HACKS

Hacks are "experts" for hire (vs Flacks, who are independent political/PR consultants, vs firms = SHOPS)

SEE HACKS 2 917

SEE HACKADEMICS

NO MERRI

tags: hack, 2 22 tag s&BS, sepp who is poster?

http://www.sciencecorruption.com/library/about.html

crypto? trying to neutralize or destroy real scientists and academics?

mashey report/charts http://desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/fake2.pdf

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REF

E AND E POL

Meet the scientists Trump could tap to undermine climate regulations

:{:{By Scott Waldman, Zack Colman | 03/19/2025 :}:

Some downplay the threat of global warming. Others question the efficacy of climate policy. All could be of interest to the new administration.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has made it his mission to destroy what he calls the “holy grail” of U.S. climate policy.

But President Donald Trump’s EPA chief can’t do it alone. To smash the holy grail, Zeldin needs help from a rare kind of scientist — the kind who believes climate change isn’t that bad or might even be good for humanity.

Those scientists aren’t easy to find. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the burning of fossil fuels is heating up Earth, and the planet’s rapid change is putting people at risk for a wide range of calamities — from more extreme storms to rising sea levels to more intense heat waves.

Those threats underpin what’s known as the “endangerment finding” — Zeldin’s holy grail. The 2009 declaration by EPA made clear that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are the root cause of climate change, and that EPA has the authority to regulate them under the Clean Air Act because they can harm human health.

The endangerment finding has empowered EPA to establish landmark climate regulations, including limits on the emissions produced by cars or power plants. Rolling back these regulations — and the endangerment finding itself — would require an attack on the climate science that serves as their foundation.

Enter the climate naysayers.

The Trump administration is looking to recruit scientists who could cast doubt on climate science or climate policy, or who view global warming as either a small inconvenience or a boon to humankind.

Once selected, these scientists could add their perspective to a bedrock climate report that comes out every few years, known as the National Climate Assessment. Their contributions to the report, in turn, could be cited as evidence in future efforts to undermine the endangerment finding — all of which would make it easier to quash climate regulations.

The scientists even could help author a second endangerment finding. A Trump-era endangerment finding might, for example, selectively highlight areas of doubt in climate science or tout the perceived benefits of global warming.

To do that, a Trump-approved body of climate findings would center around future scenarios based on lower carbon scenarios than the world is currently experiencing.

It also could emphasize less severe climate trajectories than those envisioned in the original finding, said Roger Pielke Jr., a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

“Being able to tease out signals of human-caused climate change in extreme weather — which everybody cares about — are going to be much more challenging with a lower emissions trajectory than a higher one,” said Pielke Jr., who is not involved in any of the efforts and has questioned how scientists can link human-driven warming to specific extreme weather events.

There is a relatively small pool of researchers who could — or would be willing to — engage in such an effort because it would misrepresent decades of climate science by the world’s top science agencies.

“It’s a very small group of people. It’s the same people who have been there for the last 20 years,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. “It’s this endlessly recycled group of people who have been making the same arguments that are unable to convince anybody in the scientific community.”

The White House has not announced its plan yet nor the researchers who might be involved, and it did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, an EPA spokesperson said that as “part of this reconsideration process, EPA will leverage the expertise of the White House Budget Office, including the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other relevant agencies.”

Here are some of the scientists who have spent years downplaying climate risks or criticizing climate regulations, and could be tapped by the Trump administration to help Zeldin destroy the “holy grail” of U.S. climate policy.

David Legates

David Legates (second from right) appears at a 2016 event in Washington. | Kris Connor/AFP via Getty Images MORANO

Legates likely would be a key leader. He has worked with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought on a series of proposals to tear down NOAA and to recruit industry and think tank researchers that oppose climate rules to write a government science report.

The two men authored a key chapter outlining their plans in the Project 2025 conservative policy playbook.

Legates, who was the former state climatologist for Delaware until he was asked to step down, served as a top NOAA official in Trump’s first term. He was also detailed to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, but was later removed from that position after attempting to publish a series of research memos that distorted climate science.

For years, Legates has turned a partisan lens to research, claiming that climate change will benefit humanity while climate policy will hurt people. He is affiliated with the Cornwall Alliance, a group of conservative Christian scholars “dedicated to educating the public and policymakers about Biblical earth stewardship.”

Legates declined to comment for this story.

Steve Kooni

Koonin, a New York University physicist and former top scientist at BP, has long pushed to conduct a “red team, blue team” review of climate science, which would pit two groups of scientists against each other to debate a scientific report, such as the National Climate Assessment.

One group would defend the report while the other would highlight its alleged scientific weaknesses. Koonin worked on putting together the effort during the first Trump administration, but the project was eventually scuttled by the White House because some officials were concerned about Trump’s reelection chances.

Koonin said he would prefer to take on the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to highlight areas of doubt.

“Anything that I can do to help make the science more transparent, you know, that’s been my goal, and remains my goal, for a long time,” he said.

Richard Lindzen

The retired Massachusetts Institute of Technology atmospheric scientist told POLITICO that he would “of course” help the Trump administration challenge the endangerment finding. Lindzen was dismayed that the red team, blue team exercise to publicly debate established climate science never took off during Trump’s first term.

A longtime critic of accepted climate science, Lindzen applauded Zeldin for calling “bullshit” on a “fake issue” of the severity of rising temperatures. But he acknowledged there may be little upside given how much the scientific community has supported the conclusion that human activity is driving climate change, even if he disagrees with it.

Lindzen argued the courts may offer the most direct route, where he said EPA should argue there “was never any evidence in the first place” to suggest greenhouse gases meet a legally defined standard of dangerous.

“I have no idea what they’re going to do,” he said. “But I think it’s pretty obvious when Trump is running on the issue of ‘Drill, baby drill,’ that he is not going to pay any attention to what is claimed to be the science.”

Ryan Maue

Maue has not had any communication with the Trump administration about serving in any science advisory or agency role, he wrote in a text message. But the libertarian meteorologist would be a natural fit: He served at NOAA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy in Trump’s first term.

Maue agrees that humans are warming the planet, but he has pushed back against stringent government policies to rein in greenhouse gases.

He has often used his large social media following on X to dispute the connections between climate change and specific extreme weather events. He has repeatedly cautioned that the world is not following the worst-case scenario climate trajectory, calling it “highly implausible” — a view that could align with Trump administration thinking to emphasize less dire forecasts.

Judith Curry

Curry said she would help the Trump administration reconsider the endangerment finding if she could work from home, but noted there’s been no outreach from Trump’s team.

The Georgia Tech professor emerita argued the original endangerment finding was “politically driven,” and that its reliance on worst-case climate scenarios compelled more drastic policy than necessary. Despite U.S. greenhouse gas reductions falling 17 percent below 2005 levels, the nation is still off-track of the U.S. share of reductions needed to stabilize global temperatures.

An additional 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by 2100 — which is aligned with current trajectories — “isn’t a big deal because it’s what we’ve seen over the last 100 years, and we’re doing just fine,” said Curry, who is now president of consulting firm Climate Forecast Applications Network.

Scientists have said such increases have brought and would bring massive biodiversity loss, more intense extreme weather events, deadlier heat waves and economic harm through natural disaster damage, lost labor productivity, food insecurity and deteriorating health.

While Curry said there are “plenty of reasons not to like fossil fuels” and that clean energy investment is needed, she claimed “policy isn’t going to help here.” An endangerment finding that reflected less severe consequences for failing to deal with climate change “takes away the urgency for doing all of this” through government policy, she said.

John Christy

Christy is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a former lead IPCC author. He has questioned whether humans are driving the observed warming trends in recent decades — something the world’s top science agencies have long confirmed.

He opposed the endangerment finding in 2009 and has questioned the climate models on which it was based in congressional testimony. He is also a longtime proponent of applying a red team, blue team exercise to climate science.

Christy said he believed he could identify weaknesses in the first endangerment finding and that he could use research from the last 15 years to further his argument if the Trump administration pursued a second endangerment finding.

“I would like to see a very clear demonstration that climate models are not capable of telling us about the future of climate to the level of the CO2 forcing that is occurring in the atmosphere,” he said.

In fact, climate scientists have tested the models on which they rely and have found a notable amount of accuracy, particularly the latest versions, which are far more sophisticated than the models of the past.

Will Happer

Happer was part of Trump’s National Security Council in the first term, who mostly worked on classified military projects. He is a professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University, though not a climate scientist.

Happer is one of the few scientists who have given Trump a briefing on climate research, though his views are not supported by the world’s leading science agencies. Happer has long cast doubt on the role humans play in driving global warming and has been a vociferous opponent of climate policy.

In Trump’s first term, Happer worked on the effort to conduct an adversarial review of climate science with Koonin. After that effort was torpedoed by White House officials, Trump told Happer that he wanted to bring him back for a red team, blue team effort in his second term. Trump even discussed a potential nationally televised science “debate,” Happer told POLITICO.

“If I see an opportunity to help, I will,” Happer said. “I think it’s long overdue.”

---

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/:{who-are-the-3-per-cent:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:-the-connections-among-climate-change-contrarians/A4664E239F0774A37C20FE03689B34DD

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2021

Laura D. Young

Open the ORCID record for Laura D. Young[Opens in a new window]

and

Erin B. Fitz

Despite 97 per cent of scientists agreeing on anthropogenic global warming, the remaining 3 per cent play a critical role in keeping the debate about climate consensus alive. Analysis of climate change contrarians from multi-signatory documents reveals 3 per cent of signees to be climate experts, while the remaining 97 per cent do not meet expert criteria and are also involved with organizations and industries who make up the climate change countermovement. The data also reveal most contrarians to be aged sixty-five or older. As a result, we explore other factors (for example, collective memories and ideological views) that may have also contributed to expert and non-expert views.

In September 2019, Greta Thunberg, a sixteen-year-old Swedish climate change activist, gave an impassioned speech to hundreds of world leaders at the United Nations calling for action to mitigate climate change: “For more than [thirty] years,” she exclaimed, “The science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away” (Weise

Reference Weise2019, para. 7). As Thunberg asserted, we have known about the dangers of human impact on the environment for decades. Unfortunately, politics impedes action against climate change, providing a cover used by conservative leaders to subvert climate mitigation policies. Climate change contrariansFootnote^1^ play a critical role in perpetuating this cover by keeping the debate about climate change alive in the political and public arenas—even though it is settled in the scientific realm.

Though few in number, 3 per cent of climate scientists and peer-reviewed climate science papers reject the consensus not only that is climate change occurring, but also that it is happening as a result of human activity (Anderegg et al. Reference Anderegg2010; Cook et al. Reference Cook2013; Cook et al. Reference Cook2016; Doran and Zimmerman Reference Doran and Zimmerman2009; Pew Research Center 2015). These individuals and publications play a role in progressing the climate change countermovement and allow leaders to point to them as evidence to justify inaction (Boykoff Reference Boykoff2011; McCright and Dunlap Reference McCright and Dunlap2011a; McKewon Reference McKewon2012). Such efforts are just one way “conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, trade associations and conservative foundations, with strong links to sympathetic media outlets and conservative politicians” work to subvert the mainstream climate consensus (Brulle Reference Brulle2014, 692).

Climate change is a critical issue that must be addressed by policy makers (IPCC 2020). Therefore, understanding who is responsible for fueling the debate regarding climate change, as well as why they continue to push contrarian viewpoints, is important if leaders are to overcome the obstacles posed by these individuals. Others have documented the people and publications that make up the 3 per cent, as well as the intricate web of the climate change countermovement with which they are connected; however, we seek not only to broaden understanding of who makes up this small cohort of experts, but also to understand similarities between experts and non-experts who share the same views.

Before providing an overview of the individuals compiled in the data, we briefly discuss the history of the climate change science debate. Following analysis of the data, we discuss potential reasons why these individuals may hold contrarian views, for example, events, experiences, and ideological attitudes of certain periods that may influence attitudes toward science and/or government. Importantly, we find support for prior research that calls into question the ability of the 3 per cent to render an expert opinion on the causes and implications of climate change.

