I am old enough to remember the Oil Embargo of the early 1970’s and the gas rate hikes (5o cents a gallon–shockingly high!).
The oil companies became concerned for their survival in a future without oil. So they all invested in alternatives such as wind and solar. AGW alarmism could make them a bundle–which is why oil company funding was a part of the climategate scandal. They are primed to make a bundle from alternative fuels. They also love activists who make fossils rarer or more expensive in any way–because that increases their return on investment.
We have an unserious media. They would rather destroy reputations of those who are not of the favored political philosophy than to “commit journalism”. Real journalism, that is. To discuss the merits of an item rather than the person who is quoted.
The media today is not about news, it’s about liberal cheerleading, promoting the Progressive cause and blindly attacking anything which is not compatible with the
chaotic distopiapromised land their Progressive oligarchy will be. Truth need not be mentioned.The unsigned article you linked to in the MicrocapObserver website (which I had never heard of) is an amateurish crib from the longer NY Times piece by Justin Gillis and John Schwartz, with whole phrases quoted verbatim: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0
One sentence that appears to be original is this one:
I suspect that the accusation that any of Dr. Soon’s papers were “falsified” is the part you think might be actionable. Though my guess is that the intern who wrote it had no idea what he was saying, a letter from Dr. Soon’s lawyer might at least garner an apology.
/Mr Lynn
I thought much the same about the Microcap Observer site (which I have also never heard of). Their “About” page doesn’t give much information, and certainly no names or specific contacts.
http://www.microcapobserver.com/about/
I felt that the article linked above might have been written by a non native English speaker, but a bunch of children also fits the bill!
Such as the following:
Scientists from the United China States and are saying they have found new insight on what really exists at the core of our planet suggesting that there could be another distinctive region in there. According to the journal Nature Geoscience, the reason behind this is that the pattern of the iron crystals in is not […]
Truly “…one of the most respected independent news organizations on the east coast…”
I did a Who Is of MicroCapObserver dot com and the owner info is protected. But I googled the address on their About page (1400 Eye St. NW, Ste. 1115
Washington, DC 20005) and it *only* comes up as CapstoneDC?
http://www.capstonedc.com/about.html says, “Capstone is a Washington, DC-based policy analysis and regulatory due diligence research firm that provides expert advice to companies and long-term investors. Developments in Washington and other centers of government are more crucial to investment strategies than ever before. Legislation, regulatory reforms, and new federal oversight are affecting industries in evolving ways, with both near- and long-term impacts on business models.
Capstone was founded in 2010 amidst unprecedented change in the regulatory landscape for the financial services, energy and health care industries. Our professionals analyze policy to uncover unique business and investment strategies for our clients. We pride ourselves on the ability to see over the horizon and to identify long-term policy trends that present both risks and opportunities for our clients.”
So are they the same, or do they only share an address in DC? Looking into Capstone I get:
Raw Registrar Data
Domain Name: CAPSTONEDC.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Registrant Name: David Barrosse
Registrant Organization: The Orion Group
Name Server: NS55.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS56.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
For complete domain details go to:
http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?domain=CAPSTONEDC.COM
Information Updated: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 22:19:21 UTC
Googling David Barrosse gives me: “Managing Partner of Capstone LLC. Former investment banker and former political consultant.” From his twitter account. Lots of links for him though.
Is this nothing, or something? I’m so confused.
Oil companies love to fund greens.
Why you may ask? Because it makes them look “concerned” of course, but it also helps to hype the price of its product. Study how De Beers created a market price for diamonds by repeating the theme that diamonds are precious and rare. Commodities demand only commodity prices.
BTW, ask Putin and some of the middle east potentates how they feel about the new oil price ceiling imposed by fracking. This will be a very high priority for them going forward. Expect an extreme campaign against such methods of increasing oil reserves. Watch where the money comes from and goes to. Expect players to include the EPA, IPCC and other worldwide governmental agencies in concert with the green NGOs, new “science” graduates on the prowl for grants, and a sycophantic press corps.
