After the Willie Soon imbroglio there came news that Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., who is not a climate skeptic, is also under investigation (in what can only be seen as part of a broader witch-hunt). Pielke Jr. writes on his blog, “the Climate Fix” about undisclosed Conflicts Of Interest (COI):
I have Tweeted that undisclosed COI is endemic in scientific publishing. I have had several requests for elaboration.
Here is a great example.
This paper was published by ERL in 2010: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/1/014017/fulltext/
It has a list of 53 co-authors. The ERL publication policy states:
“All authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest when submitting their article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licenses, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc). This information should be included in an acknowledgments section at the end of the manuscript (before the references section). All sources of financial support for the project must also be disclosed in the acknowledgments section. The name of the funding agency and the grant number should be given, for example: “This work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through a National Cancer Institute grant R21CA141833.””
There was no COI disclosure whatsoever associated with this paper.
The 53 authors include (for example) Joe Romm, Hal Harvey and Amory Lovins each of whom had massive undisclosed financial COI (obviously and easily documented) associated with renewable energy and political advocacy. No doubt other co-authors do as well. Further, several of these co-authors have also testified before Congress without COI disclosure.
Two points:
- The lack of COI disclosure in this case does not mean that the paper is in any way in error.
- The lack of COI disclosure in this case does not in any way justify or excuse similar lack of COI disclosure by Willie Soon. But it does point to the incredible selectivity of outrage in standards of COI disclosure, e.g., as applied by the NYT and US Congress. The Soon case and the example here are exactly parallel.
If COI disclosure is a good idea, and I think that it is, then it should be applied consistently across academic publishing and testimony, rather than being used as a selectively applied political bludgeon by campaigning journalists and politicians seeking to delegitimize certian academics whose work they do not like.
To be clear on Pielke’s point, Romm is paid to run the political attack blog “Climate Progress” by the Center for American Progress, a progressive (liberal) political action group in Washington, DC. according to his bio there. According the the lastest IRS form 990 on file (required for tax exempt 501c3 organizations) Romm’s outfit collected over 39 million dollars in revenue in 2012. See form 990 here: CAP_300126510_2012_09818b30
The Center for American Progress has a long history of big political money:
Funny how Joe Romm didn’t see the need to disclose such potential conflicts of interest to a highly paid political organization that politicizes climate, while writing a scientific paper about climate. Meanwhile his blog attacks Willie Soon saying:
Climate Deniers’ Favorite Scientist Quietly Took Money From The Fossil Fuel Industry
Joe, pot, kettle.
The label “paid shill” doesn’t really do justice here to Romm’s hypocrisy.
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Sunspot number: 39.
Progressives in the US live and wallow in hypocrisy. They see hypocrisy as a badge of honor, to point out the faults of others while lying to hide their own. The Progressive credo: “If you aren’t lying, you aren’t tryin’.”
+1. I actually think this is a DNA issue. There’s some gene that completely blinds them to hypocrisy.
Typical conversation:
Prog: “All of your points are just talking points from Big Oil”
Me: “But…everything you’ve said is from MoveOn, RealClimate, and 350.org, and is completely unsubstantiated.”
Prog: “See?…Big Oil.”
The fact of the matter is that many journals simply don’t require you to discuss your financial support at all. Oftentimes, financial support is noted not because the journals require it but the granting agencies. Not mentioning financial support should not be automatically be construed as dishonest – only where there is significant potential for conflict of interest.
To close the loop – the TomKat Foundation is a major contributor to CAP, according to the link to their form 990 above – CAP_300126510_2012_09818b30. the Tom Kat Foundation is Steyer’s foundation, named for him and his wife Katherine. According to this NYT article, Steyer also was the major financial backer of Greener Capital “a venture capital firm that invests in renewable energy startups.”
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/a-foil-for-the-koch-brothers/?_r=0
So Joe Romm’s funding comes from someone with a major financial interest in the renewable energy industry.