Background

Although it is hard to pinpoint when climate science first emerged, it was in 1822 that Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier suggested that the Earth is insulated by its atmosphere. Eunice Foote in 1856, as well as John Tyndall in 1859, reported findings on how specific elements (that is, water vapor and carbon dioxide) absorb heat, providing the foundation for what would later be known as the greenhouse effect.Footnote^2^ At the turn of the 20th century, Svante Arrhenius made the first argument that human CO₂ emissions would prevent earth from entering the next ice age. On August 14, 1912, in what is believed to be the first newspaper to report on climate change and its link to fossil fuels, the Rodney and Otamatea Times printed a brief paragraph in the “science notes and news” section which “warned that the Earth's atmosphere was changing because of … [increased] production of fossil fuels” (Brueck Reference Brueck2018, paras 2–3). Despite these early indicators, little attention was paid to these findings. In fact, it would not be until the 1950s that the human impact on the atmosphere slowly began to shift into the mainstream focus.

The 1950s and 1960s saw advancement in space exploration, and with it came a greater understanding of Earth and its atmosphere. Climate change research also began to flourish, with organizations such as the International Global Atmospheric Research Program established to further scientific understanding of weather patterns and climate change. By the end of the 1970s, the scientific community was largely in consensus that global warming was the main environmental risk facing the next century. Unfortunately, just as scientific consensus emerged, so too did political backlash and the rise of neoliberal ideology (Weart Reference Weart2008). With the changing political climate came an increased effort to challenge the forming scientific consensus regarding the cause and impact of climate change.

Despite political and ideological pushback, the scientific community continued to build upon its knowledge of climate change, reaching near-unanimous consensus on its cause. Naomi Oreskes (Reference Oreskes2004), for example, found that among 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) published between 1993 and 2003, none disagreed with the consensus position on climate change. Doran and Zimmerman (Reference Doran and Zimmerman2009, 23) conducted a survey of Earth scientists and determined: “The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.” Moreover, they found “the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change)” to be the ones who acknowledge overwhelmingly (at a rate of 96.2 per cent) not only that climate change is occurring, but also that it is happening as a result of human activity (Doran and Zimmerman Reference Doran and Zimmerman2009, 23). Anderegg et al. (Reference Anderegg2010 evaluated peer-reviewed climate science papers and multi-signatory documents to find 97 to 98 per cent of top climate researchers agree with the consensus; Cook et al. (Reference Cook2013) also found consensus among climate science papers published between 1991 and 2011. Specifically, following analysis of ≈12,000 abstracts and ≈1,200 self-ratings from peer-reviewed climate science papers, Cook et al. found that of those that stated a position on AGW, 97 per cent endorsed the consensus that climate change is real and a result of human activity. Furthermore, of the 3 per cent of papers that expressed a position on AGW but did not endorse the consensus, 2 per cent rejected the consensus on AGW and 1 per cent was undecided. In addition, more than 66 per cent of abstracts stated no explicit position on AGW, suggesting that “the fundamental science of AGW is no longer controversial among the publishing science community and the remaining debate in the field has moved to other topics” (Cook et al. Reference Cook2013, 4).}:

Nevertheless, pushback continued, even within the research realm. Peiser (Reference Peiser2005), for example, criticized Oreskes's work for bias. Specifically, Peiser accused Oreskes of ignoring articles contrary to mainstream opinion. As Oreskes pointed out, however, Peiser's rejection of the study was itself flawed since most of the thirty-four articles Peiser listed upheld the mainstream consensus, with the remaining articles lacking credibility.Footnote^3^ Peiser ultimately recanted his criticisms, further reinforcing scientific consensus regarding climate change (Beck Reference Beck2006. Doran and Zimmerman's research was also met with criticism over its sampling methods, sample size, and wording of questions; critics also claim the study is too narrow regarding who the authors consider an expert (Idso, Carter, and Singer Reference Idso, Carter and Singer2015). Cook et al.'s research was scrutinized for sampling bias and for its methods, too (Tol Reference Tol2016). Nevertheless, continued research supports their findings and consistently shows “agreement on AGW is overwhelmingly high because the supporting evidence is overwhelmingly strong” (Cook et al. Reference Cook2016, para. 23).}:

:{:{}:

Moreover, the 2 per cent of peer-reviewed papers that reject AGW actually provide additional evidence in favor of the climate change consensus (Benestad et al. Reference Benestad2016). Closer examination of thirty-eight papers that refute the 97 per cent consensus reveals all to have flaws rendering their conclusions invalid. The main errors identified were all related to the way the authors tested the data. As Dana Nuccitelli (Reference Nuccitelli2015, para. 10) describes: “the 2–3 per cent of papers that reject that consensus are all over the map, even contradicting each other. The one thing they seem to have in common is methodological flaws like cherry picking, curve fitting, ignoring inconvenient data, and disregarding known physics.” Additionally, co-author Katharine Hayhoe found: “Every single one of those analyses had an error—in their assumptions, methodology, or analysis—that, when corrected, brought their results into line with the scientific consensus” (Foley Reference Foley2017, para. 5).

Several authors of flawed anti-consensus papers also authored books on the same topic (Dunlap and Jacques Reference Dunlap and Jacques2013). Like the articles, Dunlap and Jacques asserted, these books help bolster claims that reject the climate change consensus.Of all books evaluated, the majority were linked to conservative think tanks; most were also affiliated with conservative ideology. These connections help illustrate the “the strong link between conservatism and promotion of climate change denial” (Dunlap and Jacques Reference Dunlap and Jacques2013, 707; see also Jacques et al. Reference Jacques2008; McCright and Dunlap Reference McCright and Dunlap2011a; McCright et al. Reference McCright2016. The link between these publications and conservative think tanks/ideology is important since the “climate change counter-movement (CCCM)” is rooted in conservative (and, subsequently, conservative think-tank) efforts (Brulle Reference Brulle2014, 682). }:}:

The CCCM's progress, however, requires significant corporate funding, political support, and magnification via the media and others who serve to profit from their efforts (Brulle Reference Brulle2014. In other words, while only a small number of expert scientists reject climate change consensus, there is a much more complex web of individuals and organizations that make up, and work to promote, contrarian efforts that use these expert and non-expert rejections to bolster their claims.}:

Unfortunately, the misleading publications, coupled with a lack of a cohesive alternative theory and the efforts of the CCCM, also leads to confusion among the public. In the United States, for example, only 33 per cent of Americans believe scientists fully understand whether climate change is happening; even fewer (28 per cent) believe scientists understand its cause (Pew Research Center 2016). While raising awareness of the agreement among the 97 per cent of experts positively impacts the public's views on climate change, the CCCM serves to keep contrarian arguments in competition with the mainstream consensus; they also fuel the political debate as to whether policies that mitigate climate change are necessary (McCright et al. Reference McCright2013; Rahmstorf Reference Rahmstorf2012; van der Linden et al. Reference Van der Linden2015. As politicians use contrarian arguments as a reason to justify inaction against climate change, it is important not only to understand who these contrarians are, but also to establish what links, if any, they have to organizations and industries that work tirelessly to prevent climate mitigation efforts. Exploring these connections may help explain why these individuals continue to argue against the climate science consensus.}:

Methods...

Results

As our aim is to create a profile and look for commonalities among individuals who all share contrarian views, we relied on descriptive statistics to analyze the data. Except for unique identifiers (that is, name, birth year, degree information, and publication information), we coded all raw data as ordinal or interval to determine total counts, means, and percentiles. Table 2 provides a complete list of variables included in the dataset, as well as other descriptive statistics.

demographics

A total of 93 per cent of the climate change contrarians on the list were male. This under-representation is not surprising given that fewer women work in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Nimmesgern Reference Nimmesgern2016). In the United States, for example, the STEM workforce is composed of 27 per cent women and 73 per cent men (Martinez and Christnacht Reference Martinez and Christnacht2021). Importantly, this finding is also consistent with research which found that climate contrarians are more likely to be male compared to the average scientist in general (McCright and Dunlap Reference McCright and Dunlap2011b).

....

in addition to contrarians' generally advanced age, twenty-seven individuals on the list were deceased at the time of the documents' alleged endorsement. Although no justification is apparent, it is possible that authors copied names from existing declarations to newly drafted documents without knowledge or permission.

Education and Professional Experience

A total of 81 per cent of the climate change contrarians received their highest level of college degree (that is, Bachelor's, Master's, PhD, or level of degree relative to institution, location, and/or area of study) in 1985 or prior.Footnote^5^ The most common time when contrarians received their degrees was the 1970s.Footnote^6^ This suggests individuals receiving their degrees within the last thirty years are less likely to reject the climate change consensus. This pattern could be for several reasons, for example: new modeling or other scientific revelations not known at the time climate change contrarians received their degree; changes in how certain areas (for example, meteorology) approach research; or, as we suggest later, the impact of conservatism/neoliberalism on views of science and/or government (see Figure 1).

Almost none of the individuals who signed the documents have a degree directly related to climate science. In fact, less than 1 per cent of the individuals in the sample have a degree deemed relevant to climate science, with relevance defined as individuals having a degree in climatology or a similar field. A total of 77 per cent of contrarians, however, have a scientific degree that could provide some knowledge related to climatology, for example, physics, geography, or engineering. Just under 23 per cent of contrarians have a degree with no direct relation to science, for example, statistics, economics, international relations, and those related to the humanities.Footnote^7

Interestingly, physics is the most common degree (2.4 per cent) to appear in our sample. This finding is consistent with prior research which established that contrarian scientists “tend to be empiricists and physicists (i.e., theoreticians)” (Lahsen Reference Lahsen2013, 748). Degrees in geological sciences were the second-largest group at 2.2 per cent. While these degrees represent a broad area of Earth sciences, many that appear in our data (for example, engineering, mining, and geology) are particularly desired by the fossil fuel industry (Allison and Mandler Reference Allison and Mandler2018; NRC 2013). Conservative think tanks also heavily target TV weather forecasters and meteorologists, who make up 1 per cent of degrees in our sample, and who may also be prone to contrarian views because of their “stance with political and socio-cultural factors” (Björnberg et al. Reference Björnberg2017, 235; see also Homans Reference Homans2010; Lahsen Reference Lahsen2013) (see Table 4)....

Publications

We compiled a list of 1,107 climate-related peer-reviewed articles.Of all individuals in our data, just 25 per cent published at least one climate-related peer-reviewed article. The most common journals to appear in our sample were Geophysical Research Letters,Energy & Environment, and Journal of Geophysical Research. Together, these journals account for 16 per cent of articles overall.

Fourteen individuals (3 per cent) meet expert criteria of having published twenty or more climate-related peer-reviewed articles. Collectively, this group authored 65 per cent of articles in our sample. These findings suggest: (1) most contrarians are non-experts in the realm of climate science; (2) the 3 per cent of expert contrarians produce most peer-reviewed articles on climate; and (3) the experts in our sample still represent the 3 per cent—even within a cohort made up entirely of those with contrarian views.

Among all articles included in our sample, 30 per cent were from journals that previously published abstracts that implicitly or explicitly rejected AGW.Footnote^8^ Of these articles, 69 per cent were published by contrarian experts. While evaluating these journals is beyond the scope of this article, Table 5 shows not only the number of articles published in these journals by contrarians (overall and by experts) in our sample, but also the range of journals that published these authors. [table 5]

Another 9 per cent of articles in our overall sample (of which experts authored 45 per cent) were from known “contrarian” journals (Benestad Reference Benestad2013; Benestad et al. Reference Benestad2016; Kinne Reference Kinne2003; Wagner Reference Wagner2011. Energy & Environment, for example, has long been known as a publication friendly to climate science contrarians. In fact, it provided 131 of the “more than 900+ papers that supported climate change scepticism,” including one (included in our dataset) by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas (Hope Reference Hope2018, para. 3; see also Soon and Baliunas Reference Soon and Baliunas2003). }:

A shorter version of their paper, published in Climate Research just months prior, had already faced significant criticism—including from the journal's then-editor in chief, who ultimately resigned in protest over the controversy (Ward Reference Ward2015, para. 6).Footnote^9 ^Despite these criticisms, the authors expanded on the article and published it in Energy & Environment, spearheaded by then-Editor in Chief Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen (yet another prominent contrarian in our sample). SAGE Publishing took over the journal in 2018 and has since “overhauled its peer review practices bringing it into line with SAGE standards” (Hope Reference Hope2018, para. 2). Not surprisingly, however, all articles in our sample fromEnergy & Environment were published prior to the end of Boehmer-Christiansen's editorship.

