"Newsweek" cover story exposes well-funded global-warming denial machine

Great Debates
121

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
It lost the Republicans congress in 2006. I bet some people cared about that.

But keep whistling past the graveyard if it makes you feel better.
[/QUOTE]

BWAHAHAHAHA!!

Yeah, sure. The GOP lost Congress because people held them responsible for failing to address global climate change.

Is there any poll anywhere that backs up this absolutely ludicrous idea? Any remotely subjective evidence for it?

Or were you still on the tangent of responsibility for Iraq? You really should try to focus: we were discussing holding companies responsible for causing injury or death. I asked what “holding responsible” specifically meant. You replied:

I took your use of Bush and Iraq as a distrcting example, since it has nothing to do with climate change, the topic of this thread. If you were intending to shift discussion to Iraq, surely you can find another thread to do it in.

I agree the war in Iraq was a major factor in the GOP’s loss of Congress in 2006. I don’t agree that this concession has any particular relevance to the ongoing debate in this thread. Perhaps you could connect the dots for me.

122

[QUOTE=intention]
Please. The error is known, NASA has admitted it. It is actually quite a large error, and one that was discovered by Steven McIntyre, the man the warmers love to hate because he demolished the Hockeystick. There’s more about it here.

Returning to the OP, yes, the warming debate is “well-funded”, as Newsweek says. Here’s just a few figures:

Mobil contribution to skeptics: $19 million

Richard Branson’s contribution to warmers $3,000 million

Mobil takes a raft of sh*t for funding one side, Branson give two hundred times as much to the other side … who’s well funded here? And why is supporting one side seen as a crime, but not funding the other side?

Some other numbers of interest:

John Kerry’s wife’s foundation grant to James Hansen: a cool quarter million. (Hansen subsequently endorsed Kerry’s presidential bid, but that’s probably a coincidence).

Value of 75 hours of free airtime given to Al Gore by NBC: unknown, but definitely more than $19 million.

Yes, the debate is well-funded … but the warmers are getting the bulk of the money.

And in any case, it’s a non-issue. The question is not who’s funding who. The question is, how much influence are humans having on the climate, and how are we influencing it?

NASA says land use changes may have more effect than CO2. A recent study says the recent Arctic warming is caused mostly by soot falling on snow and warming it. Another study says animal derived methane produces as much warming as the transportation industry. Another study says that the warming in Asia is from the “brown haze” driven by domestic use of wood and coal. Which one(s) are right? And if all of these are causing warming … how much is left to be even possibly caused by CO2?

Before we rush to action, we should first determine what the problem is. Warmers keep yelling “FIRE! FIRE!”, and saying we should immediately break out the hoses and spend trillions on CO2 prevention, when the problem may be “LAND USE! LAND USE!” or “COWS! COW!” or “SOOT! SOOT!” or “HAZE! HAZE!”.

w.
[/QUOTE]

Please right back at you. You cited another blog, run by an outspoken skeptic of global warming, that points to the same dead link. No one in the real media seems to have this story, not even FOX, and they have lots of skeptical stuff about global warming there. NASA has nothing of it on their web site despite “admitting it.”

“Warmers” is that your pet insult or something?

Not even going to ask about Al Gore’s 75 free hours of air time.

123

While I believe that GW is happeneing and we are a large cause, what I think gets lost is that this is a GLOBAL problem and when China is busy building one new large coal plant a weekand India is increasing their carbon output, well globally we aren’t making progress and there needs to be more focus there. I don’t know exactly what we can do about that, unfortuantely.

124

[QUOTE=Bricker]
Well, fair enough, I suppose. I don’t see any serious policymakers on either side arguing we should do nothing, however.
[/QUOTE]

Saying we should study it for another few years is as close to doing nothing as I can imagine. However, if you are implying that Mr. Bush is not a serious policymaker, then I have no objections.

As for simplification, I’ll grant you that ignoring the discount rate makes no difference. However, I’ve surveyed many papers with economic analyses in my field while writing a paper on this subject, and I found none that consider the error bars on benefits. In fact, there are some which draw very narrow lines on a graph with costs and benefits, and recommend actions at the point of intersection. I must admit in all honesty that in a former job fellow managers and I got millions of dollars of funding thanks to this misconception (from our company) so I’m a reformed sinner. If you knew this, my hat’s off to you, but it didn’t seem apparent in your post. At the least, readers of your post probably wouldn’t get it.

125

[QUOTE=Bricker]
I agree the war in Iraq was a major factor in the GOP’s loss of Congress in 2006. I don’t agree that this concession has any particular relevance to the ongoing debate in this thread. Perhaps you could connect the dots for me.
[/QUOTE]

You sneeringly implied that only lawsuits mattered when it came to holding people responsible. I gave an example of ways people can be held responsible that didn’t involve lawsuits. You sneered again, yet it was true in 2006.

