The Great Global Warming Swindle

[otoc]

Part 4

No one at the hearing mentioned that, through the Food and Drug Administration and University of Maryland's Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the EPRI contributed $486,000 to a Seychelles-related research project involving Myers' group. In an interview, Myers said the funding did not support "the main study in the Seychelles," but rather "some related studies." Yet others contend that that funding is relevant for assessing all of the Seychelles work. "Think about what your mother might say," says Rena Steinzor, director of the environmental-law clinic at the University of Maryland and a board member at the Center for Progressive Regulation. "Would she want to know that some doctor who told her mercury in fish was safe had been given money by the industry most affected by proposals to cut this pollution?"


As on the climate issue, Inhofe leaned toward the industry-friendly outlier position. His questioning emphasized that fish are part of a healthy diet, and appeared to challenge the prominent Faroe Islands mercury study, which did show damaging effects on child development and was relied upon by the NAS. Once again, Inhofe's staff insisted that the panel was balanced. Myers' work, they wrote, is "the most comprehensive study to date."


Ironically, the mercury issue links back to climate change in a surprising way. In December 2003, the Center for Science and Public Policy at the conservative Frontiers of Freedom Institute came out with a report saying that the EPA's initial push to regulate mercury stringently -- since watered down -- was "not justified by science." Like Inhofe's staff, the report treated the Seychelles work of Gary Myers as definitive. One of the report's two authors was none other than Dr. Willie Soon, listed as "science director" of the Center for Science and Public Policy. Frontiers of Freedom received $232,000 from ExxonMobil in 2002.


Report Burning
But perhaps the most anti-scientific part of Inhofe's agenda has been his involvement in a legal push, led by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (which received $405,000 from ExxonMobil in 2002), to suppress a trailblazing Clinton-era report focusing on potential impacts of climate change on different U.S. regions -- the so-called National Assessment. Perhaps because the National Assessment makes the consequences of climate change very clear in an almost visceral way, it has been ferociously attacked by those hoping to stop preventive action. "It says exactly what will happen in people's backyards, so it's very powerful," says Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer.

Conservatives first brought a lawsuit over the National Assessment in late 2000, not long before Bill Clinton left office. Filed by the CEI with Inhofe as a co-plaintiff, the suit alleged various procedural deficiencies in the report's preparation. It then stunningly demanded a block on the report's production or utilization -- in other words, a court's withholding of scientific information. Co-plaintiff Jo Ann Emerson, a Republican representative from Missouri, charged, "The administration is rushing to release a junk science report in violation of current law to try to lend support to its flawed Kyoto Protocol negotiations."


But leading scientists think differently and have said so. An entire section of the 2001 NAS report was devoted to discussing the National Assessment, which it said "provides a basis for summarizing the potential consequences of climate change." And another NAS panel tasked with reviewing the Bush administration's 10-year climate-change research plan recently observed that the National Assessment made "important contributions to understanding the possible consequences of climate variability and change," calling the report's review process "exemplary."


After Clinton left the White House, the Bush administration settled the CEI lawsuit with an admission that the National Assessment was merely a government report and didn't represent official policy. But in the meantime, Emerson had attached a brief rider to an appropriations bill that would soon become known as the Data Quality Act. The law creates a new means for parties to submit complaints, and ultimately lawsuits, over the scientific quality of government information. Though his staff says he doesn't support making major legislative changes by appropriations rider "as a general rule," Inhofe has embraced the act.


In August of 2003, the CEI launched the very first lawsuit under the act, demanding a halt to the report's dissemination by the government. Inhofe wasn't involved in the second suit directly, but as The Washington Post reported, his committee invited a CEI attorney involved in both cases to attend a meeting between UN representatives and congressional staff in early 2003. This outraged many Democrats present, who claimed the appearance was "highly unusual and a breach of congressional protocol."



The meeting concerned a series of climate-change reports that the United States is required to submit to the United Nations under the Framework Convention. The lawyer, the CEI's Christopher Horner, says he was "not there in pursuit of information relating to any pending lawsuits."
In any case, the suits have clearly had a chilling effect. After the White House settled with the CEI a second time, the government Web site displaying the National Assessment was amended to include a prominent disclaimer saying that the report had not been subject to Data Quality Act guidelines. Yet the Data Quality Act wasn't even in effect when the report was prepared. Meanwhile, the administration's strategic plan on climate research omits any presentation of the National Assessment's key findings and results -- something for which it was twice taken to task by the National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the plan. "All the way through the climate-change science plan, [the administration] clearly had distanced [itself], in a not very shy way, from the U.S. National Assessment," says Jerry Mahlman, former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, who sat on the panel.

