"These huge green multinationals, with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars, have now systematically infiltrated science,"
The energy companies denying anthropomorphic climate change have much larger budgets and a vested interest in convincing everyone everything is fine, there's no need to change anything, so they can continue on with their current business model. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - after all the global climate change advocates have done a pretty good job of convincing everyone the climate is changing but what they haven't done is looked at whether the change will be net positive or net negative. The confirmation bias here is they appear to be only looking for the negative since it's assumed change is bad.
Finally, the author of this article forgot to mention one anecdote not supporting his claim - the link between smoking and cancer. The omission leads me to believe he has his own agenda he's pushing, or to be polite, has his own confirmation bias.
I'm not sure which "exact same formula" you are referring to but my take was he agrees the possible outcomes cover a
"huge range, from marginally beneficial to terrifyingly harmful, so it is hardly a consensus of danger, and if you look at the 'probability density functions' of climate sensitivity, they always cluster towards the lower end."
And he opposes people who will only countenance an extreme position, either being alarmist or denying everything.
He doesn't really seem to deviate much from that position throughout the article. I have a lot of sympathy for this - the probabilities density functions clustering towards the lower end isn't the most snappy of slogans but seems to be the truth unlike more extreme viewpoints.
Anyone who disagrees with him is a "Denier". Because those who know science gain credibility by presuming their hypothesis are facts.... therefore his assertion of anthropomorphism is undeniable!
Definitely. What I really love is when someone jumps freely between them. "It'll be great, we can grow grapes in Newfoundland again, we should burn more coal!" And then two minutes later they're talking about how there's no demonstrated link between CO2 and warmer temperatures.
but what they haven't done is looked at whether the change will be net positive or net negative.
That's actually quite rational.
From a government policy perspective, what matters is the negatives, because it's the negatives that will require human action to cope.
The most notable example, of course, is rising sea levels as a result of melting polar ice and general thermal expansion, which threatens billions of people who live in coastal areas. Whether or not northern Canada turns into a breadbasket doesn't help a Malaysian or Miami resident when the land their homes are built on becomes the new seafloor.
Let's ignore the whole anthropogenic-or-not question.
Are you saying you believe that global average temperatures aren't increasing?
Or are you saying you believe they are, but we shouldn't do anything about it and just live with whatever consequences come our way?
Fundamentally I just don't understand your position.
If you genuinely believe global average temperatures aren't rising, well, there's not much to argue about. The evidence is in. Even the skeptics generally accept climate change is occurring, even if they don't agree about why. Holding a position that's objectively contrary to all current evidence is a position of faith rather than reason.
If you accept that climate change is occurring, but that humans aren't the cause, and your argument is we should simply do nothing because OMG GOVERNMENT, well, again, there's not much to argue about. That's a fundamentally faith-based position as well, as it argues that the death and displacement of billions is better than governments empowered to offset those effects. I can't begin to even fathom that claim. It requires a distrust of government that I can't begin to comprehend... which has its irony, given it was the government that created the very medium upon which we're having this discussion.
I suppose the last option is that you're just a troll, but I'll be generous and assume that's not the case and that rational discourse is, in fact, possible.
Everyone I have ever interacted with face-to-face who takes this position on global warming was sincere, not an intentional troll. They just listen to right-wing talk radio for hours every day, and have a very bizarrely warped view of the world.
If AGW is true and sea levels rise significantly a lot of people who currently live in densely populated coastal areas will have their property and economic opportunities destroyed by no fault of their own.
For example, Wikipedia says that Bangladesh has 156 million people as of 2013, and that "most parts of Bangladesh are less than 12 m (39.4 ft) above sea level, and it is estimated that about 10% of the land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 1 m (3.28 ft)".
Do you think millions of people will be able to migrate elsewhere, a large share of them even to other countries, without causing a lot of social conflicts?
Just imagine all of those people want to immigrate to your country. What is the government going to do about that?
I'll say one thing: I think that there really are a number of business groups with vested interests in skewing the science one way or the other. On one hand, you have the Koch brothers who want you to believe global warming is a non-issue and that everything will be fine so keep burning all the fossil fuels you want. On the other hand, green energy companies such as Solar City who have a vested interest in convincing everyone that the world will end unless you install their solar panels on your roof.
I'm not certain I really agree with either end of the spectrum.
"The energy companies denying anthropomorphic climate change have much larger budgets and a vested interest in convincing everyone everything is fine, there's no need to change anything, so they can continue on with their current business model."
It's pretty telling that these companies have spent well over 100 million in recent years for propaganda, and a grand total of ONE grant of 200K for scientific research.
