Guest essay by Tom Fuller
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The Peril of Great Causes
Guest essay by Tom Fuller
342 Comments
MikeB, The repeated personal moral failings of those who claim the moral high ground on environmentalist grounds… they make the hypocritical greens look silly. But you are right that wrestling with pigs makes anyone dirty.
Still, the post makes a good point.
It is worth noting that Gleick’s forgeries are considered normal practise by the climate science establishment… and that hypocrisy for personal gain (Gore) is accepted and rewarded.
So why are ancient allegations against Soon brought up? Allegations that even Monbiot has had to apologise for. Well, other than the fact that the paper can’t be faulted so the author must be targeted, obviously.
Perhaps because these working practises are so embedded amongst climate “scientists” that they assume everyone else is corrupt too?
Still, the post makes a good point.
It is worth noting that Gleick’s forgeries are considered normal practise by the climate science establishment… and that hypocrisy for personal gain (Gore) is accepted and rewarded.
————————————-
Peter Gleick was the head of the Ethics Committee (and may still be?)
Ethics, lying and stealing are unrelated.
A liar and a thief are the same.
Some advice my dad passed on to my brothers and I from our grandfather.
“Never give someone reason to call you a liar, a thief or a cheat.” The actions Tom Fuller relates above speak to the lack of integrity of the individuals named and those organizations that fail to speak up. Now Embarrased, integrity may not be important to you. If so, they perhpas this is all silly. I prefer to go with my grandfather’s advice.
February 25, 2015 1:07 am
The bleating of AGW proponents and alarmists has become more insistent and earnest. In the absence of any obvious climate catastrophe, let alone the slightest evidence, I can only conclude that the alarmists understand at some level that are losing the “debate,” such as it has been. The greenhouse theory was always nothing more than a house of cards built upon computer models that were never any match for the infinite variables and their chaotic interactions which make up our climate systems. Mother Nature, herself, is destroying this global warming delusion.
February 25, 2015 1:31 am
Re: Dr. Soon’s Graphs
Here is Dr. Svalgaard’s contribution to debate
http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
Here is Dr Schmidt (RC) contribution to debate
http://www.realclimate.org/images/soon_update.jpg
I would suggest that all three, however well respected scientists (Soon, Schmidt & Svalgaard) are partially wrong, because:
There is also geomagnetic ‘solar forcing’ with identifiable effect on the Arctic polar vortex.
I thought that GISTEMP does not have actual temperature measurements above 64N, they are all calculated from stations a considerable distance away. If that is the case, I don’t know that you can objectively say that the ‘increasing’ Arctic temps are ‘real’. At the very least any temperature reconstruction should have the error bars clearly displayed.
Vukcevic contribution to debate:
N. Hemisphere climate is under control of polar and sub-tropical jet-streams, whereby the long term zonal-merdional positioning of jet streams depends on the extent and strength of three primary cells (Pollar, Ferral and Hadley).
Since Equatorial temperature changes little, it is the Arctic temperature which moves jet streams latitudinal location.
It is true that the Arctic temperatures are not particularly accurate, but trend along polar circle (where Pollar & Ferral cells meet) is an acceptable representation, in that respect it is correct that Dr. Schmidt draws attention to the Arctic temperatures.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF1.gif
Strong correlation between the Arctic temperature anomaly and averaged strength of the geomagnetic field (R2>0.8) is not necessarily proof of causation, but it is stronger than what Dr. Soon proposes, on the other hand Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Svalgaard, pursuing their own different agendas, may wish to discredit.
A ‘little’ matter of mechanism
Solar magnetic activity reaches the Earth’s poles in form of geomagnetic storms. NASA: “a two-hour average sub-storm releases total energy of five hundred thousand billion (5 x 10^14) Joules. That’s approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake”
This is in form of the electric current ionising upper layers of the atmosphere, whereby the flow of atmospheric flow is affected by the strength of the magnetic field (Lorentz law). Assuming that the sun varies little over centuries, the Earth’s field (i.e. magnetospheres shielding) is not constant (currently loosing its strength), weaker the magnetic field, stronger the solar incursion, stronger the effect on the climate.