[otoc]

Part 5

For atmospheric physicist Michael MacCracken, who successively directed the offices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the National Assessment during the Clinton years, the result has been depressing.



"Information is normally of value," he muses. But Inhofe doesn't seem to take that view. The Prospect asked the senator's staff the following question: Even if the National Assessment has flaws (as most studies do), is that grounds for bringing a lawsuit over research that could inform Americans about future risks and how to prepare themselves? The committee basically deflected the question. "In other words," it responded, "should major decisions, affecting the country's economic well-being, be based on flawed scientific research? Clearly not."


So you might say that Inhofe has put ideology over even the availability of scientific information. There's some historical precedent for this. In the late 1920s and early '30s, a "scientist" named Trofim Lysenko largely took control of Soviet biological and agricultural research for several decades.



During that time, he institutionalized the pseudoscientific notion that the theory of genetics constituted an affront to socialism -- the party line. The damage done to Soviet science was immeasurable, and the term "Lysenkoism" has since become synonymous with suppressing or refusing to acknowledge science for ideological reasons.


Inhofe's actions have already had serious consequences: His 2003 battle against the science of climate clearly helped prevent passage of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act. Unlike in the former Soviet Union, though, we still have dissent in the United States, including from moderates in Inhofe's own party like McCain and Connecticut's Chris Shays. "When we learn the seriousness of this problem," says Shays of climate change, "Senator Inhofe and I and others probably won't be in office, and they'll never be held accountable."


But at the very least, Inhofe's claim that global warming is a "hoax" seems sure to be remembered in years hence -- although not, perhaps, in quite the way that he might like.

[AMDScooter]

^^^^

An article from the author of:

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney

A stinging indictment of how the Republican Party has not only ignored science, but has used bad science to justify its political agenda.

On this site:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...s&section=root

History and Mission

The American Prospect was founded in 1990 as an authoritative magazine of liberal ideas,committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics. Robert Kuttner, Robert Reich, and Paul Starr launched the magazine initially as a quarterly.

So... what do we have here O? A partisan hack... accusing someone else of being a partisan hack in an article posted on a Liberal website.

>>>>>Insert mocking shock here<<<<<<

But thanks for the boilerplate "wall of text" liberal reply anyway.

[otoc]

^^^ This same guy OTOC.... Ya... I cannot see why he'd say such things.. seeing as you are attached to BOLDFACE I'll point you to the relative passages:


Climate scientist sees cover-up




Yup... just a fine upstanding young scientist. Not to be mistaken with an agenda pushing partisan hack on the global warming payroll in any way shape or form.

Fair enough scooter. Now how about the fact that 2 administration officials resigned because of rewriting science to fit in with policy?

Following news reports in which Hansen claimed he was censored, Deutsch resigned from NASA and the agency issued a new communications policy that emphasized openness among scientists and the news media.

Cooney resigned from his post at the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2005 after The New York Times revealed the former oil industry lobbyist had edited government climate reports to downplay links between human greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Personally, I think this topic is confusing enough without the petroleum industry asserting changes to how carbon based products affect the environment.

This administration is slanted by many counts, including how the people who are put into place seem to run when the lights get turned on to cooking the books.

Perhaps it's a chicken and egg syndrome, with the opening act the Oil industry acting like the tobacco industry was.

I think their funds would be better placed in cannibalizing their product line into energy solutions that got us off of the teats of foreign wells.

[otoc]

^^^^

An article from the author of:

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney



On this site:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...s&section=root



So... what do we have here O? A partisan hack... accusing someone else of being a partisan hack in an article posted on a Liberal website.

>>>>>Insert mocking shock here<<<<<<

But thanks for the boilerplate "wall of text" liberal reply anyway.

Yup. It's called balance to your "wall of text" oil sponsored lobby position. Interesting how it all balances out. The difference is I actually read both sides, and while it didn't come from a blogging housewife, it actually had convincing rebuttals to the Senator's blog.

