Guest essay by Russell Cook.
First, I must credit my newest Twitter follower Geoff Simon for the news item on his timeline today about the latest web page from The Union of Concerned Scientists, “The Climate Deception Dossiers.”
Don’t be expecting detailed UCS analysis of problematic science assessments, you need only read their subtitle to see where this is headed:
“Internal fossil fuel industry memos reveal decades of disinformation—a deliberate campaign to deceive the public that continues even today.”
If that doesn’t grab your attention, their bullet points further into the page will:
- Fossil fuel companies have intentionally spread climate disinformation for decades.
- Fossil fuel company leaders knew that their products were harmful to people and the planet but still chose to actively deceive the public and deny this harm.
- The campaign of deception continues today.
Of particular interest to me is their “Deception Dossier #5: Coal’s ‘Information Council on the Environment’ Sham”, the core of which is the so-called leaked memo strategy statement “reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”
Where have we seen that phrase before? Spelled out in red letters full screen in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” movie. Who did Al Gore say discovered this revelation? Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter Ross Gelbspan, in his 1997 “The Heat is On” book, where Gelbspan insinuated the strategy to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” was carried out by Fred Singer, Pat Michaels and Robert Balling, aimed at “older, less educated men” and “young, low-income women.”
Problem is, Fred Singer was never involved with the PR campaign Gelbspan speaks of (hence the substitution of Sherwood Idso’s name in the 1998 paperback version), and Dr Singer pointed out that Gelbspan never won a Pulitzer. Add to that, others cited what Gelbspan quoted long before Gelbspan ever wrote about those phrases.
Most notably, Al Gore, in his 1992 “Earth in the Balance” book. What an inconvenient truth that is, particularly when neither he nor any other accuser after him ever proved the “reposition global warming” phrase was any sort of top-down industry directive.
Apparently, UCS people didn’t look carefully at their own evidence here, since the “Information Council on the Environment” thing was never anything more than an obscure short-lived pilot project PR campaign which only sought to bring some reality to Al Gore’s initial unfair and unbalanced global warming tirades.
![gw-minigraphic-climate-deception-dossier-5-ICE-memo[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/gw-minigraphic-climate-deception-dossier-5-ice-memo1.jpg?quality=83)
Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/images/2015/07/gw-minigraphic-climate-deception-dossier-5-ICE-memo.jpg
There’s a huge problem with the 20 year+ history of the overall accusation that skeptic climate scientists ‘lie to the public and are paid big industry money to follow the instructions of their benefactors.’ What the collective lot of accusers have abysmally failed to provide all along is evidence proving any money donated to skeptic climate scientists was given for the performance of following orders to knowingly fabricate false climate assessments.
This latest UCS “revelation” is no more than one more bit of trash to throw on that same stinking pile as growing evidence of a character assassination effort that intentionally spread disinformation for decades, where enviro-activists potentially knew their accusations were baseless, but still chose to actively deceive the public in a campaign of deception that continues right up to today.
Russell Cook blogs at GelbspanFiles.com, and is the author of the Heartland Policy Brief, “Merchants of Smear“
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Let’s not forget that the so-called Internal Strategy Memo is also the device forged by Peter Gleick to smear Heartland as being under the wing of big oil and “anti-science” a few years back. Remember how gleefully DeSmog pounced on a forgery and ran with it? Shameful. But what do you expect from propagandists?
I didn’t forget that myself, I brought it up in my November 21, 2014 blog post “The ‘Non-smoking Gun’ Leaked Memos Pattern” http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=2273
I’ve been trying to get someone…anyone to pay me for my skeptical stance on CAGW for years – to no avail.
Hell, I can’t hardly give it away!
Hoist on his own petard = lifted by his own bomb.
It is amazing that money has a variable effect. When handed out by the government to climate scientists money does not corrupt or influence the research, yet when handed out by oil companies the resulting research is nothing but a paid ad.
“•Fossil fuel companies have intentionally spread climate disinformation for decades.”
What really impresses me is that the evil fossil fuel companies knew for sure long before even the “mainstream” Climate Scientists that “CO2 is a green house gas, and we’re all gonna die!” Evil Genius strikes again! And they kept it from us just like the tobacco companies did. Surely a search of their records will finally produce the irrefutable proof we’ve been looking for! / sarc
The best solution to getting to the real truth is through applying the scientific method to the data in a double blind manner, just like the FDA and EPA do when approving drugs and chemicals. Global Warming, errr, sorry, Climate Change is the greatest example of the politicization of science since Eugenics and Lysenkoism. We simply can’t allow a group of political activists masquerading as scientists determine the direction of this great nation and global economy, especially now that new studies are pointing towards a coming little ice age.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3156594/Is-mini-ICE-AGE-way-Scientists-warn-sun-sleep-2020-cause-temperatures-plummet.html
What is needed is a Scientific Data and Conclusion Validation Administration, or SDCVA. Research being used to form public policy would be required to provide the 1) conclusion and 2) supporting data. That data would then be scrambled so that there would be two data sets, one representing the actual data and one representing the placebo. That data would then be tested scientifically and compared against the conclusions. If the published conclusions don’t match the blind test results, the research would be rejected and the researcher would need to pay back the research money.
What makes climate “science” so interesting is that there are no experiments that can be replicated, at least none that they want anyone to know about. Climate “science” relies on econometric style multivariate modeling, and anyone that works of Wall Street and is familiar with these kinds of models knows, they aren’t worth a hill of beans when it comes to forecasting the future. What the Einsteins in the Climate ‘Science” departments are learning is know by any 1st year graduate working at a research firm on Wall Street, anyone can curve fit a computer model to give unbelievable “back tested” results. The Climate “Science” departments would have had better results had they hired Bernie Maydoff to create their models.