The effect can be clearly seen in the graph above.
There is obviously a relationship between the Sun and earths climate. To think not, you’d have to be brain dead. There is a relationship between CO2 and our climate, to think not you’d have to be brain dead as well. The problem is there are an enormous amount of factors involved and we do not understand their relationships and importance in the mix.
Predicting climate behavior by fabricating correlations with little understanding of the system as a whole does require certain parts of the brain to go dead. I think it’s the parts related to rationality and common sense.
So the search for the “ONE” climate factor that controls everything, is akin to searching for the holy grail.
February 25, 2015 1:44 am
…That seems like a pretty good reason for being an Alarmist to me. I think I’ll change sides….
There’s a much better one.
If you’re a Global Warming Alarmist people will queue up to give you money and Nobel prizes. And you don’t actually need to deliver anything. Just keep saying that humanity is doomed…
February 25, 2015 1:45 am
Great modding! This is an article by Tom Fuller – a not very good one – and it is immediately hijacked by Bevan and turned into a rehash of all the arguments for/agin Soon that have been rehearsed ad-nauseum on other threads. I bet Bevan is feeling very smug.
However, back to Fuller. He says: “As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period” What warming period? Don’t you mean the last (20c) warming period?.
Then: “As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today.” Well, of course you do, Tom. That’s what Liberals do: seek control. Especially when such control will benefit your personal welfare, derived as it is from solar. And, of course, it’s not enough that you accept control from elected government, you’re happy to accept control from unelected NGOs. How does that sit with your conscience?
If Tom Fuller was to use the God-given intelligence he had he wouldn’t spout such claptrap.
Evan: You being a ‘liberal progressive in many ways’, does that mean you believe in “…[supporting] large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today.” as Fuller says he does? And if you you do, does that inform your work? I would not have thought so based on what I have read of your comments at WUWT.
Sir, you have never in my experience sounded remotely like Mosh. You have not, to my awareness regularly insulted the entire skeptical community with straw man statements, then refused to engage in rational discussion when called out on the illogic of your statements. I believe you pointed out that the homogenization process apparently adjusts the good stations to the bad.
What do you think of what homogenization did to the Iceland stations?
February 25, 2015 1:58 am
…As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period….
Supposing I could give you a mathematical proof that climate problems are of such an order of chaotic complexity that the last thing that can be said is that they have an external cause?
“As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today. ”
Supposing I could give you a mathematical proof that social problems are of such an order of chaotic complexity that the last thing that will work is large scale government intervention?
In short your no doubt admirable intentions and impeccable logic are based on two fundamentally flawed assumptions:
– that climate change is caused by an external influence rather than just being ‘what climate does, anyway, all by itself’.
– that the problems of society at large can be solved by channelling huge amounts of money not through the decision making processes of the individual whose problems you are trying to solve, but through a vast bureaucracy controlled by a de facto elite who are not necessarily acting in anyone’s interests but their own, don’t necessarily listen to the real problems of the individual, and even if they do, don’t understand enough about the actual situation to make any difference at all?
You seem a decent enough chap: Consider this. The purpose of what we mildly libertarian chaps here call ‘cultural Marxism’ is to place beyond question the fundamental proposition that big government is the answer to everything. You have swallowed that line.
I have not.
But then I trained as an engineer and the control of large complex dynamic systems is something engineers have to deal with on a daily basis, and I know that the only way even a mildly complicated mechanism like – say – an aircraft – works, is by having many many systems of localised command and control. So that in the end, central government – the pilot – really only makes a few top level decisions like where the damned thing is going to land.
Now if you had asked me, or any other engineer, what to ‘do about climate change’, and we had gone away and analysed it, the answers would have been as follows.
1/. Climate change is endemic to the climate system, and is beyond our control.,
2/. Carbon emissions probably have very little effect on climate, and are unstoppable at a practical political level short of nuking the whole of India and China anyway.
3/. If you want the most cost effective way of reducing them in the west, a 100% nuclear powered society is way the best and cheapest option.
4/. Renewable energy so called is an engineering cul-de-sac because it relies on so much non-renewable energy to make it work.
