Naomi Orsekes’ big intellectual contribution to the climate debate is her fantasy that skeptics copy tactics from the tobacco lobby. It’s a trick to reframe real criticism — Dr A spots a real error, but Oreskes waves the “Tobacco tactic!” red flag. Stop the conversation!
Not only are these ad hom attacks tactics as old as the stone age, bone obvious, and used in every political hot-potato debate, but “tobacco tactics” are the stock and trade of Prof Naomi Oreskes. She’s make a whole career out of mimicking the tobacco industry.
Oreskes wrote an entire book designed to denigrate scientists based on tenuous links on unrelated topics with 20 year old documents. She is The Merchant of Doubt — it’s what she sells — “doubts” about the motivation of skeptical scientists. Her fantasies about skeptics using tobacco tactics is pure psychological projection. Perhaps she isn’t aware?
In a science debate about the climate, the only things that matter are evidence and reasoning about the climate. Those who can’t point out flaws in the science debate launch personal attacks from the gutter instead. What has tobacco got to do with Earth’s Climate? It’s not a forcing or a feedback, but the smoke sure clouds the public discussion.
A. O. SCOTT, NY Times,unwittingly writes a parody of Oreskes:
The pro-tobacco strategy also called for smearing critics and invoking noble ideals like personal freedom against inconvenient facts like nicotine addiction.
Oreskes “smears critics” and invokes the noble ideal that believers in man-made climate change are doing it to help the poor and the planet. That doesn’t fit the facts, where believers get paid three thousand times more than skeptics, and don’t care when the poor starve, or when their pet projects end up chopping and frying the wildlife they were meant to save. Hey, accidents happen, but it’s the response (or lack of) to the unintended consequences that telegraphs their real intentions.
The reference is to the long campaign to obfuscate and undermine attempts to make the public aware of the dangers of cigarettes. As early as the 1950s, tobacco companies were aware — thanks to their own research — that their products were hazardous and habit forming, but they waged a prolonged and frequently successful campaign to suppress and blur the facts. Their tactics included sending dubiously credentialed experts out into the world to disguise dishonesty as reasonable doubt. “We just don’t know.” “The science is complicated.” “We need more research.”
Who suppresses and blurs the facts in the climate debate? Could that be people who talk about tobacco instead of clouds and humidity?
Who sends out dubiously credentialed experts? Sounds like the Nobel Prize winners, who got “Peace” prizes because they weren’t smart enough to win a Physics prize (like these skeptics did). Or worse, is it like people who didn’t even win a Nobel Peace Prize but like to pretend they did? Is that dubious enough?
As for telling the world the cop-out “the science is complicated” — it’s not what skeptics do, instead it’s the alarmist modus operandi. The science is so “complicated” only certified approved climate experts can see the future, and riff raff like brain surgeons, nuclear physicists, and Fourier mathematicians are too stupid to be able to form an opinion on something as complex as a climate model. Besides, thousands of these independent “non-climate-experts” are being paid by Phillip Morris to seed doubts. You’ve never seen a conspiracy theory as big as this one.
What’s remarkable is that Orsekes is playing the weakest of hands, yet some journalists, columnists, and “scientists” can’t see through it.
From a post I wrote about The Merchant of Doubt in 2012:
Oreskes, the Queen of Climate Smear, ignores the big money, has no evidence, throws names
The skeptics seed doubts by questioning the evidence and pointing to contrary results (isn’t this known as “discussion”?). Oreskes seeds doubts by digging through biographies, analyzing indirect payments of minor amounts, hunting through unrelated topics and tenuous associations from 20 year old contracts.
- Oreskes can name virtually no significant funding for skeptics. Skeptics are almost all unpaid volunteers, working out of professional and patriotic duty, appalled by the illogical, anti-science sentiments of people like Oreskes.
- The enormous “vested interests” are well over a thousand to one in favor of alarmism as measured by funding, yet Oreskes has not even considered them. The largest proactive skeptical organization (Heartland) has a budget that is one hundredth of Greenpeace and WWF’s combined. Funding for alarmist research since 1990 is at least $79 billion, and probably a lot higher. Funding for skeptical research is so small, no one can add it up. The oil giants like Shell and BP mostly support alarmism and carbon markets. The global carbon market was worth $176 bn in 2011, about the same as the global wheat trade, and the renewables investments added up to $243 bn in 2010. These are very large amounts of vested interest. Because Oreskes is blind to the real money in the debate we can only assume she is an activist rather than a historian.
- She resorts to twenty year old documents about tobacco funding to smear by association because she has so little real evidence of actual funding or misbehavior of skeptics. As it happens, Fred Singer was never directly paid by a tobacco company, has never doubted that smoking causes cancer, but corrected a scientific statistical error in a paper on passive smoking. He deserves thanks. Oreskes owes him an apology.
While skeptical scientists always criticize the scientific claims of the Climate-Fear Lobby, Oreskes can’t fight back on that front, because she’s completely out of her depth. She wrote that a pH of 6.0 denotes neutrality (p. 67) and that Beryllium is a heavy metal (p. 29) and she blames “Oxygen-15” in cigarette smoke for being the cause of lung cancer, though she could not explain how this radioactive isotope is generated in cigarettes. She doesn’t realize it has a half life of 122 seconds. No wonder she trawls through the gutter instead of debating a guy like Fred Singer on the science. She wouldn’t stand a chance.
Just proof-reading, I think “(like these skeptics did)” is supposed to be a link?
–You were too quick. (But yes, fixed). – Jo
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Of course, it’s supposed to be “as these sceptics did,” innit?
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note you misspell Oreskes frequently as Orsekes
—You were quick too. 😉 But I’m sure there was only one left. Ta. … jo
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For some reason I cannot fathom, ORESTES always comes to my mind. The intriguing thing is she is a real geologist – from Imperial to, the College of Mining – though I don’t think Arthur Scargill was a lecturer there then, so she knows a great deal of the earths climate history.
In 1999 she wrote an insightful work about how the geological establishment fought to the last ditch to avoid accepting “continental drift”. Now she is giving TED lectures
(5/2014) telling us “Why we should trust scientists”. In respect of dissenters to CAGW she has adopted the role of an avenging fury. Aha – that is the ORESTES connection, she fancies herself as an ERINYES. Freud would have a field day – as would Dr.Fritz Fassbender. (Look it up).
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It’s the money! Write something that sells!
Fiction will do.
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Maybe it’s her good looks…….
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Please, I was eating…
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If she is a geo then she has no excuse. I have come across them too, 3rd grade minds. In fact in my career only 10% of geos have required imagination to think out of the box. out of more 2 billion Chinese, Japanese and Indians I did not come across a single person that can think out of the box. Excellent copiers and mind for business but that does not mean that they can think differently. Look that the the vast majority of inventions that come from the west. But you have to be born with it.
In addition Some 90% are not brave enough to stand out by themselves and defend their ideas but to for most of them this is only a job and they could care less. Now that a lot of them are unemployed they keep even more quiet. This why prof. Carter is a such minority.