Are you even trying? Nevermind, I know the answer to that. See ya.

126

[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
Amusingly, there appears to be a Y2K problem with some of the NASA global warming data.
(Accuracy unknown)
http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+finds+Y2K+bug+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article8383.htm
[/QUOTE]

Gee, thanks for the link. Couldn’t have said it better myself. :smiley:

(Nobody likes me!!! sobs runs away)

127

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Saying we should study it for another few years is as close to doing nothing as I can imagine. However, if you are implying that Mr. Bush is not a serious policymaker, then I have no objections.
[/quote]

I was under the impression that Bush knows we need to do more than simply study it for a few more years. In fact, he promulgated a plan to reduce the GHG emissions intensity of the U.S. economy by 18 percent by the end of 2012. It’s described in this PDF document: http://www.climatevision.gov/sectors/electricpower/pdfs/powerpartners_mou.pdf

Now, here’s my problem. Is your case not strong enough on its own merits, and you feel that you must misconstrue the other side? This is the same kind of thing as “it’s unarguable; global warming is definitively the result of human actions.” No. 90% is pretty certain, but it’s not 100%. Tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. Here, you suggest Bush only response has been to call for more study. That’s not true. Now, you may feel he should do MORE; that’s fine. Make your case. But why must you mischaracterize the truth to bolster your side?

I do contracts and program management for a living. I have to cost out projects and proposals. If I didn’t know this, I’d be leaving money on the table, every time.

Very valid point. I was merely trying to illustrate the general concept, but you’re quite right.

128

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
See ya.
[/QUOTE]

Bye!

129

[QUOTE=Captain Lance Murdoch]
Unknown indeed. That cite is a blog which uses a cite to back its assertion that is a dead link. In googling the issue I only found right-wing sites pimping it. NASA doesn’t have it on its site either. It does have this.
[/QUOTE]

This is still valid.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
And that appears to back up what it says. Anyone figure out the why of it?

130

[QUOTE=Captain Lance Murdoch]
Please right back at you. You cited another blog, run by an outspoken skeptic of global warming, that points to the same dead link. No one in the real media seems to have this story, not even FOX, and they have lots of skeptical stuff about global warming there. NASA has nothing of it on their web site despite “admitting it.”

“Warmers” is that your pet insult or something?

Not even going to ask about Al Gore’s 75 free hours of air time.
[/QUOTE]

Didn’t realize that “warmers” was an insult … please replace “warmers” with “AGW supporters” as necessary.

However, you’re not doing your homework. NASA HAS ADMITTED THE ERROR, AND THANKED STEVE MCINTYRE FOR POINTING IT OUT. Pull your head out of the sand, and do a Google News search on “NASA temperature” without the quotes … you’ll find it’s all over the news and the blogosphere, RealClimate is talking about it …

You are correct about NASA downplaying this completely, but you can see their new figures here. Report back and tell us which year was the warmest … and then you can reflect on the fact that, as you point out, NASA has done this with very little publicity. Why do you think that might be?

However … they did note the change on their web site, along with their acknowledgment to Mr. McIntyre for pointing it out.

Phrase your apology any way you like, I’m easy.

Sheesh … and they call us “deniers” …

w.

131

Piffle! I saw that magazine cover and it said

.

They really should be more careful with their punctuation because most Americans (based on “Most Americans are of of below average intelligence, education, reading comprehension, or anything else you care to measure, by fucking definition”) won’t see the asterisk.

132

In one of the more interesting twists in this tale, Robert Samuelson , a Contributing Editor at Newsweek, has written a Newsweek column diametrically opposed to Newsweek’s cover story, saying in part that:

Samuelson’s column is a far more balanced and far less biased treatment of the subject than the original cover story, and ends by saying:

w.

133

Samuelson’s column isn’t really about the same subject as the original Newsweek cover story, though.

The cover story is about the well-funded and often scientifically irresponsible AGW “denial machine”. Samuelson (who, of course, is a journalist with a BA in government who specializes in popular economic journalism, not any kind of climate scientist) has written a column on a related but different subject: namely, the economic difficulties involved in making significant cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

One story does not contradict or falsify the other. It’s possible (and, apparently, actual) that there could be both genuine difficulties in understanding and dealing with AGW and also an unscrupulous “denial machine” that is deliberately trying to make the AGW issue look even more obscure and confused than it is.

In fact, such a “denial machine” can (and apparently does) coexist with irresponsible journalism on the other side of the issue too. Namely, a combination of sloppiness, scientific ignorance, and alarmism that leads many popular media stories to paint AGW claims in the grimmest colors possible, and to oversimplify their conclusions and overstate their certainty.