5/. Ergo, in terms of energy generation the most effective central government response would be to tear up the stifling regulations on nuclear power and start again, allowing nuclear plant to be built cheaply, efficiently and safely.
6/. Insofar as climate change goes, the real science suggest that natural variation of ± 2°C is to be expected from within the dynamics of the system itself, and that ice ages of considerable depth and length are also well documented. Within the smaller variation the policy objectives are simple. Have some contingency funds in place to deal with the short term effects but don’t waste time trying to control the climate. It can’t be done (yet) and the possibility of making things much worse if you try – or simply wasting a huge amount of money and achieving nothing are considerable. If the ice age cometh, all bets are off anyway, and as far as the West is concerned, its genocide on the races inhabiting the warmer places, cultural suicide, or massive deployment of nuclear power to keep civilisation going in (under?) permafrost and ice capped regions.
The above are the rational scientific responses to climate change the scare story.
If people who really know are essentially promoting faux remedies to a non-existent problem, that doesn’t mean that the problem is real. It means they have other agendas than the solution of the non existent problems.
Why don’t you just give us a mathematical proof Leo?
The fact that problems are complex or chaotic doesn’t mean that you have turn your brain off. The movement of gas molecules in your lungs , their direction, momentum, collisions are beyond calculation. But, when your diaphragm raises you will breath out. I can predict that. Similarly, if the Sun’s intensity were to double, the temperature here would increase. I can predict that in spite of the climate system being chaotic.
….and, if CO2 concentrations increase, the surface temperature of this planet will increase, because that is simple science and the fact that you don’t understand it will not change it.
You can predict a living person breathing? Wow that’s impressive. Can you forecast what happens to a dead person breathing too? Careful now, consider your answer, we have machines that can keep a persons lungs breathing well after they are dead.
No one is turning their brain off except for those fixated on CO2 being the one singular lever that affects climate and humanity is the one singular variable that affects CO2 concentrations.
CO2 concentrations have increased but the warming is no where close to the relationship projected. Where have you been the last 20 years or so?
Mike,
You wrote, “(I)f CO2 concentrations increase, the surface temperature of this planet will increase, because that is simple science and the fact that you don’t understand it will not change it.”
But the science isn’t simple. Your assertion has already been repeatedly shown false. CO2 rose from 1945 to 1977 & the world cooled. It rose from 1978 to 1996 & the world did indeed warm slightly. But then it kept rising from 1997 until now, as global temperature stayed the same or slightly cooled.
The science isn’t simple because our planet is homeostatic. CO2 doesn’t rise in a vacuum. Earth responds. Besides which, humans also do things that have the effect of cooling the planet, although both our warming & cooling activities have negligible effect worldwide, although more pronounced locally.
@MikeB…
NOW… let us get to some facts about the atmosphere and Carbon Dioxide [CO2].
The atmosphere is: [approximately] 78% Nitrogen; 21% Oxygen; 0.04% CO2 and the rest made up of other trace gasses. Water Vapour varies from 1% to 4%
Amount of CO2 in the atmosphere = 0.04% which = 0.0004 of the atmosphere.
Man-made CO2 is 3% of that which = 0.0004×0.03 = 0.000012.
Burning fossil fuels is about 50% of that.
Therefore The amount of man-made CO2 from burning fossil fuels is about 0.000006 of the atmosphere.
It is absurd to think that this miniscule amount of CO2 can control climate.
Re: “… if CO2 concentrations increase, the surface temperature of this planet will increase… .”
Science does NOT say that. There is NO evidence that CO2 emissions drive climate. None.