When Romm went after Naomi Klein a couples years back you could see clear evidence that some of the more strident individuals really had their own “agendas,” not a common purpose. Now with the Grijalva and Pielke fiasco it starts to hit a critical mass. After all, we can’t let facts get in the way of each player’s personal story-line. I’ll boldly predict that Paris will be a giant nosebleed, and if I’m wrong, well … I’ll never admit it
Grijalva’s, Boxer’s, Markey’s and Whitehouse’s inquisitional inquiries wrt disclosure of funding sources are part of a tired old scripted myth. Their scripts are the same as the paranoid mythology of an oil funded con$piracy believed fervently in by Naomi Oreskes in her irrationally premised book ‘Merchants of Doubt’ (published 2010). To show Oreskes’ con$piracy theory is myth we only need to use a corollary Feynman’s original version** of his fundamental scientific concept (philosophy of science).
My corollary of Feynman’s original view** of scientific method is as follows: If you know who enabled (funded) a piece of climate focused scientific research, the validity of the scientific research is the same as if you did not know who enabled (funded) a piece of climate focused scientific research.
OK, there will be endless finely tuned administrative parsing of conflict of interest policies focused on funding sources. I understand that will happen. But that kind of conflict of interest meme is not of scientific essence, that conflict of interest meme is just a subjective socio-political perception issue. Within the scientific method the discussion of conflict of interest in doing research should only be focused on the researcher disclosing in his research any of his findings and any of the data he saw that were contrary to his research findings.
** Feynman’s original version of his fundamental scientific concept (philosophy of science),
John
Thanks for this, I often forget that a brief dose of Feynman solves many of our problems, both personal and scientific
Mark from the Midwest,
To me he seemed to be healthily irreverent toward self-important members of his community, and fairly humble of himself.
John
John Whitman is right is saying “But that kind of conflict of interest meme is not of scientific essence, that conflict of interest meme is just a subjective socio-political perception issue.”
Also, AndyE was right earlier when he wrote “But can’t they see that the source of funding really does not matter. … The only thing that counts is the quality and honesty of the research – and that will (ideally) be revealed by other scientists checking on its findings.”
Funding sources do not constitute a conflict of interest in any meaningful sense. Otherwise, any Assistant Professor who wants to get tenure obviously has a conflict of interest. If a topic has any policy implications, which is really the only case where we care about a conflict of interest, then anyone with a political or moral philosophy has a conflict of interest. So basically, anyone who is breathing has a conflict of interest. And I have not noticed dead people doing much research.
Some might say “of course everyone has a conflict of interest, we just want them disclosed”. That will be the end of science.
Conflict of interest, with respect to publishing, should be tightly defined to only cover things like a direct financial interest in the work or giving editorial input to people not listed as authors. Otherwise, it will be like labels on bottles of chemicals: when everything is labelled hazardous, it makes it hard to spot the genuine hazards.
Funding can create bias because of the way that peer review encourages herd behavior by researchers. That is a problem, but disclosing funding sources will do nothing to reduce the problem.
Mike M.,
I think we can un-cynically expect that savage internecine tribal spats about credibility between advocates of rival climate focused scientific research funding sources will be the rule. But the climate focused scientific research itself, independent of funding source credibility spats, stands by itself in the hot crucible of an open and free scientific marketplace of discourse about all climate focused scientific research.
John
Grijalva and Boxer (that’s Ma’am Boxer) need to be reminded of an old fighter pilot’s words of wisdom:
“Tracers work equally well in both directions ! ”
PS That’s how you actually get to be an OLD fighter pilot.
Pesky “apostates”, pointing out flaws in “settled science”, are targets for witch trials. It changes the subject, and sends the message, “!(F = me)”. A “true believer” is not in danger of the barbecue.
There is one standard for “The Team”, and another one for the “Enemies List”.
This is just “Scientific Suppression 101”. If it weren’t for the development of the internet, most people would only whisper about it in “safe” company. When science threatens the power that be, it becomes a blood sport.
There is a good reason why people feel compelled to discount the science in these situations. Credibility.
