🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <qjSdr.13208$dq4.11324@newsfe23.iad>,
 "Super Turtle" <superturtle@greenpiece.com> wrote:

Whoa! I must have said something right, look at all the shills moving 
around.

Yeah, yeah, you got me. I'm just another one of those smart, educated, 
fact-based elitists. I can't make-up reality like you guys can.

<http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacc
o.html>
January 3, 2007 
Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create 
Confusion
(And that was 5 years ago, and it hasn't gotten any better)
----

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy#Funding_for_par
tisans>

Funding for partisans

Both sides of the controversy have argued that access to funding has 
played a role in the willingness of credentialed experts to speak out.

Documents obtained by Greenpeace under the US Freedom of Information Act 
show that the Charles G. Koch Foundation gave Willie Soon two grants 
totaling $175,000 in 2005/6 and again in 2010. Multiple grants from the 
American Petroleum Institute between 2001 and 2007 totalled $274,000, 
and grants from Exxon Mobil totalled $335,000 between 2005 and 2010. 
Other coal and oil industry sources which funded him include the Mobil 
Foundation, the Texaco Foundation and the Electric Power Research 
Institute. Soon, acknowledging that he received this money, stated 
unequivocally that he has "never been motivated by financial reward in 
any of my scientific research."[181]

The Greenpeace research project ExxonSecrets, and George Monbiot writing 
in The Guardian, as well as various academics,[182][183] have linked 
several skeptical scientists—Fred Singer, Fred Seitz and Patrick 
Michaels—to organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Philip Morris for the 
purpose of promoting global warming skepticism.[184] Similarly, groups 
employing global warming skeptics, such as the George C. Marshall 
Institute, have been criticized for their ties to fossil fuel 
companies.[185]

On 2 February 2007, The Guardian stated[186][187] that Kenneth Green, a 
Visiting Scholar with AEI, had sent letters[188] to scientists in the UK 
and the U.S., offering US$10,000 plus travel expenses and other 
incidental payments in return for essays with the purpose of 
"highlight[ing] the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process", 
specifically regarding the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

A furor was raised when it was revealed that the Intermountain Rural 
Electric Association (an energy cooperative that draws a significant 
portion of its electricity from coal-burning plants) donated $100,000 to 
Patrick Michaels and his group, New Hope Environmental Services, and 
solicited additional private donations from its 
members.[189][190][unreliable source?][191]

The Union of Concerned Scientists have produced a report titled 'Smoke, 
Mirrors & Hot Air',[192] that criticizes ExxonMobil for "underwriting 
the most sophisticated and most successful disinformation campaign since 
the tobacco industry" and for "funnelling about $16 million between 1998 
and 2005 to a network of ideological and advocacy organizations that 
manufacture uncertainty on the issue". In 2006 Exxon said that it was no 
longer going to fund these groups[193] though that statement has been 
challenged by Greenpeace.[194]

The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a skeptic 
group, when confronted about the funding of a video they put together 
($250,000 for "The Greening of Planet Earth" from an oil company) 
stated, "We applaud Western Fuels for their willingness to publicize a 
side of the story that we believe to be far more correct than what at 
one time was 'generally accepted'. But does this mean that they fund The 
Center? Maybe it means that we fund them!"[195]

Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, has said that skeptics such 
as Michaels are lobbyists more than researchers, and that "I don't think 
it's unethical any more than most lobbying is unethical", he said. He 
said donations to skeptics amounts to "trying to get a political message 
across".[196]

A number of global warming skeptics, such as the following, assert that 
grant money is given preferentially to supporters of global warming 
theory. Atmospheric scientist Reid Bryson said in June 2007 that "There 
is a lot of money to be made in this... If you want to be an eminent 
scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. 
You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, 
carbon dioxide'."[197] Similar positions have been advanced by 
climatologist Marcel Leroux,[198] University of Alabama, Huntsville 
climate scientist Roy Spencer, Spencer's University of Alabama, 
Huntsville colleague and IPCC contributor John Christy, University of 
London biogeographer Philip Stott,[199] Accuracy in Media,[200] and Ian 
Plimer in his 2009 book Heaven and Earth — Global Warming: The Missing 
Science.

Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, 
makes the specific statement that "[in] the winter of 1989 Reginald 
Newell, a professor of meteorology [at MIT], lost National Science 
Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net 
warming over the past century". Lindzen also suggests four other 
scientists "apparently" lost their funding or positions after 
questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming.[201] Lindzen 
himself, however, has been the recipient of money from energy interests 
such as OPEC and the Western Fuels Association, including "$2,500 a day 
for his consulting services",[202] as well as funding from federal 
sources including the National Science Foundation, the Department of 
Energy, and NASA.[203]
----



<http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract>

<http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/06/scientists-convinced-o
f-climate.html>
-----

The most direct method for measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide 
concentrations for periods before direct sampling is to measure bubbles 
of air (fluid or gas inclusions) trapped in the Antarctic or Greenland 
ice caps. The most widely accepted of such studies come from a variety 
of Antarctic cores and indicate that atmospheric CO2 levels were about 
260-280 ppmv immediately before industrial emissions began and did not 
vary much from this level during the preceding 10,000 years (10 ka). In 
1832 Antarctic ice core levels were 284 ppmv.

We are presently at 390 ppm.
------

<http://www.alternet.org/environment/153103/the_5_most_toxic_energy_compa
nies_and_how_they_control_our_politics/?page=entire>
Fossil fuel producers are spending millions of dollars to misinform 
about Global Climate Change, because it results in billions of dollars 
in profits. They even go to the extent to say that oil doesn't come from 
a biological origin, but that the planet produces it, somewhat like a 
cow produces milk, so we don't need to worry about running out of it.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin>
-------

An instructive video.
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/big-oil-and-coal-clima
te-disinformation-campaign-101-video.html
------------

And a cautionary tale.