Dr. Christopher Essex, Chairman, Permanent Monitoring Panel on Climate,
World Federation of Scientists, and Professor and Associate Chair,
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario (Canada)
in London, 12 February 2015
presents the actually state of the physics concisely and clearly here {WATCH THE ENTIRE VIDEO — I did and it is well worth it}:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/20/believing-in-six-impossible-things-before-breakfast-and-climate-models/
{video linked in above WUWT article and also here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q1i-wAUpY }
7 Key “Impossible Things” Points (listed at ~ 1:07:06 in the video} in Video with approx. times:
{25:17} 1. Solving the closure problem. {i.e., the “basic physic” equations have not even been SOLVED yet, e.g., the flow of fluids equation “Navier-Stokes Equations” — we still can’t even figure out what the flow of water in a PIPE would be if there were any turbulence}
{30:20} 2. a. Computers with infinite representation. {gross overestimation and far, far, misplaced confidence in the ability of computers to do math accurately (esp. over many iterations) — in this section he discuss the 100 km square gaps {specifically mentioned at about 46:00} (i.e., cell size) — e.g., to analyze air movement, the cell would need to be, per Komogorov microscale, 1mm (aersols even smaller, microns)) — in climate data,
at about 44:00 His discusses the fact that even IF the basic equations were known, there isn’t enough time since time began to calculate even just a TEN – year forecast, even at super-fast speeds it would take approx. 10 to the 20th power years (the universe is only 10 to the 10th power years old)}
2. b. Computer water and cultural physics {also in Intro through ~14:50}.
{19:40} 3. Greenhouses that don’t work by the greenhouse effect.
{14:50} 4. Carbon-free sugar.
{15:40} 5. Oxygen-free carbon dioxide.
{passim} 6. Nonexistent long-term natural variability.
{49:00} 7. Nonempirical climate models that conserve what they are supposed to conserve {that is, they do not do this}.
**********************************************************
Further, Dr. Murry Salby and others have good evidence from ice core proxies that strongly indicates that temperature drives CO2 emissions, not the other way around.
Dr. Salby, Hamburg lecture, April, 2013 (youtube)
“The above are the rational scientific responses to climate change the scare story”
Whoa! We can’t be having any of that now, can we?
/grin
“3/. If you want the most cost effective way of reducing them in the west, a 100% nuclear powered society is way the best and cheapest option.”
Probably a good idea anyway. I mean, really, isn’t this the 21st Century? Why not act like it is?
You have an erroneous idea about what a liberal progressive is. I am one. I am just as concerned about a big government as you are. It is just that we disagree as to why. My concern is that big governments are run by an a oligopoly who has bought the government lock, stock and barrel. The politicians are just their puppets. It is foolhardy to blame the puppets when we should be blaming the puppeteers.
February 25, 2015 2:41 am
…Carbon emissions probably have very little effect on climate, and are unstoppable at a practical political level short of nuking the whole of India and China anyway….
Er…nuking the whole of India and China (and probably much of the rest of Asia, Europe, and the Americas) would result in a HUGE carbon pulse, and lots of extra heat.
Besides, NASA satellites show major carbon outflows coming from the rain forest, so you’d better nuke that as well…
February 25, 2015 2:52 am
…As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today….
…When a political cause gains traction among those in power, a curious thing happens. Conventional ideas about right and wrong slip in priority and winning becomes so important that criminal activity and sexual impropriety become forgivable…
So, let me get this straight. You believe whole-heartedly in big government addressing big problems. But you also believe that when big government gets involved, it becomes criminal and oppressive?
Hello, Liberal. Welcome to the Libertarian viewpoint. I think you now have two choices. You can either move to the right-wing, or you can argue that the ends justify the means, and adopt National Socialism….
Moving to the right wing is not a libertarian point of view. The right wing increases the scope and power of the federal government just as willy-nilly as the left does, mostly in the same areas with some differences in order to give people an excuse to keep voting.
The two party system sells the same snake-oil with different labeling and flavors. The federal government is a runaway bureaucracy, neither party is interested in fixing that, since that would mean diminishing their power.
FDR ran deficits, Truman ran deficits (but also surpluses with a GOP Congress & rapid defense cuts), Ike had surpluses with GOP Congresses but not with Democrat, JFK ran deficits, LBJ ran deficits, Nixon had just one surplus, thanks to Democrat Congresses, Ford ran deficits under Democrat Congresses, Carter ran deficits, Reagan ran deficits, thanks to his budgets’ being declared “DoA” by Tip, Clinton ran deficits until the GOP took control of Congress & Bush ran deficits, under mixed Congressional control. Despite precipitously pulling out of Iraq, Obama will have doubled in eight years or less the national debt accumulated by all previous presidents, even with the bank bailout of 2008.
timg56 – nice fact-free, drive by comment.