AFAICT, all climate scientists and most environmentalists are quite aware and willing to admit that there’s unreliable and hyperbolic pro-AGW journalism out there. And they are also aware and willing to admit that there are many responsible and well-informed researchers pointing out valid problems with details of the AGW hypothesis and with policy suggestions for dealing with AGW.

But that doesn’t mean that the anti-AGW “denial machine” doesn’t exist, or that it isn’t culpable for its deliberate and self-serving attempts at obfuscation and spreading ignorance.

134

I don’t know what everybody is worried about. I saw that cover of Newsweek and it said, “Global Warming is a Hoax.” If they think it is then it’s good enough for me.

Somebody should tell them that most people ignore what an asterisk links to.

135

Kimstu, good to hear from you as always. Part of what Samuelson says is that demonizing the opposition (“deniers”, “well-funded”, “machine” etc.) is irresponsible journalism.

And I’ll have to respectfully disagree with you when you say:

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
…

The cover story is about the well-funded and often scientifically irresponsible AGW “denial machine”.
…

[/QUOTE]

As I pointed out above, Exxon gave fifteen million dollars to one side in the debate, while Richard Branson gave three thousand million dollars to the other side. Perhaps you could enlighten us about how the side getting fifteen million dollars is “well-funded”, while the side getting three thousand million dollars gets a free pass and their funding is excused from comment.

I find it humorous that with the funding so hugely slanted towards the AGW supporters, y’all keep claiming that the reason there is no consensus is because the sceptics are “well-funded”. If funding could carry the battle, it would have been over long ago. Fortunately, however, science is ultimately decided by experiment, replicability, and falsifiability … and sp the debate rages on.

w.

136

[QUOTE=intention]
Didn’t realize that “warmers” was an insult … please replace “warmers” with “AGW supporters” as necessary.

However, you’re not doing your homework. NASA HAS ADMITTED THE ERROR, AND THANKED STEVE MCINTYRE FOR POINTING IT OUT. Pull your head out of the sand, and do a Google News search on “NASA temperature” without the quotes … you’ll find it’s all over the news and the blogosphere, RealClimate is talking about it …

You are correct about NASA downplaying this completely, but you can see their new figures here. Report back and tell us which year was the warmest … and then you can reflect on the fact that, as you point out, NASA has done this with very little publicity. Why do you think that might be?

However … they did note the change on their web site, along with their acknowledgment to Mr. McIntyre for pointing it out.

Phrase your apology any way you like, I’m easy.

Sheesh … and they call us “deniers” …

w.
[/QUOTE]

Sure RealClimate is talking about it:

And that is the reason why that was not much of a “News Flash”

137

It would certainly be irresponsible to paint all criticism of mainstream climate science theories with the same brush. As I said above, there are many respectable researchers who have raised valid objections to aspects of the AGW hypothesis or to policy inferences drawn from it. I certainly don’t advocate demonizing those people as mere mouthpieces of a well-funded denial machine.

However, the existence of some responsible critics doesn’t mean that there doesn’t also exist something that can be legitimately called a well-funded denial machine. When people get paid to spread lies and muddy the waters on scientific issues in order to create the illusion that there’s more serious controversy about global warming than there is, it isn’t “demonizing” to point that out.

Sorry, but this argument is really weak. Let’s take it step by step:

  1. It’s not inaccurate to call a propaganda machine “well-funded” if it has a lot of money. Not even if there exist other enterprises that have even more money.

  2. You’re comparing not just apples and oranges here, but watermelons and basketballs. Branson is a multibillionaire who has pledged $3 billion to projects for developing renewable energy technologies. That is, he’s supporting R&D for a particular type of business venture.

If you’re going to count Branson’s renewable-technologies investment as funding for the “pro-AGW side” in the “debate”, you’d similarly have to count all investment in fossil-fuel development projects as funding for the “anti-AGW side”. And that would absolutely dwarf Branson’s measly $3 billion.

The battle was over long ago, as far as mainstream science is concerned. The AGW hypothesis has won. Not because it was better funded, but because it was better science.

Of course, the victory isn’t total yet, because there are still so many uncertainties in the AGW hypothesis and in all the climate science on which it’s based. And the battle could be seriously reopened in the future if the AGW skeptics ever managed to come up with a competing theory that did anywhere near as good a job of explaining the observed phenomena, or if they managed to come up with a genuinely irresolvable problem with the AGW hypothesis itself.

But at present, there’s simply no contest. The AGW hypothesis is currently the only consistent, comprehensive scientific explanation of global warming that explains the observed climate data reasonably well, AND agrees with the theoretical predictions about increased anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, AND agrees with the evidence we have about non-anthropogenic radiative forcings. This is why the AGW hypothesis is accepted (albeit so far provisionally and with scrupulous reservations and uncertainties) by the vast majority of scientists in every related field.