If a scientist knowingly violates protocol when publishig his or her work, can that same scientist ever truly be trusted? If they are willing to disregard one protocol, why not five of ten?
It’s called reasonable doubt. It can just as easily be avoided by adhering to protocol. If people find this to be good reason to question the legitimacy of the science, the scientist alone is to blame. If you get caught cheating you shouldnt be surprised when people call you a cheater.
As for the selective outrage, that’s been a staple of the left for years now, As my grandmother used to say, “it all depends on which baby pees on you.”
All this is so sad and predictable. We should not be surprised at the perfidity of those who want to wipe out our way of civilization.
It is science Jim, but not as as we know it.
R.I.P. Spock.
He lived long and he prospered . . . .
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/10800000/Mr-Spock-mr-spock-10874060-1036-730.jpg
John
Thanks, John and Patrick.
Here is a good eulogy on Leonard Nimoy.
And here is his famous warning of the coming Ice Age.
The “Two Spocks” Audi commercial was one of the best recent showings of Leonard.
Bravely go, Mr. Spock.
Experience has taught me that ‘mud slingers’ invariable have a more than adequate supply of their own ‘mud’. They readily accuse others of doing what they themselves do. The ‘debate’ degenerates to a contest of ad hominems.
The global warming crowd are not scientists. They are political operatives disguised as scientists and using fake science to impose their political beliefs upon everyone else. They will use any means – moral or immoral, legal or illegal. They have no conscience. They have no ethics. They have no sense of fair play. ‘Whatever it Takes’ is their mantra. Stop treating the global warmers as reasonable honest people. They aren’t !
Ever notice that, on the cover of AlGore’s book, the hurricane-the one emerging from the smokestack- is turning the WRONG WAY?
Dumb.
And a divinity school dropout, too!
Preachy, but can’t be bothered to get his facts straight.
People believe that climate science, as an institution, has been corrupted by money and politics. The CAGW advocates now want to show that: (1) the corruption goes both ways since skeptics take money as well, and (2) peer review is flawed because it didn’t pick it up.
Exactly how does this help their cause?
“The CAGW advocates now want to show that: (1) the corruption goes both ways since skeptics take money as well…”
Actually, I don’t think this is at all accurate. While WE believe that is what’s happening, they have no belief whatsoever that their funding is in any way corrupt. They’re not saying “It’s ok for US to be currupt because YOU are TOO.” They believe they are pure, and anyone who disagrees with them is pure evil.
I Googled :”W Soon, climate” and the first 3 pages consist entirely of quotations from media groups and others condemning him , usually with a quote from Gavin Schmidt that “his (Soon’s) work is virtually worthless” . If that is so , why the frenzy to bury him?
The Wiki article is malicious in the extreme and really quite shocking. It is difficult to see how any sceptical approach to CO2 related physics can ever now be carried out given this atmosphere of sheer hatred of non- consenting ideas.
Incidentally the 2003 Climate Research article with Sallie Baliunas, which caused staffers to lose their jobs, is freely available . It seems to be a comprehensive analysis of the work of very many research groups , the sort of work that, in less febrile times , would be a classic research tool for subsequent young researchers.
It’s pretty clear that the Warmists believe they can’t possibly ever have a conflict of interest, so long as their research and findings are supportive of “the cause”. In their world, there are only 2 things that need to be discerned: those things that support “the cause” and those things that are in conflict to “the cause”.
Ok, so how about banning all fossil-fuel funding, for anything to do with weather, ecology, emissions or climate. That’ll fix it.
And who will lose out the most?
R
how about enacting smart regulations that will allow individual homes, churches and small business to profit from the investment of solar and battery storage equipment investments (as well as the inherent safety gains by having local power generation in the event of a potential natural disaster)?
Who doesn’t have that now? If you generate electricity, through ANY means, and you have excess…it goes back to the grid via a Smart Meter, and you get paid for it. At least in most areas in the U.S. that I’m aware of.
Agenda 21 = Global Governance is the aim. Climate Change is the key to it. Once you put the two together the rest becomes obvious.
Yup.