Remote Sensing, which experienced a similar controversy following publication of a contrarian paper, also appears in our dataset (Spencer and Braswell Reference Spencer and Braswell2011). Roy Spencer, co-author of the contentious paper, appears in our sample and meets expert criteria. Another journal, Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP), ceased operation following publication of a contrarian article (Scafetta Reference Scafetta2013). The paper's author, Nicola Scafetta, as well as PRP's then Co-editor in Chief Nils-Axel Mörner, both appear in our sample and meet expert criteria (PRP, 2014) (see Table 6).

...

We also found significant overlap between individuals in our dataset and authors of other contrarian publications.Among previously identified authors of flawed AGW-rejection papers, 42 per cent were found in our data; five of these individuals meet expert criteria.Footnote^10^ Among previously identified authors of contrarian books, 22 per cent were found in our data; six of these individuals meet expert criteria.Footnote^11

Table 7 shows authors of the aforementioned publications who appeared in our sample. We also note who meets climate expert criteria. Collectively, these publications illustrate one waya small, yet prominent, cohort works to expand the contrarian movement through the guise of academic research.

...[table]

Affiliations

A total of 82 per cent of all individuals in our dataset, including 100 per cent of individuals deemed climate experts, have affiliations with industries and/or organizations involved in the CCCM(Björnberg et al. Reference Björnberg2017; Brulle Reference Brulle2014; Dunlap and Jacques Reference Dunlap and Jacques2013; McCright and Dunlap Reference McCright and Dunlap2011a; McCright et al. Reference McCright2016; Oreskes and Conway Reference Oreskes and Conway2010; Plehwe Reference Plehwe2014. Of the 82 per cent, we found: (1) 69 per cent have affiliation(s) with conservative think tanks, conservative religious groups, and/or organized causes dedicated to the rejection of the climate consensus;(2) 11 per cent have affiliation(s) with both think tanks/groups/causes and CCCM-related industries (for example, fossil fuel, mining, and utility companies); and (3) another 2 per cent have affiliation(s) just with CCCM-related industries.}:

Table 8 shows the number of affiliations with CCCM organizations that appeared in our data. Table 9 shows industry affiliations. Each corporation/company appeared just once, with the exceptions of ExxonMobil (seven), Peabody (four), Shell (four), and Western Fuels Association (three). Evaluating these companies/corporations is beyond the scope of this article; however, like other demographic information and affiliations, these affiliations may provide insight into contrarians' background and views. [i really want this table 8]

Individuals in the sample also represent a variety of other areas, many of which magnify contrarian efforts. The overlap of government, industry, conservative groups, and proponents of the free market—especially prevalent within the United States, UK, and Australia—is evidenced by five contrarians in the dataset who ran for office or serve(d) as government officials while working on behalf of the industries and ideological groups that funded them (Beder :{Reference Beder:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2001; McKewon :{Reference McKewon:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2012).

Others include medical doctors, chief executive officers (CEOs) of conservative companies, film producers, and bloggers, most of whom are tied to a variety of CCCM organizations. Several other CCCM organizations shown in Table 10 also appear in our dataset but were not included as variables.:{Footnote:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:^12

...

While we found no apparent affiliations for the remaining 18 per cent of signees, some individuals of the group presented other commonalities with each other and others in the sample. For example, of the five documents we analyzed, this entire subset of individuals only signed the Lindzen Petition. Eight individuals have a background in nuclear energy. Three authored papers for contrarian or rejection-abstract journals; one served on the editorial advisory board for Energy & Environment. The findings suggest that experts and non-experts alike subscribe to the same efforts, as well as the same industries and organizations, which promote contrarian views.

Collectively, our findings show that the majority of those who signed documents that reject AGW are not climate experts. As a result, these individuals lack the authority to render an opinion regarding climate change science. Our results also show that 3 per cent of expert contrarians continuously pervade multiple realms that reject AGW. We found both groups affiliated with industries and organizations of the CCCM. Expert and non-expert publications infiltrate the climate research realm, especially since most anti-consensus papers remain widely available. Contrarian books are often not subject to peer review and are widely accessible; yet, both papers and books are regularly cited despite being refuted by much of the scientific community. Others, including scientists with non-climate backgrounds, individuals who work in media, and politicians, support contrarian efforts. Together, this group can magnify arguments that reject the climate change consensus and, as a result, keep the debate on the climate consensus alive.

Discussion

What motivates experts and non-experts alike to pursue a position on climate change contrary to scientific consensus? The role of conservative politics, conservative think tanks, and industry efforts that make up the CCCM is well documented; however, our findings reveal other similarities among contrarians worthy of consideration.

In particular, the data reveal that most individuals in our data are aged sixty-five or older. This age group, at least in the United States, is also the most likely age group to disagree with the climate consensus; conversely,80 per cent of expert Earth scientists who agree with the consensus on AGW are under the age of sixty-five (Pew Research Center 2015). Although many individuals in our sample were non-experts, the experts were also aged 65 or older on average, with an average birth year of 1944. [1964 GOLDWATER, DIVISIONS ON VIET NAM ETC IE ORIG CTR-CULTURE] While we expect contrarian experts to hold views different from most of the scientific community, this age distinction suggests there may be other reasons that led these individuals to align with contrarian efforts. Individuals' experiences, for example, may impact their views of science and government. As a result, this may help explain why both experts and non-experts alike participate in a movement that hinders climate change mitigation efforts.

While one might assume that many contrarians in our sample would have higher trust in science because of their scientific degrees, prior research has found this not necessarily to be the case. Specifically, while higher education has a “positive” effect on the views of climate change for Democrats/liberals, educational attainment has a “weaker or negative” effect on the views of Republicans/conservatives (McCright and Dunlap :{Reference McCright and Dunlap:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2011a, 175, emphasis in original). As a result, and considering the conservative nature of contrarian efforts, we believe this period may have led to unique views on government and science—specifically, government intervention into scientific matters. In other words, despite older contrarians' scientific knowledge and/or education, their subjective concern about government intervention in science may surpass objectivity regarding mainstream consensus, especially considering the pervasiveness of neoliberalism during this period.[TWO FREDS OZONE SST?]

Neoliberalism emerged as a driving force to oppose government oversight and regulation, largely related to backlash from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies and subsequent expansion of the federal government. While tenets ofneoliberalism (that is, a laissez-faire approach to the market with a heavy emphasis on deregulation and free trade) would become central to CCCM objectives, the ideology pervaded academic circles far earlier (McCright and Dunlap :{Reference McCright and Dunlap:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2011a; Oreskes and Conway :{Reference Oreskes and Conway:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2010).In fact, while the ideology is most notably associated with the creation of the Chicago School of economics, it was not unique to just Chicago. Neoliberalism was transnational in nature, permeating into other academic and political circles with the help of several institutions established solely to push this ideology (Mirowski and Plehwe :{Reference Mirowski and Plehwe:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2009). As a result,by the 1950s, there was “an all-out assault on virtually every aspect of Keynesian economics” led, most notably, by Milton Friedman (Yergin and Stanislaw :{Reference Yergin, Stanislaw, Yergin and Stanislaw:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:1998, para. 8). By the 1960s and 1970s, neoliberalism was a prominent theory within economics and other disciplines. As a result, much like collective memories pertinent to older contrarians' formative years, it is reasonable to believe that neoliberal ideology would have impacted contrarians' attitudes toward science and government prior to the emergence of the CCCM.:{Footnote:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:^14

The CCCM materialized in 1989 in opposition to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Antonio and Brulle :{Reference Antonio and Brulle:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2011). Throughout the 1990s, “conservative foundations, think tanks, and leaders mobilized to challenge the legitimacy of [climate change] problems and thus undercut the need for government action to deal with them” (McCright et al. :{Reference McCright:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2014, 252; see also Jacques et al. :{Reference Jacques:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2008).Corporate foundations (for example, ExxonMobil and Koch), in particular, continuously use free-market ideology to work against the mainstream climate consensus(Brulle :{Reference Brulle:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2014). This is not surprising considering the fossil fuel industry knew of climate change as early as the 1970s and have worked to disparage the findings of legitimate climate science ever since (Hall :{Reference Hall:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2015; Oreskes and Conway :{Reference Oreskes and Conway:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2010).

The CCCM pushes neoliberal ideology using a variety of tactics(Brulle :{Reference Brulle:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2014). Notably, and consistent with our findings, these organizations organize marketing campaigns that focus on the production of academic publications that present research biased toward the neoliberal agenda. Specifically, these publications are “tailored to specific audiences,” reconfirming the trans-academic nature of the ideological push (Mirowski and Plehwe :{Reference Mirowski and Plehwe:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2009, 6).

Financial support, provided both directly to researchers and to institutions via think tanks, also flow to academics pushing research slanted toward neoliberal ideas (Mirowski and Plehwe :{Reference Mirowski and Plehwe:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2009). Funding to universities in exchange for substantial say in curricula and hiring practices, such as in the case of Koch,is another way in which these organizations seek to influence youth and, subsequently, future politicians (Carrk :{Reference Carrk:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2011; Center for Public Integrity 2018).

As previously mentioned, policy makers use these experts’ and non-experts' publications and official positions to justify inaction and confuse the public when it comes to climate change. Collectively, this evidence suggests a concerted effort to create a new way of thinking ingrained in academia and shrouded under the guise of legitimate academic discourse.

The CCCM still uses these tactics today, and as a result, the academic consensus on climate change must compete with a well-crafted machine meant to confuse science and sway the political rhetoric in its favor. Unfortunately, we believe, rhetoric aligned with older individuals' existing collective memories of science and government may be dually influential in inhibiting progress on policy and with the public. As a result, while there is no doubt the CCCM successfully employs and targets a broad variety of individuals, other commonalities among many contrarians, such as age, suggest that we need further research to understand these connections.

Conclusion

Climate change is a serious issue that will impact generations to come. Although a gateway belief exists as to the causes and consequences of climate change,there are still those individuals that seek to sow doubt as to the scientific validity of these findings. Our findings suggest the 3 per cent create and circulate misinformation through a web of influence from organizations and industries tied to the CCCM. From bloggers and film producers, to older meteorologists and legitimate climate scientists, these individuals (as well as the entities with which they are affiliated) hold a vested interest in preventing climate change mitigation efforts.

Conservative think tanks, corporations, and others have spent decades challenging the mainstream consensus that fossil fuels are the main contributor to global warming—despite Exxon confirming over forty years ago through its own research that the mainstream consensus on climate change is actually correct. Moreover, industry's influence is also concerning. Not only have foundations long engaged in funding higher education institutions, but they have also had a hand in hiring the professors, and thus shaping the curriculum, that promotes their political agenda.

Perhaps one of the most interesting findings to come from this research is the cohesion among climate change contrarians when it comes to their age and the period in which their degrees were obtained. Although there are some individuals who are younger in age and/or were educated later, it is clear that a majority of contrarians are from a particular era.In addition, closer examination finds that distrust in both science and the government were growing at the same time that neoliberalism was gaining in prominence—not just as an economic theory, but because of a concerted effort to shape the political narrative regarding government involvement in the market. As a result, neoliberal thinking prevailed during most climate change contrarians' formative years. Among experts and non-experts alike, individuals who subscribed to tenets of neoliberalism during their formative years, we hypothesize, are now dedicated to efforts that push a laissez-faire approach. As a result, they may reject a mainstream consensus on issues like climate change even when most evidence points otherwise.