[AMDScooter]

Fair enough scooter. Now how about the fact that 2 administration officials resigned because of rewriting science to fit in with policy?

I'm not seeing where either admitted to any wrongdoing as you imply.

Personally, I think this topic is confusing enough without the petroleum industry asserting changes to how carbon based products affect the environment.

This administration is slanted by many counts, including how the people who are put into place seem to run when the lights get turned on to cooking the books.

Much of the same can be said about the GW crowd. Flogging the heck out of the heavily edited IPCC report that among other things does not support the Goracle's fictional findings about CO2 in his movie. They claim scientific "consensus" while working hard to snuff out any dissent. Pot and kettle action to be sure. Or better put: Don't Politicize Science (Unless You're on My Side).

Perhaps it's a chicken and egg syndrome, with the opening act the Oil industry acting like the tobacco industry was.

I think their funds would be better placed in cannibalizing their product line into energy solutions that got us off of the teats of foreign wells.

The topic is confusing as hell. Your comparison between the tobacco industry and oil is off base though. The issue is far more divisive and there is "good" science provided by both camps. I'd love to get off our reliance off foreign oil.. However, I do not think pushing junk science as fact or scientific "consensus" should be the impetus.

[AMDScooter]

Yup. It's called balance to your "wall of text" oil sponsored lobby position. Interesting how it all balances out. The difference is I actually read both sides, and while it didn't come from a blogging housewife, it actually had convincing rebuttals to the Senator's blog.

Say.. thats a nifty paragraph there.. lets' cover what O manages to infer in the name of "balance":

1) That the financing and obvious bias of his "scientist" is not relevant. But when oil companies sponsor a position it's damming evidence of wrongdoing.
2) That I have not "actually" read both sides of the GW issue while he has.
3) That my rebut was from a "blogging housewife".
4) That the article I posted did not offer "convincing" or compelling rebuttal.

You have achieved "emptiness".

[otoc]

Say.. thats a nifty paragraph there.. lets' cover what O manages to infer in the name of "balance":

1) That the financing and obvious bias of his "scientist" is not relevant. But when oil companies sponsor a position it's damming evidence of wrongdoing.
2) That I have not "actually" read both sides of the GW issue while he has.
3) That my rebut was from a "blogging housewife".
4) That the article I posted did not offer "convincing" or compelling rebuttal.

You have achieved "emptiness".

No,
1) That the original financing by the oil companies causing direct influence on government policies and rewriting of science caused several administration officials to have to resign after it was made public (you may feel there was no correlation, but the fact is, government officials resigned and Congress is only now reviewing why because of a shift in power). Even governmental policies regarding openness with the press had to be rewritten. The fact that funding came from a "leftist" source, is always something that should be viewed with open eyes. The fact that there is a consensus in the general scientific world regarding the impact of people on CO2 levels as there is consensus that temps are rising.
2)There is nothing to indicate you read the rebuttal for the Senator's position that global warming is a sham by the media other then to simply state it was leftist rhetoric.
3)That the rebuttal from the left was not from a blogging housewife. The author obviously researched the topic.
4)The article from the Senator's blog certainly sounded convincing. At least until a contrary view was presented. Then it started to get many holes. Try reading it.

[otoc]

[quote=AMDScooter;4032419]I'm not seeing where either admitted to any wrongdoing as you imply.[quote]

No scooter, resigning from a cushy government position after being exposed is a sign of honor. Again, Congress is now investigating the issue now that power has been balanced. The review never would have happened in the old one party system.

Oh, I know, that makes me a liberal, lol.

Much of the same can be said about the GW crowd. Flogging the heck out of the heavily edited IPCC report that among other things does not support the Goracle's fictional findings about CO2 in his movie. They claim scientific "consensus" while working hard to snuff out any dissent. Pot and kettle action to be sure. Or better put: Don't Politicize Science (Unless You're on My Side).

Actually, the CO2 levels are pretty much not in debate. The rising sea level was, though, and was a good criticism.

I enjoy how you insert your little Annyism about Gore. I'll stick with issue of understanding unedited scientific data instead.

I thought I was being clear, I don't feel science should be politicized.

The topic is confusing as hell. Your comparison between the tobacco industry and oil is off base though. The issue is far more divisive and there is "good" science provided by both camps. I'd love to get off our reliance off foreign oil.. However, I do not think pushing junk science as fact or scientific "consensus" should be the impetus.