Most people when are confronted by me retreat and do not engage. Reasons are cowardness but also not enough knowledge. Recently I tried to engage someone to no avail but I am pretty sure that he hates me now because as I exposed these 2 shortcomings. In fact in his mind he probably plots now how to get rid of me.
That geo character Orestes is no different.
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So Dariusz, it seems to me that you are suggesting that the Chinese, Japanese and Indian peoples are genetically predisposed to not being able to think or invent? I do hope that your comments have not offended a great many people. Perhaps you are just a little unaware of their history? Did the Chinese for example have flying machines before the Wright brothers claimed the mantle?
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I suspect that there is a cultural impediment to those who cultivate the habit of thinking outside of the box. It was, for a long time, the mode of thinking for the “West“.
What makes the West different is the Enlightenment that was at least in part facilitated by the rule of law¹ and the concepts of freedom of expression². Further, the Reformation and the increasing separation of Church and State allowed the Enlightenment to propagate. Challenging the Church’s “science” was no longer punished (officially) as heresy.
The tangible successes of the Enlightenment lubricated the acceptance of its foundation stones as self-evident.
It’s the cultures that shape the minds, not the genetics.
———
¹ Since the Ælfred’s Domboc in Wessex and possibly earlier. Subsequently the Magna Carta and even the Sassen Speyghel on the continent. Yes; it’s “all” the dirty work of the Saxons; this rule of law idea.
² “Insolence” is also a common “tribal” characteristic of Saxons. 🙂 But they didn’t invent free speech.
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The cultural aspect is very important and often overlooked or misunderstood. While contracting at a large US company that was collaborating with an Asian company on a new product that cultural issue became very apparent.
They supplied the base hardware, our engineer supplied the firmware and the hardware to interface with the base hardware. There would be circumstances where, in order to accomplish what was intended, the firmware that controlled the base hardware and sometimes the base hardware itself would need slight modifications.
Video conferences between widely separated time zones can be complicated enough, add in the cultural difference and it can get really interesting. The Asian company we were working with had some very bright engineers, but their culture placed more emphasis on things like saving face, being accommodating, etc. to where many conferences would end with our engineers thinking a requested change was understood and would be implemented when their engineers didn’t really understand the request and/or did not want to be the ones to say it cannot be done.
Thinking “outside the box” by its nature involves taking risks, doing what no one else is doing, asking “what if…” Depending on one’s culture these may not be so much “foreign” concepts as things that are looked down upon.
When one’s culture values conformity, then the unique ideas of the non-conformist are lost. Sadly that is what I see happening to us in the West. The individuality, the willingness to try what no one else is doing because no one else is doing it, is slowly dying. The left with it’s fear of anyone who thinks differently than they do is doing its best to hasten that death in my opinion.
The great achievments were not made by the conformists.
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Bernd, that is an interesting and good point re the separation of church and state with regards to influencing thought within a society. I know it was a problem for the West but have the Chinese, Indian and Japanese cultures suffered from this malaise too? Right now we have the Catholic Church, which wields some influence in the West, backing this AGW scam too. It would seem that the AGW meme has most rapidly taken off in the Western cultures and not to the same extent in the Eastern cultures. As much as the AGW thing is said to be a communist ideal, our good trading mates, the Chinese, seem to be untroubled by it.
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I am not in business to offend anyone. I observe and interpret. If black person is a bum it is the same as the white ones. Makes no difference.
I have not come across Chinese, Indian or Japanese that were thinking out of the box. They suck info out of me and learn but still can,t do what I do.
Last time I heard about Chinese inventions was some 1000 years ago. Japanese are trying to create robots in a very mechanical way with no progress, despite loving science So much. US created robots that run using using animal behaviour.
And yes if think that your Japanese appliance like DVD, flat screens, phones, computers were invented by them think again.
Wonder why you did not comment on 90% of geologist vast majority white that I am also critical about. Willy Soon is not one of them.
If you want me to be politically correct? Fat chance from me.
Thinking out of the box does not mean you go stupid. UN, EU think out of the box, greens do that all the time, nazis thought out of the box too. People flying planes into buildings were also thinking out of the box.
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Dariusz, I figured that if you were a geologist yourself that you would be in a position to criticize your colleagues (even 90% of them) but it just seemed like an extraordinary stretch to extrapolate the criticism to whole nations of 2 billion people. I did contemplate it for a while though after Bernd comments and it occurred to me that much of the inventions that we see developed in the West are not just products of thinking, but are supported by education, research and development which itself is a product of being reasonably wealthy. Nations like China and India certainly have less wealth per capita. While we might pride ourselves on inventing the latest cordless toaster, there is probably little motivation or opportunity for the average Chinese or Indian person to do that. So I guess it boils down to how we measure what is important to us. Indeed the Chinese have used and perhaps even invented computing machines such as the abacus which you might dismiss as just a primitive 1000 year old invention but on the scale of what was important to their culture, this might be as big a deal as an iPhone is to us. You talk about being born into a thinking culture but from your own account you claim to have been raised in a very repressive communist culture (presumably born into it?) but have managed to become a top rated ‘out of the box thinker’ so it would seem to me that even a Chinese person from a communist culture could be expected to be capable of doing the same once given access to those things. When you look at the current crop of PhD candidates in pretty much all Australian universities you notice the huge proportion of Chinese and Indian names there. I don’t suggest that they might all be out of the box thinkers but statistically it is significant. China claims to have landed a rover on the moon, while India claims to have sent a probe to Mars for just a few bucks.
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China and India are economically getting “stronger & stronger” and meanwhile the EU is fast becoming an economic “basket case”. The EU has many personnel who do think “out of the box” but all it seems to have achieved is pushing the EU literally back into the box/coffin, economically speaking that is – a case of Idealistic Self Destruction via “leftie govt thinking out of the box” pollies encouraging fast tracking to hopelessly un-economic RE and wondering why so many of their member countries are in a state of collapse e.g PIIGS & more.
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I tried to engage with my 48 yo daughter, a Professor of Astrophysics at a major US university. She just gasped ” don’t you know that CO2 is a GREENHOUSE GAS” (almost shouting) and refused to discuss further. Sad.
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I feel for you. My daughter in her 40s is doing a sustainability degree and sometimes gets very animated that I cannot agree with her warmist stance – as its proven that 97% of scientists agree with her (shouted that last bit).
The thing is that my daughter really does care about the environment. She has been brainwashed.
I do wonder if there is a generational thing going on here. Talking to Gen Ys I find they MAY no longer think differently to the PC memes or they get socially, politically and financially ostracised and won’t get a job which they really, really need to pay back their horrendous student loans.
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Have you tried to explain that other people who already have jobs are paying for most of a university student’s course costs?
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Retired, I think that the AGW scam has been carefully crafted that way. Many people obviously care for the environment that live in and certainly most grass roots ‘greenies’ would be the first to defend any perceived threats to it and so the scam is easily sold to them as it appeals to basic emotions. The sad thing is then that those people who have been brainwashed because they were a little too caring are then cast as the masterminds behind this scam when really they are as much the victims as anyone else. And in the meantime the original architects of the scheme sit back and wait for the dollars to roll in.
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Great article.