In her closing line given at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in 2019,Greta Thunberg declared, “[I] want you to act. I want you to behave like our house is on fire. Because it is” (Workman :{Reference Workman:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2019, para. 7). Unfortunately, her message has remained largely unheeded, with climate change contrarians turning their attention totarget her personally in addition to the science she presents(Waldman :{Reference Waldman:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:-1px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;clip:rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px);height:1px;overflow:hidden;width:1px;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap"):}:2019).

As a result, even with renewed calls to act, it is unlikely contrarians will go away. Regardless, if the data in this article is correct, we should expect to see the scientific consensus on climate change increase, especially since most contrarians are aging out of academic and policy circles. Action on climate change cannot wait until this occurs, however, and there must be more emphasis on distinguishing between the consensus among 97 per cent of scientists and the rhetoric spread by the 3 per cent of contrarians. As a result, and as other evidence has shown, amplifying this mainstream climate consensus and exposing the ties among think tanks, businesses, interest groups, and certain politicians, among others, especially in the United States, will help to delegitimize contrarian efforts and keep the public informed of the realities of climate change.

Data Availability Statement

The data, replication instructions, and the data's codebook are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/LOO1QN.

...

mashey 2012

(heartland?)

p138

Z.2005.01-16 Letter to Senator McCain

Scientists Dispute Sensational Claims of Arctic Ice Melt

“Eleven distinguished 690 scientists, most of whom specialize in climatology691

,...ball, lupo, legates, michaels, roy spencer, willie soon, baliunas sallie...

on November 16 published an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who

has repeatedly sponsored congressional legislation that mirrors the Kyoto

Protocol, which was rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1997 by a vote of 95-0. The

letter disputes assertions by McCain and other alarmists that the Arctic climate is

undergoing remarkable and catastrophic climate change. At the right are excerpts

from the text of the letter.

Z.2005.01-17 Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas

Consensus Can Be Bad for Climate Science

Z.2005.01-17a S. Fred Singer

Arctic Ice Hype

https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/America_Misled.pdf

supran oreskes

Contradictory contrarianism The most common denialist arguments have been shown to contain fatal assumptions or fallacies26. Climate deniers do not offer any rational explanation for why our climate is changing. Rather, denialist arguments are incoherent and often contradictory27. For example, deniers will seize on snowfall to claim that global warming is a hoax, while at the same time claiming that an extreme event such as a drought or wildfire cannot be attributed to climate change. This is incoherent because either extreme events can be a signal of climate change or they cannot be. Climate denial lacks consistency because it is not about scientific evidence—it is about how to continue business as usual in the face of climate disruption. Climate deniers reject climate science because they are averse to proposed or perceived solutions to climate change28.

...

Common Fallacies

Climate denial arguments can be summarized by the five techniques of science denial (summarized with the acronym FLICC): fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectation, cherry picking, and conspiracy theories29,30.Fake Experts Logical Fallacies Impossible Expectations Cherry Picking Conspiracy Theories Promoting dissenting non-experts as highly qualified while not having published any actual climate research and/or received any relevant education. Logically flawed arguments that lead to false conclusions. Common logical fallacies are red herrings, non sequiturs, and false dichotomies. Demanding unrealistic standards of certainty before acting on the science. A technique practised by the tobacco industry. Selectively choosing data that supports a desired conclusion that differs from the conclusion arising from all the available data32. Proposing a secret plan among a number of people, generally to implement a nefarious scheme such as conspiring to hide a truth or perpetuate misinformation. Climate deniers are more likely to be conspiracy theorists33

nice graphics throughout eg]

Deconstructing Denial

Figure 7 shows deconstructions of some of the most common myths about climate change. Determining the misleading techniques of a climate myth requires outlining the argument structure: listing any premises (starting assumptions) and the conclusion. This allows one to ascertain whether any premises are false, and/or whether the argument is logically invalid. Figure 7: Deconstruction of common climate myths. MYTH “Cold weather disproves global warming.” Premise 1 CHERRY PICKING IMPOSSIBLE EXPECTATIONS Some place is cold. Premise 2 No place can experience cold during global warming. Conclusion Global warming isn’t happening. Cherry Picking: Ignores that most of the globe is warm. Impossible Expectations: Global warming doesn’t mean cold events don’t happen, just that they’re less likely to happen. MYTH “Global warming stopped in 1998.”SLOTHFUL INDUCTION CHERRY PICKING Premise 1 The temperature trend since 1998 is statistically insignificant. Conclusion Global warming isn’t happening. Slothful Induction: Ignores other temperature records and measures of heat imbalance showing a significant warming trend.Cherry Picking: Trends over short periods do not lead to conclusions about

...

Conclusion Disinformation about climate change has a straightforward purpose—to block action on climate change. In America, it has largely succeeded, with policies to mitigate climate change stymied or delayed for decades. Meanwhile, climate change has intensified, causing impacts such as intensified extreme weather events, rising sea level, harmful effects on human health, and much more. Climate denial has seriously hurt the American people. The damage, deaths, and harm to people will continue to worsen if we don’t expose and discredit denial. This is not the first time that corporations prioritizing profits over people have caused great harm. The tobacco industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars disinforming the public about the health impacts of smoking in order to undermine tobacco control34,35. The World Health Organization estimates that six million people die every year from preventable tobacco caused disease. Drawing on the tobacco industry’s playbook, fossil fuel companies have done the same on climate change, spending hundreds of millions of dollars confusing the public and delaying life-saving action. Their legacy is the death, destruction, and injustices of irreversible global warming. Big Oil is the new Big Tobacco.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/here-are-5-ways-trump-and-his-supporters-are-using-the-same-strategies-as-science-deniers/

no lnx

Here are 5 ways Trump and his supporters are using the same strategies as science deniers

Written by Lee McIntyre, The Conversation November 27, 2019

While watching the House impeachment hearings, I realized my two decades of research into why people ignore, reject or deny science had a political parallel.

From anti-evolutionists to anti-vaccine advocates, known as “anti-vaxxers,” climate change deniers to Flat Earthers, science deniers all follow a common pattern of faulty reasoning that allows them to reject what they don’t want to believe – and accept what they favor – based on a misunderstanding of how science deals with evidence.

As I’ve been watching the hearings, I’ve noticed that a number of characteristics of this type of reasoning are now being embraced by President Donald Trump and his congressional supporters.

Characteristic acts

There are five common tactics used by science deniers.

In 1998, brothers Mark and Chris Hoofnagle (a lawyer and a physiologist) wrote an early blog post about science denialism. That was followed by further work by econometrician Pascal Diethelm and public health scholar Martin McKee and cognitive scientists John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. All identified the following factors as characteristic acts of science deniers:

Believing in conspiracy theories;

Relying on cherry-picked evidence;

Relying on fake experts (and dismissal of actual experts);

Committing logical errors;

Setting impossible standards for what science should be able to deliver.

These elements are present when those who deny the Earth is round or who believe vaccines cause autism insist that there is a governmental cover-up of the real evidence on their topics. They can be seen when Ted Cruz tries to discredit climate change with talk about the anomalous world weather pattern in 1998 due to El Niño. And they’re evident when intelligent design theorists complain that evolution by natural selection still has not been proven.

Alternative reality

Trump and his defenders in Congress echo this pattern. Even though Trump has firsthand knowledge of some of the facts under dispute – whereas his supporters may not – all seem to have bought in fully to the idea that the actual political situation is not the one pictured in the mainstream consensus of facts and evidence, but instead is based on an alternative reality.

Here are the five ways Trump and his allies use the same strategies as science deniers:

Conspiracy theories: During his questioning of Ambassador Bill Taylor and other witnesses at the impeachment hearings, Republican counsel Steve Castor repeatedly pursued a debunked conspiracy theory involving an alleged plot in which the Ukrainian government – and not the Russians – interfered with the 2016 presidential election because they were out to get the president.

Cherry-picking: Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that President Trump told him, “I want nothing from Ukraine. I want no quid pro quo.” Trump and his supporters focused on this statement as evidence of his innocence, despite the fact that in other testimony by Sondland that day, he said, “Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky…Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president.”

Discrediting experts: President Trump has repeatedly – and falsely – claimed that State Department and CIA employees such as Bill Taylor, George Kent, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman and others who have testified in the impeachment hearings are “Never Trumpers,” a term for Republicans who do not support Trump – and who therefore have no credibility. His supporters have latched onto this tactic. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said on Sept. 20, after the whistleblower complaint was made public: “It looks to me like another deep-state attack.”

Illogical reasoning: Trump supporters have claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky never complained that he felt pressured by Trump to do the investigations into the Bidens that Trump sought. Trump himself has described the July 25 conversation he had with Zelensky in which he asked for the investigations as “perfect.” But news reports have shown that Zelensky did in fact feel pressured, and analysts have pointed out that Zelensky would risk losing crucial U.S. support were he to anger Trump by saying that he felt pressured.

Double standard for opponents: Trump claimed that written testimony from the whistleblower was unacceptable, despite the fact that he himself had only given written testimony in the Mueller investigation. Some of his supporters seem to agree and have tried to compel the whistleblower’s in-person testimony.

Partisan logic

What might be behind the similarities between Trump defenders and science deniers?

Perhaps, like science denial, all fact denial is basically the same.

All ideology supports the reflex to believe what you want to believe.

Scholars have studied the role of identity in shaping belief and concluded that sometimes even empirical beliefs can be tribal,reflecting what the other people on your team want you to believe. Adherence to a belief is not always based on evidence.

The danger, of course, is that even as new facts come in, people won’t change their minds. This is the direct opposite of good empirical reasoning.

It is the hallmark of science that beliefs should be based on evidence, and that people should be willing to change their beliefs based on new evidence. This means that people should be able to specify in advance what evidence, if it existed, would be sufficient to get them to change their minds.

But are Trump and his congressional supporters doing that?

Like science deniers, no amount of evidence seems sufficient to change their partisan beliefs that the phone call with Zelensky was proper and that Trump “did nothing wrong.”

Even when the facts are overwhelming, congressional Republicans seem, like science deniers, willing to contort their beliefs and torture their logic, to stick to the party line because that is who they are.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham recently put it, “I don’t care what anybody else says about the phone call … The phone call, I’ve made up my own mind, is fine.”

In science, such behavior means that one is eventually read out of the profession – you’re not fired, your tenure isn’t revoked, but you’re no longer taken seriously anymore.

In politics, it is not yet clear what the consequences might be.

Lee McIntyre is the author of: Post-Truth.

MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US

The skeptics who could snag science adviser slots

Scott Waldman, E&E News reporter

Climatewire: Thursday, September 14, 2017

Climate skeptics may soon join a key science advisory panel at U.S. EPA.

A number of people who reject the findings of mainstream climate science are being considered by the Trump administration for spots on EPA's Science Advisory Board, a voluntary but influential panel that reviews science used in environmental regulations.

At least one nominee hopes to use a position on the board to challenge the science undergirding many environmental regulations. One has said in a statement that the world must "abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade." Another compared people concerned about climate change to "Aztecs who believed they could make rain by cutting out beating hearts."

EPA has submitted 132 names for public comment as possible members of the panel. About a dozen of them have made comments rejecting mainstream climate science. Many have connections to the fossil fuel industry or conservative think tanks, and some have received funding to attack the findings of mainstream scientists that humans are warming the globe at an unprecedented pace through the burning of fossil fuels.

The selection of any of those researchers would be the beginning of a very different advisory board that would bear the hallmark of the Trump administration's position on climate change, said Steve Milloy, an attorney and longtime EPA foe who worked on President Trump's transition team for the agency.

"Had some other Republican won the presidency and a swamp creature taken over the EPA, this would not be happening," he said, "but thank God for Scott Pruitt that he's got the courage to do this."

The Heartland Institute — a Chicago-based free-market think tank that pushes alternative climate science — nominated many of the current prospects.

Heartland Institute spokesman Jim Lakely said in an email: "We applaud any effort by Administrator Pruitt to bring qualified non-alarmist scientists onto the EPA's advisory boards. There is a vigorous debate over the causes and consequences of climate change, and it's vital that EPA acknowledge that fact and have a more balanced approach to the agency's rule-making."