And when that grant concluded global warming is real and anthropogenic, that was the end of industry funded research. Now it's nothing but propaganda.
Doesn't that kind of imply to you that energy companies or whoever have not systematically infiltrated science, as the author of this article says that green organizations have?
I feel like this thread goes:
Original author: "Green movements with deep pockets have infiltrated science!"
Poster: "Yeah, but energy companies have even deeper pockets [so it's okay if people with obvious financial incentives to believe that climate change deserves drastic action are given gatekeeper positions in science.]"
Another poster: "Yeah, and check it out! The deep-pocketed energy companies don't even get involved with science!"
It implies to me that nothing's infiltrated science except scientists.
It shows to me that the fossil fuel lobby knows AGW is real, knows that if they hire any scientists to look at the issue, those scientists will once again confirm that AGW is real, and so they prefer to fund denialism.
That's the thing: you can have debates and disagreements, but physical reality does take sides.
[update]
You're a citizen. You can read the scientific papers on AGW regardless of whether they're used by the IPCC for their own papers.
What about the reports from the UN IPCC That misrepresented the claims of scientists named in the reports? (To the Scientists protests.)
In fact, IPCC reports-- which are not science but political propaganda-- are the sum total of "science" that AGW proponents rely on when making their political claims (And their claim that "Science" agrees with them, which they think justifies calling anyone who disagrees with the hypothesis by the epithet of "denier")
Wei-Hock Soon, one of the few (formerly) half-reputable scientists the energy industry could find that pretended anthropogenic climate change isn't real recently was found to have:
- "forgotten" $1.2m in payments on disclosure forms (oops-a-daisy);
- referred to his papers as "deliverables" in correspondence with the energy companies
I have flagged this comment as libel. It is one thing to argue a position you believe, it is quite another to smear another's character.
This kind of fact-twisting is on the level of the apocryphal Smathers campaign speech:
"Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert [pervert]? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism [necrophilia] with his sister-in-law and he has a sister who was once a thespian [lesbian] in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy [???]."
1.2m in unethically gained compensation is a conflict of interest. That is not libel. Libel is publishing false information about a person. It's not false that the dude received the money, hence, not libel.
> Libel is publishing false information about a person.
Most generally, it is publishing damaging information about a person. In some jurisdictions, truth is an absolute defense to libel, in some other jurisdictions, truth is sometimes a defense (but not always).
The attack on Dr. Wei Hock Soon is a very ugly business. It is a case in point of the political incursion on science that Matt Ridley was describing in the linked article.
I have good reason to believe that the insinuations against Dr. Wei Hock Soon are both damaging and false, and indeed, actionable. They are part of a campaign instigated since 1997 by one Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, to mob and harass Dr. Soon, isolate him by putting pressure on his employer to fire him, to cause sponsors to drop him, and destroy his reputation. Added to that, the stress from this attack is worsening his ill health.
>Contrary to media reports, the grants from “energy interests” used to support Dr. Soon’s research were solicited and received by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, not by Dr. Soon himself. The Smithsonian staff vetted and approved every grant and then kept about 40 percent of the total as a fee for acting as a fire wall between a donor and the researcher.
>Prior to conducting research on behalf of the Smithsonian, Dr. Soon would draw up a grant proposal that summarized the scientific questions he planned to research. Third-party entities interested in funding the research made their interest known to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian then vetted the research proposal and grant offers to ensure the research was scientifically proper and would not present any conflicts of interest. Only after conducting the vetting process did the Smithsonian authorize the research and the funding. The third-party funders wrote their checks directly to the Smithsonian, which was the grant recipient. The Smithsonian then distributed a portion of the grant money (usually a little more than half) to Dr. Soon as payment for his services
The term 'deliverables' mentioned in the offending comment above (which insinuates that Dr. Soon is 'delivering' scientific conclusions made to order) comes from the contract between the donors and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (not Dr. Soon), and refers to progress reports and early access to material in preparation for publication.
Well, I can certainly see how it becoming known Soon sells anti-AGW "science" is damaging to his little money spinner, but that doesn't make it libel -- truth, absolute defense, etc etc.
Of course, he could always sue, but we know why he'll never do so: the defendants would get discovery.
For every such example you can come up with, there are a dozen examples of scientists you guys consider to be pro AGW who have made similar errors. For instance, this comes nothing close to impeaching his work like ClimateGate did for Mann. (And yet proponents still use the Mann data.)
Notice that your argument is not science, but demonization.
Meanwhile every projection and prediction your side has made has failed to come to pass. And this has been going on for 20+ years!