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Can there be any other scientific issue where supporters of the consensus use anything but the science to promote their own corner? Oreskes is a fine example of how little they’ve got to work with.
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Jo.
I should inform you of my financial status and where my meagre donations come from.
I apologise….but…..I am a high ranking officer of the Illuminati. I am also the third albeit half brother to the Koch brothers, my father is Mel Gibson.
My mother is the illegitimate daughter of Heinrich Himmlers younger brother and Ayn Rand, but I changed my birth name long ago to Satoshi Nakamoto. Some people say I look like Mark Karpelles so I have a beard these days. Anyway, this is why I have to donate using pseudonyms like Al Gore.
You know it makes sense.
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Please discuss the extreme difference in these two meeting questions, formally, “What do you know?”, and Wad jew tink”? as used in an engineering get together! To me one is a plea for conformation, the other a plea for help! WTF over!
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TinyCO2 “Oreskes is a fine example of how little they’ve got to work with.”
It’s not her fault! Some were born with the ability to understand science whilst others are less fortunate.
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Quite right. She’s received some bad advice.
Blaming everything, and everyone, and all dissenting voices, on the tobacco companies is a bit, well, 1980’s.
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Wow! “with the ability to understand science whilst others are less fortunate.”
Your word “whilst” may be more appropriate than the word “silly”.
We need a new thread to discuss the meaning of “words” within some context. 🙂
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She knows she can sell that swill, and she’s an attention w—- (rhymes with door).
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Aaron M “” apologise….but…..I am a high ranking officer of the Illuminati.”
Splitters!
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I’m glad to see that I’m not the only person to of at least heard of “The New Atlantis”. Perhaps if Ms. Orteskes had spent more time with learning from her studies than struggling with a mixture of Old English and Latin she would be able to apply the principles espoused by the Merchants of Light and the Illuminati.
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Please go to the site “Climate of Sophistry, for the Illuminati.”. Please have spouse or child ready to pull you back from such insanity, politely called Silliness! To all others this is! @#$%^&*, that must be destroyed.
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‘not the only person to of at least heard of’
..and if you had spent more time on your studies you would have learned that the correct word to have used after ‘to’ is have.
[Now why would a first time poster start out with this tone?] ED
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A succinct summary of Naomi Orsekes’ world view and the propaganda tactics used by the ‘righteous’ team. The liberals/warmists believe that lies, mistruths, and cover-ups of inappropriate actions/secret policies and are OK if the mistruths and lies are told by liberals/warmists and the cover-up is done to protect the righteous team and their polices.
Criticism of the righteous team is heresy which explains the irrational, ineffective policies to address CAGW when all of the observations support lukewarm AGW (planet resists -negative feedback – rather than amplifies – positive feedback- forcing changes.) and partially explains why the entire warmist scientific paradigm is incorrect.
There is an imminent (has started, anyone notice, the observational changes?) surreal, bizarre twist to the climate wars. What will happen next to the sun and to the ‘climate’ is outside of the imagination of almost everyone. The majority of the warming in the last 50 years was due to solar magnetic cycle changes and something else that is related to fundamental stellar physics. There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record that correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes. An abrupt once in roughly 8000 to 10,000 year change is now occurring to the sun.
Hillary Clinton proves a perfect example of unabashed, blatant lies, mistruths, and cover-ups which is supported spun away by the righteous team.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/06/clinton-created-multiple-email-address-on-private-server-data-show/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/05/aide-tied-to-past-clinton-scandals-surfaces-in-controversy-over-emails/
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So are the ethics of Oreskes better, or worse, than Pachauri (or Patchy as he is known to his rapidly shrinking number of komrades)?
I rate that as today’s tough question – my vote is for Patchy, as he at least had the decency to resign, albeit only minutes before he would have been pushed.
Unfortunately, ethics is to most ‘climate scientists’ as holy water is to demons.
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Decency to resign?
No, he was exposed and had no choice. He did not show decency during his reign. Now he is decent enough to pretend that his is sick and not taking responsibility for his action. When you were never decent how can suddenly change?
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Was Clive Palmer’s ‘dinosaur’ smoking in bed? Or was it hit by a meteor?
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He was a drummer for Spinal Tap.
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Oreskes is, like Peter Gleich or Climategate, a useful example of the worst of warmunism and its tactics. An apt analogy to communism first posited by former Czech President Vaclav Klaus in his 2007 book Blue Planet in Green Chains.
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A multi-billion dollar, predominantly government (taxpayer) funded industry has to be protected from disassembly.
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Skeptics should be barred from media, says ‘Merchants of Doubt’ producer
(via junkscience.com)
“Add your name today. Join the campaign to end climate denial in the media.”
. . .
They could debate their science …
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By the way, I forgot to mention that if anyone is interested I’ve proven that recent climate change is natural and not man-made.
“I find the CET data rejects the hypothesis of “climate change” (>58%) & current “global warming” (>72%) and that overall global temperature has not changed significantly more than would be expected. ”
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2015/03/06/proof-recent-temperature-trends-are-not-abnormal/
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There’s a definite trend of psychological projection amongst the pro-CAGW crowd.
Anyone that doesn’t believe this is a projectionist denier!
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Next step, censorship: https://junksciencecom.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/kenner-censorship1.png
I thought we were living in a world that looks to reduce censorship. I could be wrong.
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Oh, and I just read this nonsense as well in Scientific American no less: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-win-friends-and-bamboozle-people-about-climate-change/
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Reduce censorship = Selective censorship, what an exciting time we live in. /sarc.
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When your knowledge of climate is rough,
And defending the “science” is tough,
When you know you won’t rate
In an honest debate,
You can always try smearing and bluff.
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very clever
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When warmists say the end is near,
sassy limericks bring climate cheer.
Ruairí holds up a mirror to doomsayers,
running rings around government grant players,
and all this without spilling his beer.
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Don’t give up your day job, Andrew.
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Hey, screw you too, Rereke.
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Heh heh hee, ahh, now, see, Rekkers, when I said “screw you”, what I really meant was…
Limerick lines should be short.
That’s what Rereke was taught.
Five syllables, fine.
But the limit’s nine.
Twelve syllables was a rort!
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When you blinded by a money, power and warm religion then then the obvious state of mind is only paranoia. Paranoia then leads to more violent actions starting with personal attacks and ending with concentration camps. When nazis started burning books people thought that they will never burn people.
The greens try to trivialise their personal attacks and say this will never happen as we are the tree loving not gun loving. Rachel Carlson was bird loving and yet she is the worst mass murder of all times. Worst then the usual culprits. They say she did not push the trigger, she just caused the ban of DDT. Adolf, Joseph and Gandhi have never personally killed anyone either. In fact there is no proof of Adolf sanctioning the final solution on paper. Joseph was signing death warrants by the thousands every day. Gandhi was just importing commie ideas that led to death of millions. Yet Gandhi is revered as a peace loving man. Some people still love the other 2. Rachel Carlson is almost unknown and revered amongst the greens.
20 years from now after the global warming scare will runs its natural cause, they refocus and push for reduction of humanity through of sterilisations, massive executions, concentrations camps. People will burn again and paranoia is just the first stage for future murderers.