The long list of nominees — identified by EPA staff members who oversee the advisory board — also includes mainstream climate scientists who have extensive experience working with the United Nations and EPA on climate change. Former top Obama EPA science official Paul Anastas made the list.

The deadline for public comment is set to expire Sept. 28. After that, EPA boss Pruitt will have final approval on the candidates. The board has 48 member slots, 15 of which expire at the end of the month. It's not clear how many positions will be filled.

The SAB, created in 1978, is tasked with "independent advice and peer review on the scientific and technical aspects of environmental issues to the EPA's Administrator." An EPA spokesman has said the agency wants industry to have a greater role than it has had previously in evaluating the science used by EPA to craft regulations.

Traditionally, most of the SAB members are from academia, though some have also come from industry and environmental groups.

The SAB is essential to the functioning of EPA because it is chartered by law to ensure the agency is using the best available science for regulations, said Peter Thorne, the board's current chairman and director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center at the University of Iowa. He said the SAB has a wide range of tasks that touch on almost every aspect of EPA's functioning. He said it's not just EPA that draws on its work — it's also state governments, nongovernmental organizations and private companies.

"The EPA Science Advisory Board needs to have people who are well-versed in the science that underlies the decisions that EPA makes, so if there are people who end up on the board who have views that are not grounded in solid science, then that is a problem," Thorne said.

Pruitt's prospects

Here are some of the skeptical nominees under consideration:

Joseph D'Aleo, a certified consultant meteorologist and co-founder of the Weather Channel: He has run climate skeptic websites and has appeared as a speaker at Heartland conferences. D'Aleo said his priority on the board would be attacking the endangerment finding, the legally binding document that holds that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases harm human health and must be regulated by the executive branch. He said he wants to challenge the finding because it could otherwise be used later to build back Obama-era environmental regulations.

Edwin Berry. edberry.com

"We're going to push for reconsideration, start from scratch and put together the best science," he said. "If CO2 is not a serious pollutant, let's focus the attention of the EPA on other issues."

Edwin Berry, a meteorologist and atmospheric scientist: He has funded his own climate research and says human carbon dioxide emissions do not cause climate change. He has compared those who believe in human-caused climate change to "Aztecs who believed they could make rain by cutting out beating hearts and rolling decapitated heads down temple steps." On his Twitter account, he has called Islam "a death cult" and has encouraged motorists to drive into protesters.

Berry, in an email to E&E News today, described his tweet as a joke and said he does not advocate violence.

"Clearly, my tween says to slowly drive to not hurt anyone," Berry said in the email, misspelling "tweet."

brn

Kevin Dayaratna. Heritage Foundation

Berry, who confirmed that he and a number of other skeptics were nominated by Heartland, said he wants to use his position on the board to show that humans barely contribute to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which he claimed are mostly driven by natural factors.

"Let's get over this whole thing about climate change being an important thing, because in fact we humans have a negligible impact on climate," he said. "And if we had the Paris Agreement and everything else, it wouldn't do any good anyway."

Alan Carlin, a retired EPA employee who is affiliated with Heartland: He fought the agency's crafting of the endangerment finding. Carlin, an economist, was at the center of a political firestorm under Obama after he produced a widely criticized 93-page report comprising cherry-picked scientific data and blog entries concluding that regulating carbon dioxide was "the worst mistake that EPA has ever made."

Kevin Dayaratna, a statistician at the conservative Heritage Foundation: His report was cited by Trump as a reason to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. It claimed that the agreement could shrink U.S. gross domestic product by $2.5 trillion within two decades (though Trump stated the impact as coming within a decade). The report was criticized by some as being misleading, because that amount is less than 1 percent of the aggregate GDP over that period and the report did not account for the cost of taking no climate change action. Dayaratna was invited to attend Trump's withdrawal announcement in June in the White House Rose Garden.

Craig Idso, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute: He has researched the benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide. His work has centered on highlighting how increased carbon dioxide will benefit plants.

Paul Driessen, a senior policy adviser at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a libertarian environmental think tank: His organization handed out leaflets at a climate protest this year in Washington, D.C., that said, "CO2 is not the 'control knob' of the climate." He also co-founded Climate Exit, or "Clexit," which criticized the science behind the Paris climate agreement and holds that spiking levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide benefit the Earth. "The world must abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade," the group stated in its founding statement. "Man does not and cannot control the climate."

Gordon Fulks, a physicist and adviser to the Cascade Policy Institute, an Oregon-based libertarian think tank: He has denied that net sea ice melt is occurring and that the Earth is warming. He has said those who express concern about climate change are like a "societal pathogen that virulently spreads misinformation in tiny packages like a virus."

Anthony Lupo, another founding member of Clexit: He has received support from the Heartland Institute and helped in the unsuccessful fight against the endangerment finding in court.

Leighton Steward, a former energy company executive and a founder of groups that promote the rise of carbon dioxide as a benefit: He has also encouraged the United States to drop out of the Paris climate accord and says that natural warming is raising the temperature of the Earth.

David Legates, a professor of climatology at the University of Delaware: He has denied that human-caused climate change could have catastrophic consequences and has co-authored climate research claiming polar bears are not harmed by human-caused climate change that was quietly funded, at least in part, by Koch Industries Inc.

Critics want to boot EPA 'cronies'...

no link

xxxguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/may/02/climate-contrarians-want-to-endanger-the-epa-climate-endangerment-finding

Climate contrarians want to endanger the EPA climate endangerment finding

A terrible new white paper tries to make the case that carbon pollution isn’t dangerous

President Donald Trump, accompanied by coal miners and, from left, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, second from right, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Vice President Mike Pence, far right, holds up the signed Energy Independence Executive Order, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington.

Although Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has been among the biggest proponents of withdrawing America from the Paris climate agreement (using bogus ‘blame China’ arguments to make his case), climate deniers have been unhappy with him. That’s because Pruitt doesn’t want to challenge EPA’s carbon pollution endangerment finding – he thinks it would be a lost cause. A group of contrarian scientists released a white paper trying to pressure him to attack the finding anyway.

The importance of the EPA endangerment finding

Briefly, the endangerment finding stemmed from a 2007 Supreme Court decision in which 12 states sued the EPA, calling on the agency to regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of those states, ordering EPA to determine if greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. After considering the scientific evidence, including the latest IPCC report, national climate science assessments, etc., the EPA issued its endangerment finding correctly concluding that carbon pollution clearly endangers public health and welfare via its climate change impacts. As a result, the EPA is legally required to regulate carbon pollution.

The Obama EPA followed that legal requirement by crafting the Clean Power Plan. Early in his presidency, Trump signed an anti-climate executive order calling on EPA to review and revise the Clean Power Plan. In effect, it’s currently on hold. However, that review process takes years, and in 2020 the next president’s EPA could make the carbon pollution regulations even more aggressive. As long as the endangerment finding is in place, there is a legal requirement for the EPA to regulate carbon pollution.

The endangerment finding is based on science, and here to stay

Fossil fuel-loving deniers thus hate the endangerment finding. The problem is that it’s based on overwhelming scientific evidence. As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt frequently sued the EPA and lost nearly every time, so he knows a losing case when he sees one.

Kamala Harris ? @KamalaHarris

Baseball fan Pruitt lost 6 of 7 lawsuits against the EPA. That would be a mediocre .142 batting average.

10:38 AM - Jan 18, 2017

44 44 Replies 204 204 Retweets 640 640 likes

The judicial system evaluates all available scientific evidence and listens to scientific experts. That’s why climate deniers keep losing in court, and Pruitt doesn’t want to waste his time on another sure loser. But the endangerment finding is so important, many deniers think trying to take it down is worth a shot.

Denier white paper attacks the endangerment finding

Enter a white paper published by a number of contrarian scientists, including a few of the less than 3% of climate scientists who reject or minimize human-caused global warming. The white paper tries to make the case that the EPA endangerment finding is wrong. Not surprisingly, aside from being poorly written, the arguments in the white paper are astonishingly bad.

xxxguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/16/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange 2013 poll

The white paper focuses on what its authors call the “tropical hot spot” (THS), which refers to the fact that as a result of global warming, scientists expect to see a particularly hot area in the lower atmosphere above the Earth’s tropics. As the white paper describes it:

Stated simply, first, the THS is claimed to be a fingerprint or signature of atmospheric and Global Average Surface Temperatures warming caused by increasing GHG/CO2 concentrations.

Nearly a decade ago, current NASA Goddard director Gavin Schmidt provided this figure showing a climate model simulation with that hot spot signature:

Climate model simulation showing the ‘hot spot’ signature in the tropical troposphere resulting from global warming.

Climate model simulation showing the ‘hot spot’ signature in the tropical troposphere resulting from global warming. Illustration: Gavin Schmidt

But there’s one big problem. In that simulation, the hot spot resulted from a 2% increase in solar activity. As Schmidt said in 2007:

the pattern really has nothing to do with greenhouse gas changes, but is a more fundamental response to warming (however caused). Indeed, there is a clear physical reason why this is the case – the increase in water vapour as surface air temperature rises causes a change in the moist-adiabatic lapse rate (the decrease of temperature with height) such that the surface to mid-tropospheric gradient decreases with increasing temperature (i.e. it warms faster aloft). This is something seen in many observations and over many timescales, and is not something unique to climate models.

So the fundamental claim in the white paper that the hot spot is a fingerprint of human-caused global warming is entirely false, as climate scientists (and my colleagues and I) have been pointing out for a decade. That basic error by itself is enough to toss the denier paper into the recycle bin, but it gets even worse, claiming:

The assumption of the existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot (THS)” is critical to all Three Lines of Evidence in EPA’s GHG/CO2 Endangerment Finding.

I encourage everyone to read the EPA endangerment finding technical support document. The document does discuss some of the many actual fingerprints of human-caused global warming that scientists have observed, but its only mention of the tropical hot spot is to note that it may or may not represent one inconsistency between models and observations:

Fingerprint studies have identified GHG and sulfate aerosol signals in observed surface temperature records, a stratospheric ozone depletion signal in stratospheric temperatures, and the combined effects of these forcing agents in the vertical structure of atmospheric temperature changes (Karl et al., 2006). Karl et al. (2009) state that more recent studies have also found human fingerprints in the patterns of change in Arctic and Antarctic temperatures. However, an important inconsistency may have been identified in the tropics. In the tropics, most observational data sets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, while almost all model simulations have larger warming aloft than at the surface (Karl et al., 2006). Karl et al. (2009) state that when uncertainties in models and observations are properly accounted for, newer observational data sets are in agreement with climate model results.

As noted at the end of that quote, the latest research finds evidence that the hot spot is there, but measuring temperature profiles in the atmosphere is a challenge.

To summarize:

White paper claim #1: The endangerment finding depends on the existence of the hot spot.

Verdict: False. The document only briefly mentions the hot spot.

White paper claim#2: The hot spot is a key fingerprint of human-caused global warming.

Verdict: False. According to atmospheric physics, the hot spot should result from global warming, regardless of its cause.

White paper claim #3: The hot spot doesn’t exist.

Verdict: False. It probably does exist, although it’s difficult to measure.

In short, the best case this group of contrarian scientists could make against the endangerment finding is a physically-incorrect strawman that ignores the latest research, as well as 99.9% of the scientific evidence summarized in the endangerment finding.

It’s no wonder Scott Pruitt doesn’t want to waste his time tilting at this windmill.

ref

PRESS RELEASE:

Abridged Research Report Second Edition, April 2017

A just released peer reviewed Climate Science Research Report has proven that it is all but certain that EPA’s basic claim that CO2 is a pollutant is totally false.

All research was done pro bono ICECAP NOTE: as has been the case with the numerous comment filings, letters, editorials, research reports and Amici briefs to the DC Circuit Court and SCOTUS. The team of scientists, economists and climatologists are not in for profit but we truly care about our environment and its inhabitants. We apply the seemingly forgotten scientific method and utilize rigorous statistical analysis techniques to determine the validity of politically driven claims, frivolously accepted and used to justify policies that force those who can least afford it to ride the Green Express Train to Energy Poverty.