Here’s a civic lesson for you – the budget process starts with the President introducing a Budget request to the House, not vice versa: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=155
Here is the impact of the deficit by Presidency: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg
My point stands, feel free to challenge it, but please provide data sources.
Because no one can hold a candle to what the current resident of 1600 Penn. Ave. has done.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/09/03/yep-obamas-a-big-spender-just-like-his-predecessors/
The truly scary part is imagine what would have happened if the socialists, er, Democrats, had retained total control of government like they had his first two years.
Chris, I noticed you skipped several posts that directly countered your assertion, and ONLY responded to the one gratuitous insult.
I would add that republican politicians have often not represented conservative ideals. (Defining conservative as a belief in small and less intrusive government, as well as the American ideal of protection of individual liberty against any “group power”.)
When you start out extremely conservative, the only compromise is to more statist solutions. To the great harm of the ideals of the Untied States of America, the compromise has now, with the current POTUS, fundamentally transformed the greatest nation on earth. The only question is will the people wake up to the massive coming failures of central statist control, after they have seen the results of such folly and will there be enough of the Constitution left to initiate a recovery.
I used to argue for that Evan, but now I’m not so sure. If science triumphs it will take centuries, as always. The issue has become so polarised with so many interests invested in this billion dollar bandwagon that, for now, politics dominate.
As Max Planck said….
Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out. Science advances one funeral at a time.
I see that Roger Pielke is now under investigation for his views by the House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. McCarthyism lives on.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/2/25/why-you-cant-trust-climatology.html
February 25, 2015 4:03 am
The Sun plays an important part in our climate, who knew?
Both sides of the debate take money from fossil fuel, who knew?
Character assassination works, who knew?
The best mechanism to spread mis-information is the media, who knew?
The AGW movement easily manipulates the media, because the media is stupid, who knew?
Alarmist only have their stupidest be the first comment on WUWT articles, who knew?
Pachauri’s is morally bankrupt, who knew?
Pachauri’s and Gore have made fortunes off of the AGW hype, who knew?
Climate science wavers between poor science and anti-science, who knew?
Anyone paying attention knows.
Anyone enamored by the toxic stench coming from the morally bankrupt, heavily financed AGW industrial noise machine, not so much.
Alx, your item – “Both sides of the debate take money from fossil fuel, who knew?
If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.
Third, just as in classical economic Marxism certain groups, i.e. workers and peasants, are a priori good, and other groups, i.e., the bourgeoisie and capital owners, are evil.
From – http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/
You, and most all of us, have been programmed for 80 years to fall for the Good Group/Bad Group thinking. The Green Blob are not really good and want to either kill or put us back in caves. Just look at their ‘optimum population’ estimates.
The PC origins is an eye-opening historical account.
February 25, 2015 4:07 am
1. I don’t believe there’s a “problem” with climate that needs “solving”.
2. Making energy more expensive and less available is no “solution” to anything.
3. Government pretends to have “solutions” all the time. Name anything in the last 150 years that government has actually “solved”. (Military action doesn’t count)
February 25, 2015 4:30 am
A very good and just essay – Thank you!
Indeed, the ruling double standards of the MSM and the Greens are really sad and should be condemned more openly…
So, why don’t we see such little interest of discussing the alleged “Pachauri” case in the MSM and the warmists blogosphere?
And, why does e.g. nobody ask, why alarmist scientists like Rahmsdorf or Schnellnhuber are allowed to take money from insurance companies which will benefit from the extreme weather panic they propagate? See e.g. here:
http://www.klimaskeptiker.info/index.php?seite=rahmstorf.php
And so on, and so forth… – Hypocrisy is ruling the green movement!
So stop to smear others and mend your own ways first…
February 25, 2015 4:36 am
“Climate change is real.”
Tell us Mr. Fuller which climate on earth has changed in the last 100 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification
“Climate change” is a reification fallacy, a nonsense marketing phrase.
February 25, 2015 4:37 am
@Alx
…”Moving to the right wing is not a libertarian point of view. The right wing increases the scope and power of the federal government just as willy-nilly as the left does..”