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I believe there is a campaign in the US currently to get the current $20-dollar note replaced with one displaying an “iconic” American woman, in place of Andrew Jackson. Rachel Carson was one suggestion, unbelievably. They could depict her with an Anopheles mosquito. Putting Empress Hillary on might be jumping the gun a bit, but a design with an heraldic device of Squirrels Rampant might be appropriate.
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Yes but it will be a 3 dollar bill.
Or the Zimbabwe equivalent.
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The whole tobacco causes cancer tactic is a false analogy.
One needs to watch the shell and not the pea.
It’s well documented that the tobacco industry did obfuscate over the issue, and it’s well documented that the research won out in the end.
That research found that there is a link between tobacco smoking and cancer, though not a direct cause/effect.
However, no one doubts the research because it was carried out similarly around the world looking at probably thousands of cases . . all with similar findings.
What gives the tobacco/cancer research it’s robustness and validity is the repeatability and the the sample size.
When Naomi Orsekes can show that they’ve examined a few thousand Earth like planets, she might have something.
The exact same false analogy, an extension of the first, is the argument about consulting the experts in the field. i.e. You wouldn’t take the word of a plumber if you had cancer.
For the analogy to be true the doctor must know what cancer is, know how to teat it and show that he’s treated more than zero patients previously.
On that basis, the plumber is by far the greater expert in his respective field.
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Yes, Oreskes’ false analogy is based on the identification of atmospheric CO2 with inhaled tobacco smoke, an analogy which is manifestly absurd.
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N Y Times article rider:
LOL, Quite.
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I’m surprised someone has not already raised this ( apologies to Pat if I missed it)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/06/change-you-can-believe-in-aussie-government-ditches-the-entire-board-of-the-csiro/
Well done Tony Abbott and co.!! Is the ABC Board next in line ??
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Board stacking the Labor way
From one of the comments – “the Abbott Government has reappointed Labor appointees Ian Chubb, Kim Beazley, Elizabeth Broderick, Susan Ryan to senior positions.” and another comment – “Add Natasha Stott-Despoja along with Barrie Cassidy who I think is still on the Old Parlaiament House Board.”
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I’m glad you did Ross. If it’s been on the news I missed it. It sounds savage, but if the new board has a charter to give reliable science to both government and people it will be an improvement.
Cheers,
Dave B
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Ross – i just tried to post this but failed, so trying again!
am afraid Eric Worrall has jumped the gun on WUWT with a thread – “Change you can believe in! Aussie government ditches the entire board of the CSIRO” – linking to a Guardian/AAP article, which begins with:
‘There APPEARS to be a “brutal” rule’.
i’ve posted a comment, so won’t repeat it all here. however, it’s another MSM beat-up and another attempt – with Turnbull in the picture too – to portray the PM as making a “Captain’s Call” etc.
Eric’s Guardian article is by Australian Associated Press, and Guardian published it Friday 6 March 2015 08.46 AEDT
the following article is by The Guardian’s Daniel Hurst and is dated Friday 6 March 2015 15.07 AEDT
6 March: Guardian: Daniel Hurst: Malcolm Turnbull says ‘refreshing’ government boards PM’s ‘preference’
Communications minister says it has been Tony Abbott’s preference not to reappoint board members selected by former Labor government
***A government spokesman said on Friday that there was “no such policy” and that “a quick check would reveal over 50 government agencies which have reappointed board members who were originally appointed under the former government”…
“I think it’s fair to say that the government has had a policy or a practice of, by and large, not reappointing people, with a view to refreshing government boards,” Turnbull told the ABC. “That has certainly been the preference. There’s doubt about that … but like all things, it has exceptions.”
When asked whether the directive was issued by Abbott or the prime minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, Turnbull said: “The prime minister has had the view that we should refresh the membership of government boards and, generally, that is what we have done.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/06/malcolm-turnbull-says-refreshing-government-boards-pms-preference
(Treasurer) Joe Hockey denies sacking Labor appointees is government policy
The Australian – 18 hours ago
OH, THE AUSTRALIAN HAD IT YESTERDAY! BUT IT WAS JUST ‘GOSSIP’.
Axe for ALP directors ‘gossip’
The Australian – 8 hours ago
The Australian reported yesterday that the chairman of the CSIRO, Simon McKeon, had confirmed a government rule that any director on a government board who was appointed by the previous administration would not be reappointed.
DON’T DOUBT FOR A MINUTE THAT THE MSM PUSH TO REPLACE THE PM WITH MALCOLM TURNBULL IS STILL ON. KEEP THAT MAILING LIST CLOSE BY, JO.
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“That has certainly been the preference. There’s doubt about that … but like all things, it has exceptions.”
Malcolm Turnbull must be referring to Ian Chubb, a hard core warmist.
The government doesn’t want to startle the chickens, by the end of the year Chubb will be gone too.
http://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/macfarlane/media-releases/appointment-chief-scientist-ian-chubb-extended
Bob Carter would make an excellent Chief Scientist.
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Thanks Pat. That makes a lot of sense now.
The MSM are desperate all around the world, I think, to try to retain some relevance. But it seems the harder they try the bigger the hole they did for themselves.
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Congrats Australia. Seems the csiro is getting a clean up.
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OT – So do we now have an El Niño that isn’t really an El Niño…?
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http://qz.com/357623/after-much-ado-el-nino-has-officially-been-declared/
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El Nino declared as climate scientists watch on with ‘amazement’ (SMH)
“Climate scientists are monitoring this with amazement,” said Cai Wenju, a principal CSIRO research scientist who has published widely on the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern.
“We only understand what we have seen.”
Andrew Watkins, the bureau’s supervisor of its Climate Prediction Services unit, said Australia’s definition differs from the NOAA’s so it is yet to declare an El Nino event.
Dr Cai said this year was beginning to resemble 1988, a warm year that followed a big El Nino event, and so 2015 could be “another warmest year“.
. . .
Put down the binoculars, the race is over.
It’s the hottest year ever.
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Oreskes is displaying behavior typical of a Savior Complex where someone who needs to believe in something is divinely obliged to make certain others should also or suffer the consequences.
This complex emerges in many areas of our lives, Governmental, OH&S, Religion, Cults, Brand loyalty, Environmental etc..often the people that adopt this persona have deep seated guilt and love the sound of their own voice.
Interesting to see that Naomi read backwards is I moan……
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Projection is central to Oreskes thinking. On the Anna Rose/Nick Minchin ABC piece that Jo and David were part of, Oreskes main claim was that opposition to CAGW theory was purely political and driven by the right. It is not a childish argument to say that they started it and much of their motivation was political: CAGW helps support an anti-capitalist political ideology. Marx Though capitalism would collapse in his lifetime. The Soviets and Chinese kept the flame alive… and now CAGW is all the Marxists have. To say those who oppose eco-Marxism are politically motivated is pure projection. How many have moved from the left to the right because of this very issue?
Oreskes, by the way, reminds me of the head of Women’s Studies when I was at uni.