....

Invalidating the EPA’s Endangerment Finding

Authors’ Comments on their Two Research Reports:

On the Existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot” & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding, Abridged Research Report, August 2016, and

On the Existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot” & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding, Abridged Research Report, April 2017, Second Edition

On April 29, 2017, TWTW stated the following:

“Revised Paper by Wallace, Christy, and D’Aleo: In his testimony, Christy discusses the simple statistical model used in the August {2016} paper by Wallace, Christy, and D’Aleo. At the time of Christy’s testimony, the paper was undergoing revision and made stronger {Emphasis Added}. The paper has been reviewed by several experts in relevant sciences and statistics.”

Climate Contrarians Overrepresented in Media Coverage, New Survey Finds

Scientific survey finds media may be skewing its coverage of climate science by

seeking out views of a small minority who questions man-made warming.

here is an overwhelming consensus among expert scientists studying climate change that man-made pollution is the main cause of global warming. But the media may be skewing its coverage of the issue by persistently seeking out the views of a contrarian minority, according to a new study.

In an **opinion survey** of nearly 1,900 scientists, 90 percent of the respondents with more than 10 peer-reviewed articles to their name "explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases being the dominant driver of recent global warming," the study found.

It was written by scientists in the Netherlands and Australia, and published in Environmental Science and Technology.

The degree of the consensus was not surprising, as scientists said they basically agreed with findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which has itself generated exhaustive consensus documents. Surveys of published literature have likewise demonstrated the breadth of the scientific consensus on man-made climate change......

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140811/climate-contrarians-overrepresented-media-coverage-new-survey-finds

Elizabeth Whelan: Ardent defender of the most toxic substances known to mankind. Whelan is the author of Panic in the Pantry and Toxic Terror. In Panic, Whelan rejects back-to-nature "mania" like organic lifestyles and pesticide-free eating as a "hoax." Whelan is President and founder of the American Council on Science and Health, a group that asserts "there is no scientific evidence that DDT harms the environment" and that dioxin, one of the most toxic substances in existence, "was not such a bad actor." Whelan has suggested, contrary to a considerable body of research, "that there is no credible evidence that PCB exposure in the general environment, in fish, or even at very high levels in the workplace, has ever led to an increase in cancer risk."

Dennis Paustenbach: Keeping the world safe for chromium polluters. Paustenbach is the president and founder of ChemRisk, a consulting firm that helps companies, "confront public health, occupational health, and environmental challenges." Paustenbach served as an expert witness for Pacific Gas and Electric when the utility was sued for allowing the poisonous heavy metal chromium to leach into groundwater – a case made famous in the movie Erin Brockovich. In the 1990s, Honeywell, PPG Industries Inc. and Maxus Energy Corp. were faced with spending nearly a billion dollars to clean up New Jersey communities they had contaminated with chromium. Instead, they hired Paustenbach to mount a successful campaign to force the state to raise the allowable limit of chromium in soils. Paustenbach has taken his pro-toxic chemical stance nationwide with his recent Bush administration appointment to the advisory committee for the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health

John P. Giesy: Ensuring that good science doesn’t stand in the way of America’s #1 pesticide. Giesy is a leading apologist for atrazine, the most common pesticide used in the United States, and an endocrine disruptor so dangerous that it has been banned in Europe. When University of California toxicologist Tyrone Hayes linked tiny amounts of atrazine to deformities and infertility in frogs, Sygenta, atrazine’s manufacturer, hired Giesy to dispute Hayes’ research. Despite running faulty studies and misinterpreting the results, Giesy’s research was widely used by Sygenta and other pro-industry lobbyists to force EPA to back away from plans to tighten regulations on atrazine.

S. Fred Singer: Spreading a gospel of mis-truth about global warming. Singer is President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), a non-profit policy research group that denies global warming. SEPP is directly funded by ExxonMobil, according to the company’s own disclosures. In 2001, Singer however denied ever receiving oil industry funding. During the past two decades Singer has become one of the most prominent "experts" refuting the existence of global warming and the impact of human activities on climate change. In 1996, he wrote a declaration arguing that there was no scientific consensus on global warming and therefore no grounds for measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Singer claimed the declaration was co-signed by "more than 100 European and American climate scientists" when most of the signers were not climate experts, and many were not scientists. But Singer made it clear that he is not necessarily ready to give up on global warming, in testimony to Congress he stated "a warmer climate would be generally beneficial for agriculture and other human activities."

Dennis Avery: Guarding factory food from "dangers" of the organic food movement. This self-styled "leading critic of organic produce" is a self-righteous attack dog who serves the interests of the corporate agriculture companies who pay the bills at his "think tank," the Hudson Institute. "Organic foods," Avery claims, "have clearly become the deadliest food choice." He gained notoriety by insisting that people who eat organic food are eight times more likely to suffer E. coli food poisoning – a figure he claimed to draw from research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control. But CDC has never conducted such research. Avery frequently repeats his mantra that there is no hard scientific evidence that pesticides harm humans, flatly ignoring decades of scientific analysis. Avery’s "research" has been paid for by Monsanto, DuPont, Dow-Elanco, Sandoz, Ciba-Geigy, ConAgra, Cargill, and Procter & Gamble.

http://www.waterkeeper.org/mainarticledetails.aspx?articleid=186

James Lawrence Powell

Science and Global Warming

List of 24 articles rejecting anthropogenic global warming, with links where available. See abstracts or excerpts from abstracts here.

}:Bali, R., K. K. Agarwal, S. N. Ali, and P. Srivastava (2011), Is the recessional pattern of Himalayan glaciers suggestive of anthropogenically induced global warming? Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 4(7-8), 1087-1093, doi:10.1007/s12517-010-0155-9. :{_{http://www.springerlink.com/content/6h11048377749k84/

}_}:Citations: 2

}:Baliunas, S., and R. Jastrow (1993), EVIDENCE ON THE CLIMATE IMPACT OF SOLAR VARIATIONS, Energy, 18(12), 1285-1295, doi:10.1016/0360-5442(93)90016-7. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0360544293900167:{_{

}_}:Citations: 7

}:Balling, R. C. (1993), THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE DATA, Research & Exploration, 9:{(2), 201-207.

}:Citations: 2

}:Bashkirtsev, V. S., and G. P. Mashnich (2003), Will we face global warming in the nearest future?, Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, 43:{(1), 124-127.

}:Citations: 4

}:Bellamy, D., and J. Barrett (2007), Climate stability: an inconvenient proof, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Civil Engineering, 160(2), 66-72, doi:10.1680/cien.2007.160.2.66. http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/content/article/10.1680/cien.2007.160.2.66:{_{

}_}:Citations: 5

}:Berner, U., and W. Stahl (1999), Geosciences and climate, Zkg International, 52:{(1), 28-+.

}:Citations: 0

}:Chilingar, G. V., L. F. Khilyuk, and O. G. Sorokhtin (2008), Cooling of atmosphere due to CO2 emission, Energy Sources Part a-Recovery Utilization and Environmental Effects, 30(1), 1-9, doi:10.1080/15567030701568727. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15567030701568727:{_{

}_}:Citations: 1

}:Chilingar, G. V., O. G. Sorokhtin, L. Khilyuk, and M. V. Gorfunkel (2009), Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect, Environmental Geology, 58(6), 1207-1213, doi:10.1007/s00254-008-1615-3. http://www.springerlink.com/content/c47m4x8222886n12/:{_{

}}:Citations: 2:{{

}_}::{

}:Dergachev, V. A., and O. M. Raspopov (2010), Reconstruction of the Earth's surface temperature based on data of deep boreholes, global warming in the last millennium, and long-term solar cyclicity. Part 2. Experimental data analysis, Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, 50(3), 393-402, doi:10.1134/s001679321003014x. http://www.springerlink.com/content/1250440760034545/:{_{

}_}:Citations: 1

}:Essenhigh, R. H. (2009), Potential Dependence of Global Warming on the Residence Time (RT) in the Atmosphere of Anthropogenically Sourced Carbon Dioxide, Energy & Fuels, 23, 2773-2784, doi:10.1021/ef800581r. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ef800581r:{_{

}_}:Citations: 3

}:Jastrow, R., W. Nierenberg, and F. Seitz (1991), GLOBAL WARMING - WHAT DOES THE SCIENCE TELL US, Energy, 16(11-12), 1331-1345, doi:10.1016/0360-5442(91)90006-8. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0360544291900068:{_{

}_}:Citations: 4

}:Jedral, W. (2010), CCS TECHNOLOGY AND SAVING THE GLOBAL CLIMATE - PRO AND CON, Rynek Energii:{(3), 113-119.

}:Citations: 0

}:Khilyuk, L. F., and G. V. Chilingar (2003), Global warming: Are we confusing cause and effect?, Energy Sources, 25(4), 357-370, doi:10.1080/00908310390142389. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00908310390142389:{_{

}_}:Citations: 10

:{_{

}}:Khilyuk, L. F., and G. V. Chilingar (2004), Global warming and long-term climatic changes: a progress report, Environmental Geology, 46(6-7), 970-979, doi:10.1007/s00254-004-1112-2. http://www.springerlink.com/content/f5uhmcp0qx4l81dj/:{{

}_}:Citations: 8

}:Khilyuk, L. F., and G. V. Chilingar (2006), On global forces of nature driving the Earth's climate. Are humans involved?, Environmental Geology, 50(6), 899-910, doi:10.1007/s00254-006-0261-x. http://www.springerlink.com/content/t341350850360302/:{_{

}_}:Citations: 9

}:Loehle, C. (2004), Climate change: detection and attribution of trends from long-term geologic data, Ecological Modelling, 171(4), 433-450, doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2003.08.013. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380003003600:{_{

}_}:Citations: 14

}:Luedecke, H.-J., R. Link, and F.-K. Ewert (2011), HOW NATURAL IS THE RECENT CENTENNIAL WARMING? AN ANALYSIS OF 2249 SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECORDS, International Journal of Modern Physics C, 22(10), 1139-1159, doi:10.1142/s0129183111016798. :{_{http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/How_natural.pdf

}_}:Citations: 0

}:Michaels, P. J. (1993), BENIGN GREENHOUSE, Research & Exploration, 9:{(2), 222-233.

}:Citations: 4

}:Njau, E. C. (2005), Expected halt in the current global warming trend?, Renewable Energy, 30(5), 743-752, doi:10.1016/j.renene.2004.07.011. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148104002939:{_{

}_}:Citations: 3

:{_{

}}:Persinger, M. A. (2009), The possible role of dynamic pressure from the interplanetary magnetic field on global warming, International Journal of Physical Sciences, 4(1), 44-46. :{{http://www.academicjournals.org/ijps/pdf/pdf2009/Jan/Persinger.pdf

}_}:Citations: 0

}:Qian, W. H., and B. Lu (2010), Periodic oscillations in millennial global-mean temperature and their causes, Chinese Science Bulletin, 55:{(35), 4052-4057, doi:10.1007/s11434-010-4204-2.

}:Citations: 5

}:Scafetta, N. (2010), Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 72(13), 951-970, doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2010.04.015. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682610001495:{_{

}_}:Citations: 17

Scafetta, N. (2012), Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 80(13), 124-137, dpi: 10.1016/j.jastp.2011.12.005. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611003385Citations: 1

}:Zhen-Shan, L., and S. Xian (2007), Multi-scale analysis of global temperature changes and trend of a drop in temperature in the next 20 years, Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 95(1-2), 115-121, doi:10.1007/s00703-006-0199-2. http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/:{_{

}_}:Citations: 11:{

http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart

http://publictrustproject.org/blog/regulation/2012/science-for-hire-what-industrys-deep-pockets-are-doing-to-our-fisheries/ butterworth menhaden

http://grist.org/news/university-gives-frackademics-the-boot/

http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/19/breaking-news-suny-buffalo-ends-frackademia-center-shale-resources-and-society-institute

SUNY

Sen. James M. Inhofe's list of 400+ supposedly prominent climate scientists who doubt global warming is full of names that should raise big question marks, including economists and other social scientists, mathematicians, TV weathermen, retired scientists and amateurs. Also included are these 84 names of scientists who have received support for their work from fossil fuel industries. Read here about why that could be an issue of concern.