The only place that “the debate rages on” in mainstream science is within the details of the AGW hypothesis, not the fundamental nature of the hypothesis itself. At present, the AGW theory has no serious scientific competitor.

The “debate rages on” much more broadly and chaotically in popular opinion. But that’s mostly due to the general lack of scientific understanding or information, and the propaganda skills of the AGW deniers.

138

[QUOTE=Kimstu]

…

The only place that “the debate rages on” in mainstream science is within the details of the AGW hypothesis, not the fundamental nature of the hypothesis itself. At present, the AGW theory has no serious scientific competitor.

…

[/QUOTE]
I generally agree with this statement, Kimstu, but as always, the devil is in the details. The details are a) overall, how much are humans influencing the climate; b) what are the mechanisms of influence; and c) how much does each of the various mechanisms contribute to the total influence?

NASA says that landuse changes may have had more effect on temperatures than CO2. A recent study says that the “brown haze” of aerosols over Asia is the major contributor to temperature rises in that region. Another study says the largest influence on recent Arctic warming is soot on the snow capturing increased heat. Large-scale irrigation is known to change temperatures over a large area. And even the IPCC estimates that up to half of the warming of the last century may have been caused by solar changes.

On the other hand, other scientists are saying “it’s virtually all CO2, solar changes lost their power in 1980, and the aerosols cause cooling, not warming”.

In the midst of all of this debate, after adjusting for the El Nino influence, temperatures have been generally stable for almost a decade …

You say that there is no disagreement about “the fundamental nature of the hypothesis”. Given the existence of a myriad of ways that humans could be influencing the climate, I’m not clear what the “fundamental hypothesis” is.

For example, if the “fundamental hypothesis” is that increasing GHGs will increase the global average temperature, there’s little disagreement with that in the scientific community … but by how much? There’s little agreement about that, scientific estimates differ by an order of magnitude.

On the other hand, if the “fundamental hypothesis” is “humans are influencing the climate through GHGs, land-use changes, land-cover changes, soot emissions, irrigation, and aerosol emissions”, everyone would likely agree … but that hypothesis is so vague as to be useless.

And if the “fundamental hypothesis” is that “CO2 has been shown to be the major driver of recent temperature rises”, even NASA disagrees with that.

Some clarification from you of the exact “fundamental hypothesis” you think everyone agrees on would be useful here.

w.

139

[QUOTE=intention]
Didn’t realize that “warmers” was an insult … please replace “warmers” with “AGW supporters” as necessary.

However, you’re not doing your homework. NASA HAS ADMITTED THE ERROR, AND THANKED STEVE MCINTYRE FOR POINTING IT OUT. Pull your head out of the sand, and do a Google News search on “NASA temperature” without the quotes … you’ll find it’s all over the news and the blogosphere, RealClimate is talking about it …

You are correct about NASA downplaying this completely, but you can see their new figures here. Report back and tell us which year was the warmest … and then you can reflect on the fact that, as you point out, NASA has done this with very little publicity. Why do you think that might be?

However … they did note the change on their web site, along with their acknowledgment to Mr. McIntyre for pointing it out.

Phrase your apology any way you like, I’m easy.

Sheesh … and they call us “deniers” …

w.
[/QUOTE]

OK. I see the issue here. I thought we were talking about global warming. In fact the word “global” was used to introduce this claim. Now the data you guys are putting up are for the US only. Well, not even that really, because it only counts the continental US. Even that data shows the trend going up. The global trend (refer to the link in your own post) is still way up and shows 2005 as the hottest year ever followed by 1998. So if by “global” you mean the 48 contiguous states then I stand corrected.

140

[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
Sure RealClimate is talking about it:

…

And that is the reason why that was not much of a “News Flash”
[/QUOTE]

For a more reasoned discussion of the issues than RealClimate provides, you might want to take a look here.

To me, the fact that the people maintaining the temperature records did not find the error themselves speaks volumes about their lack of quality control, V&V, and SQA. By itself, this error only affects the US data … but the existence of such a glaring error coupled with their refusal to release the code that they are using to do the calculations should make anyone suspicious.

If the IRS were auditing a business and found an error of this size in favor of the business, do you think that the business owner’s statement that “this only affects one division” would keep them from suspecting that their might be other errors? And if the business then refused to say how they how they had calculated their numbers, would that count in the business’s favor, or would it increase suspicion even further and turn a small deal into a “News Flash”?

As in the RC post you quoted, Gavin and the RealClimate folks keep saying in effect ‘don’t pay any attention to this, it’s meaningless, we have it under control, trust us’, but you know what? The one thing that the existence of this error proves is that we can’t trust them, they’re asleep at the wheel.

Anyhow, read the post I linked to above … it’s very interesting.

w.