Really. The tobacco industry funded many lobbies to keep the concept of tobacco and health muddied. The oil companies are funding studies that are deemed flawed by the rest of the scientific community it seems. The editing of studies is one sign of that.

Is that "junk science" from the oil companies or the rest of the scientific communty? Please be specific.

[AMDScooter]

No,
1) That the original financing by the oil companies causing direct influence on government policies and rewriting of science caused several administration officials to have to resign after it was made public (you may feel there was no correlation, but the fact is, government officials resigned and Congress is only now reviewing why because of a shift in power).Even governmental policies regarding openness with the press had to be rewritten.

In short, you have no evidence to back up your initial assertion or your claim here.

The fact that funding came from a "leftist" source, is always something that should be viewed with open eyes.

You only seem interested in "opening your eyes" where oil companies are concerned. This is evidenced by your use of heavily biased sources with heavily biased funding.

The fact that there is a consensus in the general scientific world regarding the impact of people on CO2 levels as there is consensus that temps are rising.

There is no "consensus" that CO2 is causing the rise in temperatures... that is a FACT.

2)There is nothing to indicate you read the rebuttal for the Senator's position that global warming is a sham by the media other then to simply state it was leftist rhetoric.

"there is nothing to indicate"? Thats what you base your accusation on? YOUR ASSUMPTION. How laughable... yet another baseless claim. I rebutted with background on the author showing his obvious bias and the bias of the website the article was hosted on. Proved it was indeed leftist rhetoric.

3)That the rebuttal from the left was not from a blogging housewife. The author obviously researched the topic.

I never said it was.

4)The article from the Senator's blog certainly sounded convincing. At least until a contrary view was presented. Then it started to get many holes. Try reading it.

LOL. You think that wall of text "view" from a guy profiteering from the GW hysteria hosted on a liberal site provides a "new" rebuttal? The only thing that reply did was put "many holes" in his own creditability. Did you even read it? He refers to the IPPCC as:

(IPCC), a UN body whose rigorously peer-reviewed work -- a kind of gold standard of climate science -- relies on the contributions of some 2,000 global scientists.

[Wolf2000me]

http://www.theregister.com/2007/03/2...ange_meddling/

Accusations of meddling
By Lucy Sherriff → More by this author
Published Tuesday 20th March 2007 16:09 GMT
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The Bush administration has been meddling in climate research in a bid to downplay the importance of global warming, according to a memo released by the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The committee held its second hearing on federal interference in climate change science on Monday this week.


In his opening statement, representative Henry Waxman said although it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the White House's conduct, "some of the information the committee has already obtained is disturbing. It suggests there may have been a concerted effort directed by the White House to mislead the public about the dangers of global climate change".

He said that science should inform policy, and that if the Bush administration had turned this policy upside down "through raw political pressure, then it set our country on a dangerous course".

A memo later released by the committee says that the documents provided by the Council on Environmental Qualify (CEQ) suggest the White House was systematically trying to minimise the significance of climate change.

It says there is evidence that Phillip Cooney, former chief of staff of the CEQ, and his staff made almost 300 edits to a 10 year strategy document either to emphasise scientific uncertainty (181), or to diminish the human role in global warming (113).

It also cites evidence that the White House "played an active role in deciding when federal climate change scientists could answer media questions about their work".

James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said he had seen a gradual politicising of science over the past quarter of a century, but that in 30 years in government he has "never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now".

He has previously accused political appointees within NASA of trying to censor him.

In his own testimony, Cooney describes his editing as part of "the normal review process" of documents moving between different agencies.

He writes: "I had the authority and responsibility to review the documents in question...and did so using my best judgement, based on the administration's stated research priorities...I understand that my judgement and the administration's priorities are properly open to review."

You can read the memo and all the written testimony here. ®

So, if climate change is all a lie or whatever. Why the need for such active political meddling in the research?

[otoc]

In short, you have no evidence to back up your initial assertion or your claim here.

Only the fact that government documents were rewritten by an ex-oil lobbyist, that oil funds are supporting the Senator whose position is has caused scientists to complain of misrepresentation, and a Congressional review of the matter.

It seems by looking at a post by Wolf2000me that an initial opinion on this matter has been made.