What needs to happen is for people to demand a Congressional Hearing on this climate “science” and have the actual data and conclusions presented in a level understandable to an 8th grader so our elected officials can understand it.
1) Simply produce a chart of the Holocene. Every ice core data set I’ve tested demonstrates that a) we are well off the high temperature of the Holocene and 2) there is nothing statistically abnormal about the past 50 and 150 years temperature variation.
2) Al Gore’s own chart demonstrates CO2 lags temperature and that previous temperature peaks were higher than today.
3) CO2 has been as high as 7,000 PPM, and temps never got above 22 degree C, we fell into an ice age when CO2 was 4,000 PPM.
4) The oceans are warming, there is no way for atmospheric CO2 radiating at 15 microns to warm the oceans.
5) CO2 is transparent to viable light, viable light warms the earth. Daytime temperatures have been increasing. There is no way for CO2 to cause record daytime temperatures. Absorbing and re-radiating heat can not warm a body, it can only slow cooling. Record daytime temperatures can not be explained by CO2.
6) The atmosphere most likely to be impacted by CO2 would be the extremely cold and dry air of the S Pole. It shows no warming over 50 years even though CO2 has increased by about 100 PPM, or 30%+.
I could go on and on about the flaws in this theory, but until we have an effective watch dog, real science won’t matter. The activists have successfully used the tobacco fiasco to silence any corporation from entering into these kinds of debates. That has left the fox to guard the hen house, where activists, NGOs, Government Researchers, liberal universities, public schools, the gullible media and Government Agencies act with impunity as they push their agenda, void of any fear of being exposed. It is a classic fascist approach to science and ruling the people. It isn’t who casts the vote, it is who counts the vote that matters, and the people counting the climate “science” vote are as corrupt as they come, and a simple unbiased, uninterested, uncorrupted, objective agency to review the science, data and conclusions of research used to support public policy. Bottom line, we’ve given the Climate “Scientists” all the rope they’ve needed to hang themselves. Now we just need them to answer for their crimes. They’ve published their models, and here are their results. No credible “science” would defend such garbage.
If these people worked on Wall Street, or for a Drug or Oil company they would be in prison. We can’t have 2 sets of laws and rules in this country. What is good for the goose. Liberals would use this kind of data to destroy who ever produced it, yet they remain quiet.
Like you say, they’ve been given enough rope. They’ve already gone off the rails, the wreck smoulders, but EMS ain’t there yet.
==========
Co2islife.
Tropical mid-troposphere 20S-20N. RCP8.5 model ensemble.
Trend line intercept adjusted to zero. Data going back to only 1979 when CMIP-5 can go back to 1850 (I believe).
Cherry-picking anyone?
“harrytwinotter July 11, 2015 at 9:20 pm”
harry, the hypotheses involved in the idea that “CO2 drives Climate” aka “[CO2-]Climate Change” aka CO2=CAGW aka…aka….have a perfect record of 100% Prediction Failure – of which Spencer’s Graph is but one example; meaning that the hypotheses are Scientifically Falsified. In other words, according to the principles of real science, there is something seriously wrong with the hypotheses [still] claiming that rising CO2 levels are changing the Climate in any empirically observable way.
Also, only because you made the claim, show us where the CMIP-5 correctly represents GMT’s going back to 1850.
“Co2islife.
Tropical mid-troposphere 20S-20N. RCP8.5 model ensemble.
Trend line intercept adjusted to zero. Data going back to only 1979 when CMIP-5 can go back to 1850 (I believe). Cherry-picking anyone?”
Really? You obviously have never built a multi-variable model. Any fool can curve fit historical data. Wall Street has countless “back-tested” models that are pure crap. They mean nothing. What is important is that the models have a theoretical basis that is valid to that they forecast the future. The climate models were created recently, so what is important is how well they forecast the future. Climate “scientists” are simply learning what every 1st year Wall Street analysts is learning. Curve fitting is pure junk.
Let’s forget “cherry picking” time periods and simply focus on the basics:
1) Is there enough CO2 in the atmosphere to materially change the pH of the oceans? Nope.
2) Is there a way for CO2, which absorbs 13 to 17 microns with a peak of 15 microns to warm something that emits at 10 microns? Nope. BTW, 13 microns represents -50 degree C, 15 represents -80 degree C.
3) The oceans are warming. is it possible to shine an IR lamp of peak radiation of 15 microns onto water and warm it? Nope.
4) All green house gasses are increasing, not just the man made ones. Hows is that?
5) Sea level isn’t increasing at an increasing rate, which it would if we were truly warming at an abnormal rate.
6) Cherry pick any ice core data you want and see if we are currently at the peak temperature of the Holocene. We aren’t. Test the variation of the past 50 and 150 years. You will find there is nothing statistically different about that period.
Unlike climate scientists, I don’t rely on cherry picking, I simply use their own data and theory to prove they are frauds.
BTW, methane is claimed to be a greenhouse gas. Green house gasses require a dipole so the molecule can vibrate. Methane doesn’t have a dipole.
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/@api/deki/files/8656/Figure_2_Caption.png?revision=1
“hoisted on their own petard”
The correct phrase is “Hoist by their own petard”
It is not being hung up by a “petard”. A petard is a bomb intended to blow open a door. The phrase refers to being blown up by your own bomb, or by something intended to harm another person. A common misuse of the phrase.
It’s the pot calling the kettle black. The so-called Union of Concerned Scientists are the biggest frauds around; pretending to be a group of scientists when they are in reality a political advocacy group emphasizing “scientific” issues. Only a small fraction of their membership are actually scientists; just like every other 501(c) non-profit which includes religious, educational, social welfare, labor, and agricultural groups and social and recreational clubs. It’s not illegal, but it is deceptive.