Here are the names below. View the full list here.

Professor Tom Addiscott of the University of East London SA.

http://consultancy.ukf.net

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tom_Addiscott

David Archibald, Australia. Geologist with Summa Development Limited. Associated with Australia's Lavoisier Group, which was established specifically to be skeptical of climate change. The group receives funding from the coal and oil industry.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lavoisier_Group

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/Archibald.pdf

Dr. August H. Auer (Deceased), co-founder of New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. Heavily involved with industry-funded groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augie_Auer

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=New_Zealand_Climate_Science_Coalition

Dennis Avery. Not a scientist...he is director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, which receives funding from Exxon, Dupont, Monsanto and so on.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dennis_Avery

Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics and geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden. Strong ties to the oil industry, and claims to be an expert in "dowsing." Connected to the anti-global warming group Natural Resources Stewardship Project.

http://www.desmogblog.com/nils-axel-morner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_M%C3%B6rner

Donald G. Baker of the University of Minnesota. Heavily involved with industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=904

Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Mass. Heavily connected to many industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=3

http://www.desmogblog.com/sallie-baliunas

Dr. Robert Balling, heavily involved with industry-funded groups. Has received money from Exxon for studies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Balling

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=5

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Canada. Founder of many industry groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball

Dr. Jack Barrett, chemist and spectroscopist, formerly with Imperial College London, U.K. Heavily connected to the oil and mining industry

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1100

Gary S. Becker, Nobel Prize-winning economist who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and University Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Chicago. Not a natural scientist.

http://home.uchicago.edu/~gbecker/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Becker

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, UK; Editor, Energy & Environment journal. Member of the "Scientific Alliance," which has many industry-funded scientists involved with it.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1281

http://www.hull.ac.uk/geog/staff/Boehmer.htm

Dr. Robert. M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Paleoclimate scientist. Member of the institute of public affairs. a Industry funded think tank that takes money from places like Monsanto, Big Tobacco and so on.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs

http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/

Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax. Connected to the Fraser Institute, which is an industry-funded group, and works at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=8959

http://fizz.phys.dal.ca/people/PChylek/PChylek.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Chylek

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada. Heavily connected to -industry-funded groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Clark

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Natural_Resources_Stewardship_Project

W. Dennis Clark, Department of Plant Biology at Arizona State University. Involved with industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=905

Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont. Now tied to the oil industry, and connected to the Natural Resource Stewardship Project.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1227

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC 4 Industry funded, with no education, but likes to say he has one

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Courtney

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1095

Joseph D'Aleo, served as the first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel and was the Chief Meteorologist at Weather Services International Corporation. Served as chairman of the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting. Involved with industry-funded groups such as the Fraser Institute, and he the website icecap.us

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1276

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joseph_D'Aleo

Peter Dietze, independent energy advisor and scientific climate and carbon modeller, official IPCC reviewer, Bavaria, Germany. Electrical engineer who has connections to industry-funded groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Peter_Dietze

http://www.desmogblog.com/peter-dietze

Dr. Michael J. Economides, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cullen College of Engineering at University of Houston. Petroleum Engineer with deep ties to the oil industry.

http://www.chee.uh.edu/faculty/economides/

Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorologist, previously with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif.; atmospheric consultant. Heavily connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1040

Dr. Cal Evans, geochemist and a prominent researcher who has advised the Alberta Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and who is affiliated with the Calgary-based, industry-funded group Friends of Science.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Friends_of_Science

Ray Evans, engineer and founding member of the Australia-based Lavoisier Group, which was set up to deny global warming. The group receives funding from the coal and oil industries.
Bob Foster, geologist and director of the Australia-based, global warming-denying Lavoisier Group (which is heavily funded by the oil and coal industries). Ex-General Manager Marketing with BHP Petroleum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavoisier_Group

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lavoisier_Group

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, senior scientist emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey. Retired geologist who is involved with industry-funded groups.

http://www.desmogblog.com/lee-c-gerhard

Indur M Goklany, Ph.D, who has represented the United States at the International Panel on Climate Change and in the negotiations leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Affiliated with the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, which takes money from ExxonMobil and other big corps.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st278/st278f.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute

Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, New Zealand. Associated with coal research, has not published any peer-reviewed work in regards to climate. Hasn't published anything in over 17 years. Also a member of the NRSP, which gets funding from energy companies such as Exxon.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1215

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Gray_(scientist)

Robert W. Hahn, economist who is heavily involved in industry-funded groups (EPW report lists him as a chemical engineer).

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=44

Howard Hayden, PhD, emeritus professor of physics, University of Connecticut, U.S. Retired, takes money from Exxon, and has never published anything peer reviewed relating to climate.

http://www.desmogblog.com/denier_database

David Henderson, a professor at the Westminster Business School and former chief economist for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Has no discernable formal education in science and is associated with the right-leaning Hoover Institution, which receives funding from ExxonMobil, Arco, big tobacco and similar interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Henderson_(economist)

http://www.hoover.org/bios/henderson.html

Dr. Robert Higgs, a Senior Fellow for the Independent Institute who has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University, Stanford University, and a fellow for the National Science Foundation. Economist with no discernable scientific background. Higgs is also a Senior Fellow with the Libertarian Independent Institute, which is industry funded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Higgs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Institute

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona, U.S. Received direct funding from Exxon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_D._Idso

Keith Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_E._Idso

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA. Industry funded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_B._Idso

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, U.S.; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis, Russia. Involved with industry funded groups.

http://www.cato.org/people/illarionov.html

Albert F. Jacobs, co-founder and spokesperson of the Canadian group Friends of Science, which was established to challenge the Kyoto Protocol. The group is known for close ties to the fossil fuels industry, though its actual funding sources are not well known.
Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation. Connected to the industry-funded group The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, he is a nuclear physicist and mathematician turned consultant/lobbyist.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/1999/kemmbio.htm

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=25

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former research scientist with Environment Canada; Editor of "Climate Research" (03-05); Editorial Board Member "Natural Hazards," IPCC Expert Reviewer 2007. Connected to multiple industry-funded groups.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1358

William Kininmonth, M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1277

Dr. Arnold Kling, economist with no discernable climate or natural science background. Sssociated with CATO, which receives Exxon funding.

http://www.cato.org/people/kling.html

http://arnoldkling.com/

Paul C. Knappenberger, previously involved with a now-closed branch of the George C. Marshall Institute, which according to Newsweek is a "central cog in the denial machine." The institute has received funding from ExxonMobil.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=13

Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute, who was an IPCC reviewer. No degrees in or peer-reviewed articles in natural sciences. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1522

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary, Canada. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.berchagroup.com/about_us/about_us-team.htm

http://www.desmogblog.com/dr-doug-leahy-do-any-of-the-friends-of-science-not-lead-back-to-oil-and-gas

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware, U.S. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=18

Bryan Leyland, electrical and mechanical engineer, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant, Auckland, New Zealand.

http://homepage.mac.com/bryanleyland/Menu4.html

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S. Former IPCC reviewer who is connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=17

http://eapsweb.mit.edu/people/person.asp?position=Faculty&who=lindzen

Martin Livermore, chemist, director of the Scientific Alliance. Connected to industry-funded group.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1066

Anthony R. Lupo, PhD, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Dept. of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia, U.S. Connected to industry-funded groups and scientists.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php

http://www.marshall.org/experts.php?id=152

Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, a field biologist who has worked in remote parts of Africa and published in international and Australian scientific journals. Affiliated with the Institute of Public Affairs, where she is the Director of the Environment. The group receives funding from the oil, coal and tobacco industries.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jennifer_Marohasy

Ross McKitrick, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Canada. Economist with heavy connections to industry-funded groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fraser_Institute

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ross_McKitrick

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/ross.html

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1313

Stephen McIntyre of ClimateAudit.org, mathematics, philosophy, politics and economics. No discernable climate science experience. He is the guy who found the slight error in NASA's hockey stick data. He is also heavily involved in the mining industry, and even founded his own mining corporation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stephen_McIntyre

John McLean, climate data analyst, computer scientist, Melbourne, Australia. Climate-related work was published by the Science and Public Policy Institute, which receives funding from ExxonMobil.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/ipccprocessillusion.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute

Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences, University of Virginia. Admits he is industry funded.

http://www.cato.org/people/michaels.html

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=4

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_J._Michaels

Professor Vivian Moses of King's College and University College in London. Leader of CropGen. industry-funded group.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/people/vivian.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vivian_Moses

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=CropGen

Alan Moghissi of the Institute for Regulatory Science. connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=A._Alan_Moghissi

Economist and political commentator. not a natural scientist. Director of the Institute for Private Enterprise. which receives industry funding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Des_Moore

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Des_Moore

Alan Moran, PhD, energy economist, Director of the IPA's Deregulation Unit, Australia, which is industry funded.

http://www.ipa.org.au/people/bio.asp?peopleid=58

Dr. Thomas Gale Moore is a former professor at Michigan State University, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, which receives funding from corps like Exxon.

http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/

http://www.hoover.org/bios/moore.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Thomas_Gale_Moore

James J. O'Brien, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Meteorology and Oceanography, Florida State University. Connected to the George C. Marshall Institute and the Fraser Institute, both of which receive money from ExxonMobil and other corporate interests.

http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/bios/obrien.html

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1133

http://www.marshall.org/experts.php?id=134

Garth W. Paltridge, PhD, atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia. Is associated with Big Oil via the industry-funded nonprofit The Natural Resources Stewardship Project.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Natural_Resources_Stewardship_Project

R. Timothy Patterson, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Canada. Connected to Friends of Science and the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, which is industry funded.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Patterson

Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Geology and Isotope Geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences. Retired, with connections to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=256

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=25

http://www.desmogblog.com/harry-n-a-priem

Dr. Tom Quirk, a former University lecturer, fellow of three Oxford Colleges, and a board member of the Australia-based Institute of Public Affairs. Former mining consultant, corporate mining executive. No discernable climate experience.

http://www.science.unimelb.edu.au/research/iag/index.php#quirk

William E. Reifsnyder, meteorologist. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=910

Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working group II, chapter 8 (human health). Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1279

Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, Ore. Industry backer who has no discernable experience in climate scientist and whose Oregon Petition against global warming was condemned by the National Academy of Science.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1067

Alex Robson, PhD, Economics, Australian National University. Economist who is connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=1104

Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, B.C., Canada. connected with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project which is an industry group.

http://www.nrsp.com/scientists.html

Joel Schwartz, who holds a master's degree in planetary science from the California Institute of Technology. Associated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=276

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/joel-schwartz/

Gary D. Sharp, PhD, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, CA, U.S. marine biologist and connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gary_D._Sharp

Clinton H. Sheehan of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=911

C. Robert Shoup, petroleum geologist, authored a summer 2007 scientific study for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Works directly for Shell(which the EPW left out).

http://www.winona.edu/geology/alumni.html

Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ont. Retired, connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1083

S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia and former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service. connected to several industry-funded groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer

Dr. Willie Soon, Astrophysicist with Harvard-Smithsonian Center. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Willie_Soon

Roy W. Spencer, PhD, climatologist, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, the University of Alabama, Huntsville. Meteorologist, creationist and has many industry-funded connections.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=19

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer

Dr. Walter Starck, Australian marine scientist. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.goldendolphin.com/wstarck.htm

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Walter_Starck

Dr. Elwynn Taylor, Professor of Meteorology at Iowa State University and a former project scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

http://www.econ.iastate.edu/agrisk/module/taylorbio.htm

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=912

Hendrik Tennekes, PhD, former Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. Retired, hasn't done anything peer reviewed in over 17 years.