You only seem interested in "opening your eyes" where oil companies are concerned. This is evidenced by your use of heavily biased sources with heavily biased funding.

And you seem to ignore what I actually say to the contrary. I can't change your mind, but that doesn't mean you are correct in this position. But that is your game here, isn't it?

There is no "consensus" that CO2 is causing the rise in temperatures... that is a FACT.

Really.

At least you admit the temps are rising.

From the EPA:




Of course there are many causes, which is what this topic is all about.

More can be found here:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc.html

"there is nothing to indicate"? Thats what you base your accusation on? YOUR ASSUMPTION. How laughable... yet another baseless claim. I rebutted with background on the author showing his obvious bias and the bias of the website the article was hosted on. Proved it was indeed leftist rhetoric.

I explained myself on this topic. No need to repeat it other than to say:


You are expressing an opinion as I am.

Yet you yell in response "YOUR ASSUMPTION. How laughable..."

All I did was create balance in pointing out a contrary view. If you actually read that "leftist rhetoric" you would see that many counterpoints were made, such as the documented complaints of scientists who felt their position was skewed when placed into a skeptic category by the senator.

3)That the rebuttal from the left was not from a blogging housewife. The author obviously researched the topic.

I never said it was.

No that's right, you didn't. You wrote that my position was:

3) That my rebut was from a "blogging housewife".

Which I never stated.

Look at it this way. You brought in the senator's blog and I countered with a writer who documents his position with data and merely showed how skewed the senator really was.

You countered with your "leftist" schtick. I brought up the blogging housewife because you once used her as a positioning piece. What I didn't note was that I didn't discount her because she was from the right. It was because she regurgitated partisan positions from the safety of her living room without doing any research.

Mooney investigated his position.

LOL. You think that wall of text "view" from a guy profiteering from the GW hysteria hosted on a liberal site provides a "new" rebuttal? The only thing that reply did was put "many holes" in his own creditability. Did you even read it? He refers to the IPPCC as:

My, and you dare critic me on "leftist rhetoric"? WTF is that, lol.

OK, it's OK for you to use GOP positions, but it's not OK for me to pull from the left.

Sorry, there aren't many members of the GOP who have gone against their party on this one. A few, but they haven't put together enough material worth discussing.

Yet it is funny how the EPA quotes the IPPCC too. You should complain to them for placing "GW hysteria" on their liberal site, too. I'm sure they would enjoy it as much as I.

These climate change “drivers” often trigger additional changes or “feedbacks” within the climate system that can amplify or dampen the climate's initial response to them (whether the response is warming or cooling). For example:

• Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations: The heating or cooling of the Earth's surface can cause changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. For example, when global temperatures become warmer, carbon dioxide is released from the oceans. When changes in the Earth's orbit trigger a warm (or interglacial) period, increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide may amplify the warming by enhancing the greenhouse effect. When temperatures become cooler, CO2 enters the ocean and contributes to additional cooling. During at least the last 420,000 years, CO2 levels have tended to track the glacial cycles (IPCC, 2001). That is, during warm interglacial periods, CO2 levels have been high and during cool glacial periods, CO2 levels have been low (see Figure 1).

[otoc]

So, if climate change is all a lie or whatever. Why the need for such active political meddling in the research?

Good question. Thanks for the link, too. Perhaps it will address it.

Unless scooter comes in to say that only the GOP/Oil lobby is correct and anything else must be a leftist rhetoric that doesn't deserve to be read.

[AMDScooter]

Good question. Thanks for the link, too. Perhaps it will address it.

Unless scooter comes in to say that only the GOP/Oil lobby is correct and anything else must be a leftist rhetoric that doesn't deserve to be read.

Nope, stated as much in previous posts that both sides have valid arguments. I do not see how anyone can characterize the man made GW theory as a "consensus" with so much opposition in the scientific community.

But as long as we are asking questions.. Why are the voices from the left crying for those who disagree to be discredited? What is the story behind the IPCC's omissions from its report and why does it's conclusions differ so much from the conclusions of members listed as contributors?

While I'm not sure what if anything Waxman will turn up, there has been plenty of meddling on both sides of the debate to go around.

[BlackDragon24]

Thread resurrection time:

Thunder? It's the sound of Greenland melting

I don't know if humans are causing this or not, but its pretty damn scary