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My Fathers cousin has lung cancer. They are the same age but he never smoked a single cigarette in his life while dad was a pack a day for 50 years before he quit. It did cause him health problems. Inhaling burnt plants will do that to you.
But, 1 in ten men who get lung cancer never even smoked 20 cigarettes in their lifetime and 3 in 10 women also. Old age gives you lung cancer and while I don’t doubt that mistreating your lungs will increase the your chances of getting lung cancer, I really want to know why they persist in singling out the most dubious of connections with health problems from smoking when there are quite a few (eg emphysema) that must be beyond doubt.
Disclaimer. I don’t get funded by big tobacco, don’t smoke, don’t like people smoking near me, don’t care if big tobacco goes out of business and never questioned it until the persistent connection of AGW scepticism with smoking. What are these clowns up to?
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Ditto for a cousin of mine who never smoked. If I have the same DNA risk for lung cancer and I smoke, if I die of the same lung problem is that classed as due to smoking? And if I have a heart attack is that due to genetics like my brother, or smoking, or too much cheese and salt in my diet. I don’t trust smoking and death stats, although I’m sure smoking is definitely not healthy.
71
People didn’t need science to tell them that smoking was bad for one’s health.
Look up the origins of the expression “coffin nails” to describe cigarettes.
60
Exposure to radon and/or the debris and radioactive material from lamp mantles could account for more lung cancer than we know too.
30
“Merchants of Doubt” premieres in NYC and Los Angeles today (US time):
6 March: NYT: New York Today: Sandwiched by Snowstorms
By Andy Newman and Tatiana Schlossberg
Good morning on this freezing Friday.
Think of this week as a snow sandwich, with New York in the middle.
It began with a snowstorm and ended with a snowstorm. (There was even a little snowstorm in the middle.)…
The high will be just 22 degrees. Normal for today would be 46…
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/new-york-today-sandwiched-by-snowstorms/?_r=0
a strong ridge is forming over California, according to Accuweather, bringing warm weather to the State, but…
6 March: WaPo: Ian Livingston: A record-breaking cold morning in Washington and across the Northeast
It seems like March is the new winter in Washington.
If yesterday’s snow wasn’t enough to make one yearn for spring, this morning’s deep freeze might have been. Record lows were set for March 6 at both Dulles and Baltimore. Early-morning temperatures sank into the single digits to the teens across the D.C. area. This is as much as about 20 degrees below normal for lows…
Reagan National Airport was the warm spot, as usual, with a low of 15 degrees. Not a record, but 20 degrees below the normal low of 35 degrees for the date…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/03/06/a-record-breaking-cold-morning-in-washington-and-across-the-northeast/
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for decades, i’ve called this program “ALL things NOT considered”. i won’t be listening:
AUDIO: 6 March: NPR: “All Things Considered”: ‘Merchants Of Doubt’ Explores Work Of Climate Change Deniers
NPR’s Melissa Block speaks to director Robert Kenner about his documentary, “Merchants of Doubt,” which examines the work of climate change skeptics and their campaign to sway public opinion.
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/06/391269315/merchants-of-doubt-explores-work-of-climate-change-deniers
6 March: Salon.com: Lindsay Abrams: “Merchants of Doubt”: Meet the sleazy spin doctors who will stop at nothing to obscure the truth
A must-see new documentary from the director of “Food, Inc.” exposes the dirty tricks of professional deceivers
PIC: Marc Morano
Shots of prominent scientists like Ben Santer, Michael Mann and Katharine Hayhoe reading their death threat-laden hate mail aloud evoke that popular Jimmy Kimmel segment in which celebrities recite hateful tweets directed at them. But when the stakes are this high, and the victims are “famous” only for pursuing scientific truth, it doesn’t come off as funny…
“I would say it’s not only Fox News. It was the New York Times and it was CNN and legitimate press that were putting people on as experts without really questioning who they are and what their role is,” he added. “I think the media failed us on that level.”
The implications of that deception, and of the media’s willingness to go along with it, are profound. To take just one example, the Wall Street Journal last year published an editorial by Joseph Bast, president of the Koch-affiliated, climate-denying Heartland Institute, and noted climate misinformer Roy Spencer, challenging the scientific consensus on man-made climate change. Their argument was faulty, but their motivation was clear: A study out just this week from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication found that knowing just how great the 97 percent consensus is can act as a “gateway belief” for understanding climate change…
For every former denier who looked at the science and saw the light, several of whom are featured in “Merchants of Doubt,” there are people like Morano, for whom the facts are entirely irrelevant…
(Lindsay Abrams is a staff writer at Salon, reporting on all things sustainable.)
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/merchants_of_doubt_meet_the_sleazy_spin_doctors_who_will_stop_at_nothing_to_obscure_the_truth/
recent Abrams stories – she churns them out:
Boston’s crazy, snowy winter is inches away from beating an all-time record
…Here’s what climate change has to do with it
Climate-denying researcher slams critics with help from climate-denying Heartland Institute
Wei-Hock Soon failed to disclose most of the $1.2 million in funding he received from the fossil fuel industry
From warming to war: How climate change helped instigate Syria’s deadly uprising
A new study connects the dots between drought, climate change and volent conflict
Scientists stick it to climate deniers: Study provides direct evidence that human activity is causing global warming
For the first time, researchers directly observed carbon dioxide trapping heat in the atmosphere
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so far haven’t found any reviews in the MSM “implying there’s a debate” as director Kenner claimed the MSM across the board is doing in his interview with Newsweek’s Greg Evans (posted in comments on “Weekend Unthreaded”)
NYT VERY HEAVY ON THE TOBACCO ANGLE…NOT WATCHING THE VIDEO.
5 March: NYT: Review: ‘Merchants of Doubt,’ Separating Science From Spin
VIDEO: SHOWING A HALF-SMOKED CIGARETTE
The Times critic A. O. Scott reviews “Merchants of Doubt.” Video by ROBIN LINDSAY
And science can be tricky to explain and to defend, especially in the shouting-heads cable news format. The scientists Mr. Kenner interviews — notably James E. Hansen, formerly of NASA, who was among the first to establish a link between carbon emissions and climate change — tend to be ***earnest and serious. The scientific method is also predicated on intellectual ***humility, on falsifiable hypotheses and endless revisions in the face of new data. Public relations, in contrast, is built on slickness, grandiosity and charm. These traits are exemplified by Marc Morano, a cheerful and unapologetic promoter of climate-change skepticism and currently the executive director of the website Climate Depot…
More than that, the analogy between climate-change denial and classic confidence schemes doesn’t really hold up. Since the ’80s and ’90s, when the tobacco industry was trying to slow down regulation and lawsuits, the political landscape has changed, and so have the techniques of the anti-science side. Some of the attorneys general who forced the 1998 settlement were Republicans, after all. By contrast, in 2010 Bob Inglis, a conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina, was defeated in the primary after publicly acknowledging the reality of climate change…
Climate-change denial has been raised to an ideological principle, a tenet of modern conservative and libertarian politics. Deceit and secrecy are hardly necessary when large portions of the public eagerly accept the message. If anti-environmentalist politics resemble a game of three-card monte, it’s one in which all the cards are face up and the marks place their bets on a nonexistent ace. Anyone who points out the error can be accused of liberal bias, and credulous journalists will give equal weight to both sides of the “debate.”…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/movies/review-merchants-of-doubt-separating-science-from-spin.html
don’t think Rainer realised how it would come across when he wrote ***”climate change doomsayers”. doubt he has a clue about the subject at all:
6 March: Christian Science Monitor: Peter Rainer: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ approaches the climate change controversy from a novel angle
The film targets the spinmeisters, hired by or associated with corporate interests, whose job, despite their lack of scientific training, is to discredit the science of ***climate change doomsayers***. The fact that some of these spinmeisters proudly base their method on the machinations of tobacco-industry lobbyists is doubly damning…
http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2015/0306/Merchants-of-Doubt-approaches-the-climate-change-controversy-from-a-novel-angle
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The History Science can be very interesting but it is not Science. Studying such history does not make you a scientist and can be the logical equivalent of a tone deaf person studying and writing about the development of music. However the universal truth behind the history of Science is that developments were made by sceptics, not acolytes or devotees or historians. To be a scientist is to be a sceptic.