..
You put the two of them together and you get an Alchoa Bonnet.
[Off topic. ~mod.]
Another major difference between Soon’s papers and this one by Romm is that the latter is not exactly addressing anything which is politically controversial (a method for measuring energy efficiency, really?), and I doubt Romm was called to testify to Congress on this not-so “heated” issue.
What does that have to do with the journal policy requiring disclosure?
Barry is trying to frame the debate as: ‘Dr. Soon’s paper was political’.
Give iut up, Barry. You lost the argument long ago.
The Center for American Progress received $835,837.00 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund between 2003-2012 (8 Grants).
http://www.rbf.org/grants_grantees/search/results?tid=All&field_grant_amount_value%5Brange%5D=&date_filter%5Bmin%5D%5Byear%5D=&date_filter%5Bmax%5D%5Byear%5D=&keys=Center+for+American+Progress&sort_by=field_grant_award_date_value&sort_order=DESC&items_per_page=10
Also the American Meteorological Society (AMS) fires back at Grijalva, h/t Steve Goddard/Tony Heller;
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/ams-fires-back-against-the-obama-led-witch-hunt/
The greatest threat to national security is the truth seeker ( whistle-blower) Here’s a snapshot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers .
Are governments into big business ? OR
Are big businesses into governing?
This family is into both http://educate-yourself.org/ga/RFcontents.shtml
Anyone who has worked in, or with, a government bureaucracy knows that they pad their annual budget requests. The same is true of university departments. If any funding is unspent toward the end of a fiscal year (or grant period) there is a mad scramble to shovel dollars out the door and make it look like even more money is needed next time. Climate research is no different.
Can the race for funding distort science? Of course it can. Can personal bias distort science? Of course it can. Trust the scientific method, not the scientist.
I’d suggest annual revenues on the graphic as a better indicator of their effect on the debate. Assets show more of a war chest kind of information.
Except the Joe Romm paper has nothing to do with climate change science of. In this pathetic attempt of false equivalency your article is a total and complete FAIL.
The true issue here is that the individual entities who GAIN THE MOST from preventing real and necessary regulations that will help save American lives are FUNDING science that is beneficial to their arguments AND this DIRECT funding, (which happens to result in the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans) is not being disclosed.
So, tell me, where do you stand with Donor’s Trust and Heritage Foundation support for your disinformation campaigns? (that will lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans – and tens of thousands of Americans)???
Jai,
Not to put too fine a point on it but you are [trimmed].
[Please do not insult fruitcakes on this site by comparing them to CAGW acolytes. They have feelings too. Dates, nuts, fruits, …. calories. All sorts of good things. .mod]
Hundreds of millions? Huh. I’m really afraid to ask this…but I just gotta.
What’s the math behind that one?…AND, is that figure “net”? Meaning does it indicate the number of deaths MINUS the number of lives saved because they can afford heat, running water, electricity, etc?
fyi I have screen captured the above comment in case you (again) wish to censor it.
jai mitchell says:
…that will lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans…
That is one of the most egregious examples of psychological projection I’ve read here in a long time — and I’ve read a lot of them. Projection like that seems to be a tactic of the alarmist cult.
The deaths of millions must be laid at the feet of reprobates like you and your alarmist pals. The use of fossil fuels has proven to not only save lives, but the raising of fuel costs due to using food as fuel certainly causes mass deaths. The worldwide riots a few years ago, from the Middle East to Mexico, were due to ethanol laws jacking up the cost of food staples. But of course, that was A-OK with you and your pals.
So you are complicit with the murder of millions, just because you are promoting your debunked “carbon” Narrative. Further: the rise in harmless CO2 has been proven to be entirely beneficial to the biosphere; there is no downside. It lowers the cost of food, and it is beneficial to the entire biosphere. But you want it curtailed — starving lots of folks.
I have no doubt that you can rationalize your failed position, rather than admit to those indisputable facts. You rationalize everything that you don’t project onto others. Really despicable.