<http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00037A5D
-A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000>

October 2006 Scientific American Magazine 

Impact from the Deep

Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not 
asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. Could 
the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again?

By Peter D. Ward

Scientists have long known that oxygen levels were lower than today 
around periods of mass extinction, although the reason was never 
adequately identified. Large-scale volcanic activity, also associated 
with most of the mass extinctions, could have raised CO2 levels in the 
atmosphere, reducing oxygen and leading to intense global warming--long 
an alternative theory to the impacts; however, the changes wrought by 
volcanism could not necessarily explain the massive marine extinctions 
of the end Permian. Nor could volcanoes account for plant deaths on 
land, because vegetation would thrive on increased CO2 and could 
probably survive the warming.

Their studies indicate that enough H2S was produced by such ocean 
upwellings at the end of the Permian to cause extinctions both on land 
and in the sea. And this strangling gas would not have been the only 
killer. Models by Alexander Pavlov of the University of Arizona show 
that the H2S would also have attacked the planet's ozone shield, an 
atmospheric layer that protects life from the sun's ultraviolet (UV) 
radiation. Evidence that such a disruption of the ozone layer did happen 
at the end of the Permian exists in fossil spores from Greenland, which 
display deformities known to result from extended exposure to high UV 
levels. Today we can also see that underneath "holes" in the ozone 
shield, especially in the Antarctic, the biomass of phytoplankton 
rapidly decreases. And if the base of the food chain is destroyed, it is 
not long until the organisms higher up are in desperate straits as well.

Kump and Arthur estimate that the amount of H2S gas entering the late 
Permian atmosphere from the oceans was more than 2,000 times the small 
amount given off by volcanoes today. Enough of the toxic gas would have 
permeated the atmosphere to have killed both plants and 
animals--particularly because the lethality of H2S increases with 
temperature. And several large and small mass extinctions seem to have 
occurred during short intervals of global warming. That is where the 
ancient volcanic activity may have come in.
(cont)
-----

Let's all hope it has a happy ending.


> "RLW"  wrote in message 
> news:QIadnZ5kA-hjIerSnZ2dnUVZ_goAAAAA@giganews.com...
> 
> >I'm starting to get the impression that few posting here actually know
> >what the "hockey stick" graph was intended to represent: runaway, nearly
> >limitless increase in surface temperature.
> 
> >A) We know that's wrong.
> >
> >B) We know that the troposphere is getting warmer.
> >
> >(A) does nothing to disprove (B).  Indeed, (B) is something *observed*,
> >not a matter open to debate.
> 
> The idea that if you train ratings from a given era is to be used as the 
> poster child to support and prop up global warming is ridiculous, and that's 
> our point all along here.
> 
> Crap science is crap science. If because something is a piece of junk, it 
> thus does not prove or disprove a particular position in this whole debate.
> 
> The problem is this piece of junk has been put forward as a poster child and 
> was used as a means to sell global warming to the public.
> 
> This all comes down to integrity, if the science community cannot come clean 
> on this hockey stick, then how can we trust them?
> 
> In fact, as long as the science community continues to support and prop up 
> this piece of junk science they WILL NEVER EVER get my trust and support.
> 
> It is amazing that the actual argument and idea being put forth here is that 
> it DOES NOT matter if the hockey stick is a piece of junk, as long as the 
> position it supports a supposedly true, then there's nothing wrong with 
> using something that is a deception and something that is without merit.
> 
> Sorry, that's not gonna fly, and no it's not acceptable to use something 
> that is completely full of holes like Swiss cheese.
> 
> This is exactly the same reasoning that Blech was using in the recent fake 
> gate affair, in which it OK to huge forged documents, impersonate people, 
> and commit fraud because as long as the position in the end can be 
> justified, it doesn't matter if this lies and deceptions along the way.
> 
> This is very simple:
> 
> Until the science community comes along and completely throws this hunk of 
> garbage hockey stick thing under the bus, then that science community is not 
> worthy of our trust, they're not to be trusted, and in fact they will NEVER 
> get our trust.
> 
> The idea that as a group of intelligent and thinking people as a society we 
> are to turn a blind eye, put our fingers and art years, and start screaming 
> "la la la la" to ignore errors on truth, and a horrifying breach of proper 
> science that the hockey stick represents is a ridiculous and position that 
> borders on insanity.
> 
> It is exactly issues like this that of broken the trust with the public, and 
> Intel that trust is restored, and until the science community comes out and 
> states that that hockey stick is a big hunk of garbage, then there in big 
> trouble. Some people, long and state well here's another graph that shows 
> another hockey stick, I'm sorry that will not fly, we're talking 
> specifically about this data, and using a few stupid trees and tree rings 
> from a limited area, and that of also that of "hiding the decline" is simply 
> ridiculous.
> 
> Why would I want to stand here and attempt a legitimate conversation with a 
> group of people that steadfastly refuse to correct poor and rotten science? 
> The hockey stick has been thoroughly been torn apart and it is full of holes 
> like Swiss cheese. Corrections and faults have been pointed out repeatedly 
> and with such information and knowledge wide available it becomes an act of 
> WILLFUL MALICE to continue to support this hunk of junk and willful malice 
> in refusing to correct this hunk of junk.
> 
> Again:
> These people are not be trusted, and they will NOT get our trust and NEVER 
> WILL get our trust until crap like this hockey stick is corrected.
> 
> Super Turtle.

-- 
E Pluribus Unum

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