However to gain fame as a Science writer, Orsekes seems to have developed a most unusual profession, one which is the very antithesis of a scientist, the sceptic sceptic. Instead of being critical of the very profitable CO2 Global Warming hypothesis promoted as proven science fact by such science fiction writers as Tim Flannery (BA), Al Gore (BA) and even Phil Jones (BA), Orsekes has used her non existent science skills to attack anyone who dared question the theory, anyone who had the temerity to compare utterly wrong predictions with facts. The inconvenient truth is that these profitable promoters, these science fiction writers, these profiteers of doom are utterly wrong. As so many people agree though, it’s a living. Orsekes would agree.
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Awkwardly, I too have used the first alternative dyslexic’s spelling and hopefully the meaning is not lost. Any similarity between Orsekes and Oreskes is purely typographical.
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The History of science is about accidents and unrecognised discoveries. Examples of settled science are also common. In the 19th century Poland they were teaching the Ptolemaic geocentric system without realising that Copernicus the polish astronomer formulated heliocentric system 300 years before.
50 years from now Oresekes will be forgotten like almost most 3rd grade scientists except when they caused untold damage like Lynesko or Carlson.
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I happened to listen to The Science Show hosted by Robin Williams on ABC Radio National this afternoon. [I know, some call that masochism.] Not sure if its a repeat or has been commented on here previously. I shook my head for much of the show as it was spent discussing Robin’s favourite religion. Williams interviewed Michael Mann to discuss how he is getting on with life post hockey stick. He also looked at how requests for information are apparently used as bullying tactics to swamp researchers and divert their attention away from their research work.
I have just turned on the PC and logged in here and read virtually the identical argument that was being made by Mann (and obviously lapped up by Williams). That is, that sceptics are all beholden to their (big oil) funders and that sceptics use tobacco lobby tactics to discredit alarmist ‘scientists’. Not sure if RN has a comments function for each radio show but I think a link to this piece may be useful for their listeners.
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Just posted to the RN Science Show comments a link to this piece. Will be interesting to see if the comment is acceptable to the moderator. For those who are interested, refer following:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/merchants-of–doubt/6286330
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is this the best WSJ can come up with?
5 March: Wall St. Journal: Joe Morgenstern: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ Review: Pulling Back the Curtain
A polemic pleads for skepticism and clear thinking in the face of rampant misinformation and science denial
VIDEO: SHOWING WAREHOUSE SUPERIMPOSED WITH “WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF SELLING AN ADDICTIVE DRUG, NICOTINE”
“Merchants of Doubt,” a provocative and improbably entertaining documentary by Robert Kenner, means to make people angry, and to make them think. It will surely do the former. I’d like to think it will do the latter…
In Mr. Kenner’s view, our attitudes toward such momentous issues as global warming are being shaped by liars of a different stripe, a loose alliance of lobbyists, elected officials and ostensible — or in some cases genuine — experts that he groups under the rubric of science deniers. His film contends, as I wrote after a festival screening last September, that many of those who continue to question the link between global warming and human activity are following the playbook first developed by the tobacco industry, which fought off government regulation for almost half a century while denying the implications of sound science, including its own.
“Merchants of Doubt,” which describes itself as having been inspired by the book of the same name by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, makes no bones about being a polemic; those who see it will draw their own conclusions about the issues being debated and the wisdom of the debaters. What leapt out at me, though, was the urgency of the case Mr. Kenner’s documentary makes for independent thought and scientific literacy at a time when all sorts of lies and perilous misconceptions — most recently the supposed link between vaccinations and autism — fly around the world at the speed of light and refuse to die, whether or not they’ve been discredited. There can be no debate about the value of old-fashioned skepticism…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/merchants-of-doubt-review-pulling-back-the-curtain-1425586417
9 COMMENTS, BASICALLY ALL CAGW SCEPTIC, INCLUDING:
Kenneth Haapala:
Dear Mr. Morgenstern,
I am the new president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), replacing Fred Singer, who has stepped down after 25 years at the helm. I have found no actual evidence substantiating claims that Fred Singer took money from tobacco companies.
Merchants of Doubt does not contain or reference any actual evidence supporting such a claim against Mr. Singer. Repeating a false assertion is not actual evidence.
Have you seen any actual evidence supporting these claims?
By contrast reports from the GAO, CRS, and the White House show that the Federal government spent at least $35 Billion on climate science since FY 1993, with no major programs on understanding the natural causes. Now some global warming promoters are trying to use natural causes to explain away the failure of temperatures to increase for over a decade.
Sincerely,
61
If Prof Oreskes wants to use Tobacco Company products, then she should be encouraged to use them in the privacy of her own home, where she can be obscene and not heard.
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Murdoch’s New York Post:
4 March: New York Post: Sara Stewart : Merchants of Doubt’ doc pulls curtain back on shifty pundits
Tobacco companies have fallen far in recent years, but this zingy documentary explores how very high their p.r. machines set the bar for public misdirection.
Director Robert Kenner (“Food Inc.”) begins with some choice vintage selections from internal Big Tobacco memos — “Doubt is our product”; “It’s not about cigarettes, it’s about freedom” — and ends on the topic du jour, climate change.
As Kenner shows, the subject matter may have changed, but the MO hasn’t: A targeted, cynical campaign introducing skepticism about a public health issue creates the illusion of a two-sided story — in which one side may be entirely financed by a vested interest…
Unsurprisingly, many of the same faces repeatedly appear in Kenner’s montage of punditry, most having originated in tobacco.
One oft-quoted “climate change skeptic,” Marc Morano, admits in the film, “I’m not a scientist, but I do play one on TV occasionally … hell, more than occasionally.”…
As they’re akin to spectators at a magic show, viewers ought to keep an eye out for what the “Merchants of Doubt” don’t want us to see.
http://nypost.com/2015/03/04/merchants-of-doubt-doc-pulls-curtain-back-on-shifty-pundits/
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7 March: Vice News: Laura Dattaro: Meet the ‘Merchants of Doubt’ Who Sow Confusion about Tobacco Smoke and Climate Change
Two weeks ago, an investigation by Greenpeace revealed that the fossil fuel industry had for years paid a scientist frequently called upon by Republicans and conservative pundits to deny climate change. The scientist, Willie Soon, had received more than $1.2 million from oil and gas companies in the last decade.