So let’s ask the residents of countries like India, China, Russia, Mexico, and a hundred other dirt poor countries if they agree with you — or if they agree with scientific skeptics.
You know damn well what the answer would be: they would tell you and your pals to BUTT OUT! Your constant, self-serving do-gooderism is killing them, and the ones who escape starvation cannot save enough money to raise themselves out of poverty: almost all their meager income goes to feed them and their families. But YOU want to make life even harder for them! In a just and honest world, you and your ilk would be serving long terms in the penitentiary.
And one more thing: you are terrified of being ‘censored’ here, but you never say a word about the non-stop censoring of skeptics’ comments in the mainstream media, or in alarmist blogs. Hypocrite. This is one of the few sites that doesn’t censor. But if it did, what are you gonna do about it? Your comment makes you sound like a preemptive crybaby.
” The worldwide riots a few years ago, from the Middle East to Mexico, were due to ethanol laws jacking up the cost of food staples.”
…
WRONG….
…
The Middle East food staple is wheat, not corn. Ethanol is made from corn, not from wheat.
@Reed B:
I only minored in Econ, but from that comment, I can see that’s no specialty of yours.
Look up ‘substitution’.
No, the people of the Middle East eat bread made from wheat. The rising price of CORN did not impact them.
Let’s discontinue this pointless discussion. Wheat and corn are substitutes for each other. So I’m outa here [unless you decide to goad me like before. As you know, I rarely turn the other cheek.]
If you need to argue with someone, argue with these folks. If they don’t explain the ‘substitution effect’ to your liking, there are plenty more who will explain it for you. It’s Econ 1A.
Ok…I’ll take a stab 😉
So…when people who NORMALLY buy CORN as a food source, suddenly find that CORN has INCREASED in cost due to increased demand caused by being used to manufacture ETHANOL, they to some degree turn to OTHER sources, such as WHEAT, etc…which in turn puts INCREASED pricing/inventory demands on WHEAT.
See what I did there?
And you can cap the whole ethanol thing off with the admission by Gore, who brought this fresh hell to us to begin with, admitting that actually, ethanol ISN’T all that good for the environment either, but he did it because he “felt bad” for the farmers, which we know is crap. He did it because he needed their votes.
That last part was just bonus pts for ya 🙂
jimmaine
And King Ethanol maintains its voting power NOT because it is useful for the country, but because the Iowa caucus is the FIRST presidential voting area – and each of those small-town caucus can be dominated by very, very small but organized groups who then control the voting and speeches at each individual meeting in each individual small town. (Often, as few as 15 – 25 are in a meeting. Importing 8 enthusiastic and “informed” and dominant people into a meeting of 20? Easy to set the agenda.)
In the past (when the farmers were the majority of the people in the meeting), if you didn’t support “corn as fuel” then you don’t get the “corn vote”. In 2008, the enviro’s used the ethanol argument as renewable fuel to against global warming continue the subsidies. (That is, use out-of-state tax monies to go to the federal government, which then writes policy to send that money to Iowa voters (er, farmers).
Obola used this small meeting very profitably in 2008 by busing in additional pro-Obola students to the these small meetings from out-of-state universities and out-of-town universities to the area. (Don’t ask where he got the money to do this. Don’t ask where he got the “organizers” to get the “students” together in the college towns to get on the busses. You are not supposed to be able to ask those questions – hence the need for Internet Neutering Act (er, Equality) by the democrat party elites.)
jimmaine,
Thanks for that explanation. When one good or service becomes high priced, another, similar product is substituted. In Economics this is referred to as the principle of “substitution”.
People are not going to starve, or even waste a lot of their income, on wheat, when corn is cheaper, and vice-versa. Ethanol has disrupted the food supply, and that is the reason for the food riots in Mexico, Libya, Sudan, and other countries when ethanol mandates became law.
Jai said
Quote
Except the Joe Romm paper has nothing to do with climate change science of. In this pathetic attempt of false equivalency your article is a total and complete FAIL.
Unquote
Hypocrite, ethics only apples to one aspect of science eh, …………………………….