" For instance, this comes nothing close to impeaching his work like ClimateGate did for Mann"
You obviously have no idea what it is that Mann does, let alone how mining his email for a quote that can be misrepresented had one nothing to discredit him.
" these companies have spent well over 100 million in recent years for propaganda, and a grand total of ONE grant of 200K for scientific research."
Prove it.
Prove they have spent that much on "propaganda" and that they have spent no more than 200k for research.
Now prove that the government has spent more on research, and that ALL of that research was of the "free inquiry" type (Eg: without a required outcome predetermined. Remember government has pressured scientists to reach certain conclusions, and journals have set out a particular hypothesis as fact for all articles, etc. Suppression of scientific inquiry is at a shocking level these days.)
Also, please tell me how much has been spent on propaganda by proponents of AGW.
I know just a few of Obama's and Gore's efforts alone were more than 200M (Obama spends 200M on a week long trip oversease-- every time he's gone overseas to promote the global warming theory he's spent more in propaganda than you claim the whole industry opposing him has.)
"Prove they have spent that much on "propaganda" and that they have spent no more than 200k for research."
The 200K went to Richard Muller at Berkeley. I challenge you to find any other money. As for the $100M, here's $80M from one source, (freres Koch). The remaining $20M takes a bit more googling.
I love how I'm being challenged to prove a negative. If you can find any grant besides the Berkeley BEST grant, you will have disproved it. Go ahead and try.
And BTW, I have no downvotes. I've been "too fasted" myself.
Worth noting that not only don't the 6 largest energy companies in Europe deny anthropogenic climate change, they're actively calling for a carbon tax to combat it.
They claim that the oil and gas companies in the US would join them if the coal lobby wasn't so strong in the US.
The government has a much larger budget and a vested interest in convincing everyone that things are not fine. Both the UN, which is seeking the ability to impose a global carbon tax-- the first step to being a world government-- and local governments such as the US Federal government which seeks the ability to have further control over the economy.
Al Gore invested a great deal of money in a carbon trading exchange that would have made him billions if the US Government had passed the legislation he was trying to get passed during the height of the "Inconvenient Truth" era.
The idea that only those with results that disagree with AGW have large budgets and vested interests is manifestly false.
And silly.
Edit: You can't have a discussion on hacker news of an intellectual nature because people use the down vote button to bury and silence those who disagree with their political dogma.
As a result, Hacker News, day by day, becomes more of an echo chamber, and as a result will likely end up like slashdot.
IS that what you want?
Are you really so insecure that you cannot tolerate well made arguments that you disagree with?
There are over 40 developed countries whose governments fund scientific research.
Several of them have heads of state who would love to find evidence against AGW: Canada and Australia come to mind. Angela Merkel would love to find evidence that the coal mining way of life in East Germany isn't a problem. (But she knows not to fight against scientific evidence.)
Our own government had a republican president not so long ago.
Again, if there was any avenue of scientific research that could find evidence against AGW, there would be money to fund it, be it from governments or corporations. Deniers have spent over 100M on propaganda in recent years. That's a lot of money that could have gone towards research if there was any to be done.
There was exactly one attempt to do that, with the grant given to Richard Muller at Berkeley. That blew up in the denier's faces, and they're never doing that again.
[update]
"When you resort to calling people who disagree with your hypothesis "deniers" then..."
I am calling them deniers because they have ample funds with which to find evidence for their case, and they are refraining from doing so.
[update]
"Thanks for conceding that there are 40 governments putting money"
I did not say "40 governments putting money into the other side." I said "40 governments funding science." And as I pointed out, the governments of Australia and Canada would love to find evidence against AGW. And yet government funded scientists in both countries continue to find evidence for it. Our own government under George W. Bush would have loved to find evidence against AGW. And yet our scientists in NASA, NOAA, and academia, were finding evidence for it the entire time.
When you resort to calling people who disagree with your hypothesis "deniers" then you've given up any pretense of believing in science, and as far as I'm concerned, you have admitted your movement is purely political. ( Which is good because the science doesn't support you.)
Thanks for conceding that there are 40 governments putting money into the other side-- which dismisses your absurd claims that industry as more money.
The energy companies denying anthropomorphic climate change have much larger budgets and a vested interest in convincing everyone everything is fine, there's no need to change anything, so they can continue on with their current business model. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - after all the global climate change advocates have done a pretty good job of convincing everyone the climate is changing but what they haven't done is looked at whether the change will be net positive or net negative. The confirmation bias here is they appear to be only looking for the negative since it's assumed change is bad.
Finally, the author of this article forgot to mention one anecdote not supporting his claim - the link between smoking and cancer. The omission leads me to believe he has his own agenda he's pushing, or to be polite, has his own confirmation bias.