There’s a name for people like this: Merchants of Doubt, which is the title of a 2010 book and a documentary film premiering today in New York City and Los Angeles. Both the book and the film detail the extent to which front groups and bought researchers create an appearance of scientific uncertainty around climate science where none exists…
“It’s all about delaying the conversation,” Emily Southard, a campaign manager for climate communication group Forecast the Facts, told VICE News. “It’s not about proving the scientists wrong, necessarily. It’s just about putting in enough question where the solutions aren’t being acted on or people aren’t focusing on the issue.”…
Paying individual scientists to produce dubious research is a small part of what’s come to be known as the climate-denial machine, in which oil, gas, and coal companies and their allies create front groups that develop their own reports and research to slow the progress of regulations and the switch to cleaner energy sources. And since the Supreme Court’s 2009 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, it has become commonplace for donors to obscure where their money is going…
Gabe Elsner, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute: …”And now we’re seeing the same infrastructure promote messages of doubt on climate policy and climate regulations that the Obama administration is putting forward.”…
A 2013 Drexel University study found that $558 million had been funneled to about 100 different climate change denial organizations between 2003 and 2010…
While there are extensive questions about the precise impacts of climate change and the time scale on which it will operate, 97 percent of the scientific community is in consensus that burning fossil fuels is causing the planet to warm…
In response to the news about Soon, Democratic senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Barbara Boxer of California, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sent letters to 100 companies and industry organizations asking them to disclose any funding they have provided to scientists. Arizona Representative Raul Grijalva, also a Democrat, sent letters to seven universities requesting information…ETC
https://news.vice.com/article/meet-the-merchants-of-doubt-who-sow-confusion-about-tobacco-smoke-and-climate-change
MOST COMMENTS NOT BUYING CAGW.
wow. $1.2 million over a DECADE, (but not mentioning around 40% was kept by the Smithsonian)!
let’s talk real money and the Vice Media Empire, which likes to portray itself as youth-oriented, alternative & edgy.
Wikipedia: Vice (magazine)
Founded by Gavin McInnes, Suroosh Alvi and Shane Smith, the magazine was launched in 1994 as the Voice of Montreal with government funding, and the intention of the founders was to provide work and a community service…
Richard Szalwinski, a Canadian software millionaire, acquired the magazine and relocated the operation to New York City, U.S. in the late 1990s…
In mid-August 2013, Rupert Murdoch’s corporation 21st Century Fox invested US$70 million in Vice Media, resulting in a 5 percent stake…
It was then revealed on August 29, 2014, that A&E Networks—a joint venture of Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company—would acquire a 10 percent minority stake in Vice Media for US$250 million…
On October 30, 2014, Vice Media announced a CDN$100 million joint venture with Rogers Communications that will facilitate the construction of production facilities in Toronto…
***On November 16, VICE Media announced that Alyssa Mastromonaco, who formerly worked in the Obama administration, would come on board as the company’s Chief Operating Officer in January 2015.
add another $250 million investment from the venture firm Technology Crossover Ventures last year.
Wikipedia: Shane Smith: On January 13, 2015, on Joe Rogan’s podcast #599 of the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE), Shane claims to be worth over $1 billion USD and plans to buy as much land as possible to conserve land as a charitable endeavor. in December 2014, Shane told the Financial Times Vice is valued at $2.5 billion:
2014: Vice News: Shane Smith: How Much Climate-Change Denial Can the Market Bear?
I generally like Forbes. The people there provide a good platform for high-quality content, and they have written many nice things about us.
I was therefore surprised to read this piece of garbage by John Tamny, which Forbes published this weekend. In response to my recently-aired story about Greenland’s melting glaciers, Tamny calls me a global-warming “alarmist” and asks if I will be seeking refuge from rising sea levels in Dallas, Texas.
Ironically, the front page of this morning’s New York Times features the prominent headline, “Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come.” A similar article in today’s Wall Street Journal is headlined, “Climate Change Impact Is Wide, UN Says. Scientists Call for Swift Action on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.”
They are both referring to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s report, released on Monday, was the result of the efforts of 309 scientists from 70 countries who drew on more than 12,000 research papers. In its own article, The Guardian called it “the most comprehensive picture of climate risks to date.”
Rajendra Pachauri, the panel’s chairman, said in a press conference that he hoped the IPCC’s report would “jolt people into action.” The report links climate change to a worldwide rise in wildfires, drought, and flooding.
“We are now in an era where climate change isn’t some kind of future hypothetical,” The Guardian quotes the report’s leading author, Chris Field, as saying. “We live in an area where impacts from climate change are already widespread and consequential.”…
The world is being called to action on climate change, and Forbes is denying that it is even happening. Why? Apparently because, according to Tamny, Warren Buffett said so.
(Actually, it appears Buffett’s views are more nuanced than Tamny would have you believe.)..
https://news.vice.com/article/how-much-climate-change-denial-can-the-market-bear
part 2 will look at Vice’s funders to see if any are invested in CAGW.
30
Vice got $250 million from Technology Crossover Ventures. i will only look at a single TCV individual invested in CAGW, tho there could be more:
2011: EcoEffect.org: Erik Blachford Joins ecoAmerica’s Board
Erik Blachford, Venture Partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, has joined ecoAmerica’s Board. Erik is also Executive Chairman at Terrapass, Inc., a leading provider of high quality carbon offsets…
Erik is an accomplished entrepreneur with an authentic desire to change the world. His background in consumer marketing of carbon offsets at TerraPass, plus his general marketing and internet savy make Erik a unique and ideal fit for ecoAmerica’s Board.
http://ecoaffect.org/2011/04/28/erik-blachford-joins-ecoamericas-board/
U.S. National Council of the World Wildlife Fund
The National Council of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was established by a Board amendment to the Bylaws on September 18, 1984, as an advisory group to the Board. The Council is composed of distinguished scientific, business, political and philanthropic leaders from across the country. Council members form a national network to promote WWF’s conservation programs and help raise funds.
Member: Erik Blanchard
ERIK BLACHFORD is currently a venture partner at Technology Crossover Ventures. He is also executive chairman at Terrapass, Inc., a leading provider of high-quality carbon offsets…
https://www.worldwildlife.org/about/leadership
Rogers Communication funded Vice:
2012: Toronto: Industry Leading Standards and Approaches to Environmental and Carbon Footprints
Featured Expert: Hicham Elhalaby Sr. Manager, Environment & Sustainability, Rogers Communication Inc
Hicham began with an update of recent developments on common GHG accounting standards and fradeworks, like the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the 2006 publication of ISO 14064, the upcoming iterations of ISO 14067 and 14069, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol documents on “Product Life Cycle Account and Reporting Standard” and “Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standards”. He then proceeded to elaborate on the ***corporate value chain and gave a great example of a product lifecycle carbon footprint completed for the Maclean’s magazine…
http://www.springdialogues.com/spring-toronto-industry-leading-approaches-to-environmental-and-carbon-footprints.html
to be continued…
30
Disney funded Vice:
2013: Greenbiz: Disney to up the ante on carbon offsets
The entertainment giant that runs the Happiest Place On Earth is wild about carbon offsets, so much so that the Walt Disney Company will expand its already substantial voluntary offset purchasing program to account for indirect emissions generated by its operations, an effort to be financed by a $11 to $14 per metric ton internal carbon price the company ***charges its business units, according to sources close to the program…
Since establishing its environmental goals, Disney has since become a major buyer in the voluntary carbon markets…
The folks who choose offset projects for Disney have a particular affection for forestry projects.