I don’t know which right wing you’re talking about. Perhaps the mistaken view of the right wing which the Left have tried to present for ages? In all political theory I know, the right wing look for ‘small government’…
February 25, 2015 5:59 am
So warmists, no longer controlling the Senate with votes, now are intimidating potential witnesses having facts contrary to Global Warming Alarm. That would be witness tampering in a criminal proceeding, but apparently fair game in politics. We can only hope that the other side is as diligent in discovering the extent of environmental activist money funding alarmist research.
Still, anyone deciding to testify in the upcoming Senate hearing better be ready for the hard questions (echoes of the past):
“Are you confused between weather and climate change?”
“Do you accept the writings of the UN IPCC as the scientific truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of any organization that believes CO2 is only a harmless trace gas and is essential to plant life?”
“Why is your carbon footprint so large?”
How long have you been taking money from fossil fuel companies?
“Do you advocate the overthrow of the United States Climate by force or violence?”
February 25, 2015 6:24 am
WUWT produces a lot of posts showing that the Climate Models are wrong. However, I think Christopher Essex’s video is a lot more damming. He provides an explanation of not only why the computer Climate Models are wrong, but also why they can NEVER be right. The models are not only broken, but they CAN NOT be fixed. This is why we are seeing all the puerile ad-hominem attacks.
February 25, 2015 6:28 am
hmm.
At least a few comments on Tom’s politics make me want to clarify my position.
I’m right of center and conservative, and I don’t think the government does much of anything well. I most certainly do not agree with Tom here: support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today. Mostly I wish the government would stay the heck out of it.
This wasn’t his point. He was openly stating his political views so that there be no misunderstanding of where he was coming from, that’s all he was doing there. Indeed, by highlighting that he’s from the left, he demonstrates that political differences need not trump integrity.
It’s hard to argue with that, in my view.
As always, just my two cents.
But as a Lukewarmer I see flaws in what has become a Great Cause–to me it seems to often be an excuse for NGOs to ask the public for more money, for politicians to gain easy support and to replace the stock prayer from beauty pageant contestants for world peace.
Climate change is real. The political struggle over acknowledging the scope and impacts is full of unreality.
When a political cause gains traction among those in power, a curious thing happens. Conventional ideas about right and wrong slip in priority and winning becomes so important that criminal activity and sexual impropriety become forgivable by those in service to a Cause.
Peter Gleick stole documents and forged another to attack his political opponents. Despite the gravity of this crime he was welcomed back into the fold of those promoting worst-case scenarios about the impacts of climate change as if he were a hero, not a criminal. This is not unusual in political movements. The cause becomes more important.
Al Gore was one of the first who promoted global warming as an imminent threat to human safety. His sybaritic lifestyle was evident from the first–private planes, living in a mansion, conspicuous consumption. None of that was sufficient to cause the Cause to disavow him. It still is unclear whether it was his arrest for pressuring a masseuse for sex or his sale of his television channel to a fossil fuel organization was the cause of his fall from grace–but that fall was apparently temporary, as he still speaks on global warming before green groups the world over. The rules don’t apply.
And now it is the turn of Rajendra Pachauri. Women are now speaking of a decade-long pattern of sexual harassment. Even before this revelation, Pachauri was involved in misconduct, ranging from suppressing dissent to hiding the income from his foundation. He showed incredibly poor judgment in publishing a bodice ripper of a novel while head of an organization that had been criticized by the IAC–with many of those criticisms calling into question his leadership. But it doesn’t matter. He was a champion of the Cause.
Currently, some bloggers and mainstream media sources are reviving decade-long questions about the funding of a scientist named Willie Soon, that he received funding from fossil fuel sources.
It doesn’t matter that institutions ranging from the CRU and Stanford University have received funding from fossil fuel sources, or that BEST’s Richard Muller actually got money from the Koch Brothers. It doesn’t matter that this information is old.
What matters for the Cause is that headlines of supposed misbehavior hit the news at the same time as Pachauri’s disgrace.
Because none of this is about science. It is about controlling the levers of power, making sure the right message is fed through the media channels and that funding for the right issues is uninterrupted.
Oh for the days when we talked about science.