Well, you’re a bit behind times:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377201/putins-anti-fracking-campaign-robert-zubrin
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/russian-money-suspected-behind-fracking-protests.html?_r=0
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/26/why-putin-hates-fracking.html
…and many more.
To date despite all the insults thrown at Soon , no one seems to have been able to say what is wrong with the paper , which is odd for if its was poor has claimed that should be easy .
Meanwhile the ‘magical process ‘ that changes dirty ‘fossil fuel funding money , into pure has the driven snow money , so that money from the same organisation which is unacceptable for research which challenges ‘the cause , becomes fully acceptable for ‘research’ which supports ‘the cause and never mind if its awful , has yet to be named . Perhaps the same approach that changes ordinary water into holy water , a quick wave of the hand and few words ?
This is from the sidebar on the same webpage. Seems this ‘consensus’ is now incorrect as well:
http://www.microcapobserver.com/according-to-a-new-report-eggs-and-other-cholesterol-loaded-foods-pose-little-or-no-health-risk/236128/
Unfortunately, for us in the UK, firearms are illegal, so when the forces of justice cometh; the likes of Bob Ward wont have the luxury of ending it all with a one shot blast of gory. We, the TaX payer, will still be subsiding his existence.
[snip – wildly off topic -mod]
Except for the two million legally held firearms in the UK I guess you mean.
Unbelievbable,
http://www.nature.com/news/documents-spur-investigation-of-climate-sceptic-1.16972
I am not sure of the differences between the government report below versus that stated in the article, but this 2014 FY government report indicates that the federal climate change budget/expenditures are in the order of $ 20 + billion dollars. See below:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Federal Climate Change Expenditures
Report to Congress
Table 1
Summary of Federal Climate Change Expenditures
Summary of Climate
Expenditures in $ Millions
FY 2012 19,781
Enacted Budget
Authority
FY 2013 22,598
Enacted Budget
Authority
FY 2013 22,195
Current Budget
FY 2014 21,408
Sorry the table does not cut and paste well.
Where am I wrong?
Well, conventionally, 92 billion dollars are credited with the total spending by the US government on “Climate Change” by Big Government to Big Science for research and papers and computers and institutions to produce results favorable to Big Government and Big Finance about Climate Change.
Your figures indicate right at 60 billion dollars for the last three years alone, so the accepted value of 92 billion paid to the priests of the CAGW religion for their results is probably much too low.
R A Cook
Thanks for your affirmation of the $60 Billion for 3 years which is from the referenced government website.
Why is the expenditure much less in the article?
Where does that number come from?
During the 2012 election Romney quoted a value of $100 billion which is more in line with the expenditures from the website I quoted.
WUWT?
It might be an error. Those happen, you know.
For example, Big Finance might have 55 trillion (not 30 trillion) in carbon futures at stake for loss if CAGW is proved wrong! Big Government might have 1.5 trillion (not 1.3 trillion) in new taxes they have “lost” if CAGW is proven false.
Back in 2011 it was alleged that James Hansen accepted $1.4 million in “prizes” from activist groups and groups who benefit from climate legislation. It was also alleged that Hansen failed to report that income pursuant to federal law. American Traditions Institute filed a lawsuit and shortly thereafter, Hansen retired and the story seemed to drop off the face of the earth. It looked to me like some kind of settlement was reached and that the parties agreed to keep the settlement confidential.
If the greens want to talk about money and corruption, then lets understand what happened to Hansen.
If you read an article at Microcap Observer, the writer(s) seem to be near illiterate. The English syntax and grammar are atrocious.
I am skeptical about the timeline / storyline of the ‘investigation’ of whether Dr. Willie Soon’s 2014 paper did a proper disclosure of conflict of interest.
I openly ask for MSM to aid in getting a disclosure of whether the idea to investigate Harvard associated climate change critic Dr Willie Soon was inspired by and/or aided in any way by the relatively recently* hired Harvard faculty member Naomi Oreskes (who is publically well known as a fundamental believer in ‘big fossil con$piracies wrt climate’ as shown in her book ‘Merchants of Doubt’). It needs to be investigated whether there is a potential conflict of interest by Oreskes.
* hired by Harvard approximately summer/fall 2013
John