“We like projects that have co-benefits and side benefits in addition to just pure GHG benefits,” he says…
“We’re big supporters of REDD and we’re active in both California and Washington, D.C. on trying to get REDD into our regulatory programs,” he says…
Disney’s preference is to fund new projects rather than purchasing older offsets and ***to work with long-time NGO partners such as Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund and World Wildlife Fund, with 80 to 90 percent of its credits acquired through these relationships…
http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2013/09/19/disney-up-ante-carbon-offsets
***Murdoch’s Sky Broadcasting & Murdoch media worldwide has been pushing CAGW for years (just watch Sky News Australia, or read the Business/Climate Spectator for evidence):
2007: Royal Dutch Shell: The Guardian: Businesses call for climate pact
The leaders of 150 major global companies have called for a legally binding and comprehensive international deal on climate change…
The statement, (the Bali Communique) led by the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, is being sent to environment ministers and heads of state ahead of UN talks in Bali aimed at beginning negotiations on a post-2012 climate deal…
It has has been signed by household names such as Tesco, Lloyds TSB, Nike, ***Sky and Nokia…
(LOL)The business leaders say global targets for emission reductions – which need to be at least 50% by 2050 – should be based on science, not economic considerations…
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2007/11/30/the-guardian-businesses-call-for-climate-pact/
to be continued…
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Vice has been airing a TV series this year called “Europe or Die”. i’ve seen the first two episodes (videos below) which begin with the question:
“What if 50 million people are displaced around the world because of conflict, poverty, persecuton & CLIMATE CHANGE?”
in the programs i’ve watched, the answer is Europe must stop being so wicked and racist and cruel and let them all in.
6 March 2015: Vice: The Building Blocks of Fortress Europe: How EU Policy Is Failing Record Numbers of Migrants
By Milene Larsson
Milene Larsson is the producer and reporter of the VICE News series Europe or Die…
Rather than saving lives, in today’s Europe, where a growing far-right sentiment plagues the migration debate and fear is growing in light of heightened terrorist threats and the recent shootings in Paris and Copenhagen, the continent’s main priority remains border security…
Between 2007-2013, southern European countries with high migratory pressure spent more than a billion dollars on border protection, while almost three times less was invested in refugee reception and integration…
***In June 2014, the UN’s Refugee Agency (UNHRC) announced that, for the first time since World War II, more than 50 million people are displaced around the globe. This number is only likely to increase, however, as war, poverty, persecution, and climate change continue to wreak havoc and force people to flee their homes…
https://news.vice.com/article/the-building-blocks-of-fortress-europe-how-eu-policy-is-failing-record-numbers-of-migrants
Storming Spain’s Razor-Wire Fence: Europe Or Die (Episode 1/4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmqOlxNQABI
Death Boats to Greece (Part 1/2): Europe Or Die (Episode 2/4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aBCsCWEWYY
what if your funders were sceptical of CAGW, Vice. what would you be reporting then?
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finally, to answer my own rhetorical question to Vice –
“what if your funders were sceptical of CAGW, Vice. what would you be reporting then?”
Vice would no doubt answer that they believe the 97% of “climate scientists” who say CAGW is real blah blah.
but Vice attacks Willie Soon, who got a pittance over a decade from energy companies which are essential – & will continue to be essential – to the lives of everyone on the planet, especially the poor people who try to enter Europe (or Die) to improve their lives.
Vice accuses Dr. Soon of distorting his scientific studies to appease his funders. shame on Vice.
postscript:
Bill Maher is a TV producer at Vice.
Real Time with Bill Maher: Meet the Climate Change Deniers (HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mma_PJqYe24
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria is a consultant at Vice:
Tweet: Fareed Zakaria: What we already know about climate change is frightening, but what we don’t know is more frightening: Rubin @ cfr http://on.cfr.org/1tL0t6U
https://twitter.com/fareedzakaria/status/493429107707768832
unbelievable.
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It is to interesting to try to understand how ‘liberals’ think or do not think and to understand their ‘culture’ and to understand how their culture has changed. The climate wars have helped to change and set the ‘liberal’ culture.
Over the last decade (this is a change, previously there was for example real factual discussion in the Economist and on the US public broadcast system (PBS) of policy and scientific issues) there has been a stronger and stronger change to the de facto liberal policy where questioning/logical analysis of a liberal policy pillar is to risk being labeled a heretic, a denier. This is particularly true for anything related to AGW or climate.
US liberal television (CNN for example) is devoid of pros/cons, facts, and logical analysis. The discussion, concerning climate/AGW/uncontrolled ‘immigration’ for example, when it occurs is presented as good guys vs bad guys with interviews that are limited to the good guys. The news reports are astonishingly and unabashedly partisan and politically biased. Name calling and making of faces to emphasis agreement that with the rhetoric and/or the evil nature of the political opposing team is now standard fare. This would be unthinkable a decade or two ago when there was serious newspaper analysis and serious discussion of issues on television.
The CNN ‘discussions’ have over the last decade become exclusively the righteous team reading their rhetoric. The CNN news anchors appear to have the policy/technical knowledge of a high school dropout and appear to have no interest in technical issues such as climate beyond supporting the righteous teams’ rhetoric.
Rhetoric reading is limited, most of the CNN broadcasting is limited to live video, discussion of polls, and sensationalism completely avoiding controversial subjects (i.e. subjects where observations and analysis does not support the rhetoric.)
The US public broadcast system (PBS) policy review now follows the same format as CNN. There is an obvious great effort to have an ethnically and gender diverse team of believers for the ‘discussions’ which are limited to a spokesperson from the government or video of a spokesperson reading their rhetoric. The PBS anchors now, unabashedly, make funny faces to emphasis their agreement with the rhetoric and the blatant attacks of the ‘conservatives’.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
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Complaints about the tobacco companies are an attempt to cover up the failure of the government to warn people about the danger. The US government employs someone called “the surgeon general” and an expensive department under him/her. For decades, they failed to warn people about tobacco. Today, the bootlickers of the state blame commercial companies for their failure to tell people about the dangers of their products. That’s not their job, and could hardly be expected of them. It was the government which failed.
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A paper from Georgia Tech which cites Oreskes, and explicitly rejects Popper, arguing for skepticism about scientific skepticism:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/11313/1/On_Dissent_in_Science_-_Biddle.pdf
Thanks Rod! – Jo
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