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1278

Connected to Fred Singer via SEPP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_%26_Environmental_Policy_Project

Professor Anthony Trewavas of the Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Involved with many scientists who are industry funded or run industry groups.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Trewavas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Trewavas

Kenneth E. F. Watt, zoologist. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=913

Dr. Richard C. Willson of Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research. Can't find much on him other than the fact he is connected to a bunch of industry-funded scientists via icecap.us.

http://www.chee.uh.edu/faculty/willson/

Sylvan H. Wittwer of Michigan State University. Connected to industry-funded groups.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=914

David E. Wojick, PhD, P.Eng., UN IPCC Expert Reviewer, energy consultant, Virginia. Is involved in industry-funded groups backed by coal and oil corporations.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_E._Wojick

http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/resume.html

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-industry-money-46011008

aus blog

"Yet not one,let alone a dozen,leading climate scientists has ever cracked and defected to the other side"

Really? Do read on...

The new scientific report “directly challenges the conclusions of the IPCC Summary that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing dangerous and unprecedented warming.” - Quantitative Economist Kenneth A. Haapala, the past president of the prestigious Philosophical Society of Washington, the oldest scientific society in Washington (founded 1871), has reviewed hundreds of reports based on quantitative techniques. Haapala co-authored the report “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”

“I think that climatic changes have a natural causes according many geological data…I am very glad to sign the U.S. Senate’s report of scientists against the theory of man-made global warming.” - Geology Professor Uberto Crescenti of the University G.d'Annunzio in Italy is the past president of the Society of Italian Geologists.

“I am appalled at the state of discord in the field of climate science…There is no observational evidence that the addition of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have caused any temperature perturbations in the atmosphere.” - Award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. George T. Wolff, former member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, served on a committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and authored more than 90 peer-reviewed studies.

“The sky is not burning, and to claim that it is amounts to journalistic malpractice…the press only promotes the global warming alarmists and ignores or minimizes those of us who are skeptical.” - Chemist Dr. Mark L. Campbell, a professor of chemistry at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, who has published numerous studies in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on topics such as methane.

“Once again we have misleading climate change pronouncements being based on data errors, data errors detected by non-UN, non-IPCC, non-peer-reviewed external observers…This is exactly what happens when you base your arguments on ‘consensus science’ and not scientific fact.” - Professor Dr. Doug L. Hoffman, a mathematician, computer programmer, and engineer, who worked on environmental models and conducted research in molecular dynamics simulations. Hoffman co-authored the 2009 book, The Resilient Earth, described as “bringing a dose of skeptical reality to climate science and the global warming debate.”

“The questions are scientific, but the UN answers are political. The global warming debate is hardly about science.” - Computer Modeler and Engineer Allen Simmons, who worked 12 years with NASA's top climate scientists and wrote computer systems software for the world's first weather satellites and aided in the development of computer systems for polar orbiting satellites. Simmons co-authored the new skeptical book The Resilient Earth.

2/12 wsj:

authors: Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris;

J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting;

Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University;

Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society;

Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences;

William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton;

Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.;

William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology;

Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT;

James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University;

Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences;

Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne;

Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator;

Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem;

Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service;

Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

*busted: http://roygrubb.tumblr.com/post/16581690077/the-16-concerned-scientists-who-they-are*

wiki has three lists:

1) This one ("List of Scientists Opposing Global Warming Consensus")2) "Global warming controversy"3) "Global Warming Skeptic"

The top ten include Willie Soon, a senior scientist at the Exxon funded George C Marshall institute, and John R Christy, also a Marshall Institute expert.

Ross McKitrick is a senior fellow at the Exxon funded Fraser institute and on the academic advisory board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation - funders unknown.

Dr Indur M Goklany is affiliated with the Exxon Funded thinktank the International Policy Network (US). Sallie L Baliunas is listed by the Union of Concerned Scientists as being affiliated with nine different organisations who have all received funding from ExxonMobil, including the George C Marshall Institute.

Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist and prominent sceptic who notably has a degree of credibility in the scientific community, is a member of the 'Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy', which has also received Exxon funding.

The final name in the top 10 contributors - David H Douglass - has written several papers with Singer, Christie and Michaels - six of the fifteen papers he authored on the list were written with Michaels, Singer or Christie.

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/04/900-papers-supporting-climate-scepticism-exxon-links

In 1998, the New York Times revealed that opponents of international climate policy had put together a plan with a US$600,000 budget to recruit scientists “who share the industry's views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians, and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases…” (Cushman, 1998). This plan—assembled at the American Petroleum Institute offices in Washington, DC, USA—targeted science writers, editors, columnists and television network correspondents in order to affect media discourse on the human contribution to climate change. The proposal of the group stated that it would measure success “by counting, among other things, the percentage of news articles that raise questions about climate science and the number of radio talk show appearances by scientists questioning the prevailing views”. rajan and boykoff

signal and noise http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1808044/

Signals and noise. Mass-media coverage of climate change in the USA and the UK

Maxwell T Boykoff¹ and S Ravi Rajan²

Industry-friendly experts

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation. Help expose the truth about the tobacco industry.

Industry-friendly experts serve two primary roles in the propaganda and public relations campaigns. In the first category are people who work behind the scenes as advisors, using psychology and other specialized expertise to design PR and advertising campaigns.

In the second category are experts for the public stage who appear to speak as independent, disinterested authorities with regard to a public issue. This kind of expert plays a role in the propagandists use of the third party technique. In some cases, an expert's opinion is directly related to receiving compensation from the industry or interest whose activities the expert advances. In other instances, an expert may already hold a view that is beneficial to industry, thereby having his work receive more attention and attract more funding than if it weren't supportive of the propagandist's cause. This kind of expert may be professionally inept or overly ambitious. Or he may be simply naïve about how he is serving as a tool for the propagandist.

The psychologist R. Clotaire Rapaille is an example of the first category of experts. Rapaille has advised the International Food Information Council, a food industry front group, on how to sell genetically engineered foods with "words to use," such as bounty, children, choice, earth, purity, tradition and wholesome. The U.S. auto industry has also benefited from Rapaille's wisdom. The New York Times Keith Bradsher reported that Rapaille advised Detroit automakers that SUVs that appeal to Americans' deepest fears of violence and crime and should be marketed to take advantage of that fact.

Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health which purports to be "a science-based, public health group that is directed by a board of 300 leading physicians and scientists," routinely dismisses health risks and environmental harm from pesticides and other toxic chemicals, while earning a six-figure annual salary that is largely funded by the chemical industry and agribusiness. Whelan maintains, however, a small degree of credibility in some circles by being a harsh critic of the tobacco industry.

Many experts for hire, such as Steven Milloy, proprietor of Junkscience.com, flatly refuse to discuss where they get their funding, and the front groups and think tanks that employ them are not required to disclose their funding sources.

A subtle and often effective form of industry utilizing a friendly expert is by having the expert exert influence in her professional organization or trade association. Often an industry or government will need to gain the support of, or at the very least neutralize, a specific group to carry out activity. For example, in order to build a new prison, certain people and organizations associated with the criminal justice system will have to say that there is a need for a new prison, or minimally, that another prison wouldn't hurt. In order to increase the likelihood of approval for a new prison, the prison industry may try to exert influence through a member or members of a group like a prison workers' union or a policeman's association.

Carrying this third party technique to an extreme, an industry may encourage its expert to take a strong position against some abuse or potential of the field in which they operate. Over time the expert will moderate this position or limit its applicability.

Another kind of expert exploited by the PR industry and propagandists is the use of journalists. PR firms will often create pseudo news, which is essentially a biased message attempting to appear like a news story. Examples of this are video news releases (VNRs), press releases, special advertising supplements, and other kinds of ready to consume media. In the case of VNRs and other visual media, a firm will create a segment that looks like TV news reporting, complete with an actor or a real-life reporter playing the role of an independent journalist.

For example, in May 2003 the New York Times exposed an attempt by a Boca Raton, Fla., production company named WJMK to use CNN's Aaron Brown to host a series of corporate-sponsored videos that look like news. WJMK made offers to Brown and former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite to host a program called the American Medical Review. "Drug companies and other health care companies pay WJMK about $15,000 to have their companies or products featured in the videos, which are two to five minutes long and run between regular public television programming," the Times reported. ^[1]

PR firms, corporations, and other propagandists also use ghostwriters to draft written materials ranging from medical journal articles to letters-to-the-editor. The article or letter will then be published under the name of a respected researchers or hometown hero – whatever may be most persuasive to the intended target of the propaganda.

Examples

Elliot Abrams (not the "neocon" Eliot Abrams, note spelling)
Tom Addiscott
Jarl Ahlbeck
Herbert Allen
Richard Allen
Bruce N. Ames
Dennis Avery
Sallie L. Baliunas
Robert Balling
Thomas O. Barnett
Jack Barrett
Roger Bate
Petr Beckmann deceased
Rick Berman
Alvin Biscoe
Robert Blackwill
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen
Jack Bonner
C.J.F. Böttcher
Charles Graham Boyd
John Brademas
John H. Bryan
Daniel P. Burnham
Al Caruba
John Carlisle
Harlan B. Cleveland
Bonner Cohen
Gregory Conko
Richard S. Courtney
Carol Cox
Kenneth W. Dam
Richard J. Danzig
Robert E. Davis
Peter Dietze
Lev E. Dobriansky
Paula J. Dobriansky
Thomas E. Donilon
Ron Duchin
Bill Durodié
Nicholas Eberstadt
Jessica P. Einhorn
Hugh W. Ellsaesser
Rob Enderle
M. Stanton Evans
Lauri Fitz-Pegado
David Friedman
Leon Fuerth
Michael Fumento (science journalist)
Rich Galen
Richard Newton Gardner
Tor Ragnar Gerholm
Gerhard Gerlich
Michael Gough
Kenneth Green
Kenneth E. Grubbs, Jr.
Michael J. Higatsberger deceased
Craig Idso
Keith Idso
Sherwood Idso
Bruce P. Jackson
Robert Jastrow
Zbigniew Jaworowski
James A. Johnson
Robert Kagan
Michael Kamrin
Kelvin Kemm
William Kininmonth
David Klurfeld
John Albert Knubel
Charles M. Kupperman
Hans H.J. Labohm
Jay Lefkowitz
R. Doug Lewis
William Walker Lewis
Henry R. Linden
Richard S. Lindzen
Timothy H. Ling
Martin Livermore
Bjorn Lomborg
Bette Bao Lord
Peter Madigan
Ferrell P. McClean
William J. McDonough
Stephen McIntyre
Ross McKitrick
Paul Meller
Helmut Metzner deceased
Patrick J. Michaels
Henry I. Miller
Steven J. Milloy
William Mitchell
A. Alan Moghissi
Jack Mongoven
Patrick Moore
Stephen Moses (Insurance backed-Center for Long Term Care Reform)
Vivian Moses
William A. Nierenberg deceased
Joseph Samuel Nye, Jr.
Alan Oxley
Dennis Paustenbach
Frank H. Pearl
Benny Peiser
Robin Raskin
Amy Moritz Ridenour
David M. Rubenstein
Michael Sanera
Randy Scheunemann
Gary J. Schmitt
Frederick Seitz
Gary D. Sharp
S. Fred Singer
Walter Becker Slocombe
Richard Smalley
Kenneth Smith
Willie Soon
Joan Edelman Spero
Chauncey Starr
John Stossel (science journalist)
Philip Stott
Jacob Sullum
Christiaan van Sumere
Peter Tarnoff
George Taylor
Peter B. Teets
John L. Thornton
James Tozzi
Anthony Trewavas
Harlan K. Ullman
Elizabeth Whelan
John C. Whitehead
Aaron Wildavsky deceased
Charles R. Williamson
James Q. Wilson
Michael Wilson
David E. Wojick
James David Wolfensohn
David Wurmser
Meyrav Wurmser

Other SourceWatch Resources

Balanced scientists

References

↑ Melody Petersen, "CNN Anchor Backs Out Of Video Deal", New York Times, May 8, 2003.

GLOBAL WARMING: SKEPTICS

Ross G points out curous vampire factor; even when outed, they never die ?! Hoggan 108

GW:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_sceptics

McGough dioxin is safe, acne

The conservative movement's growing interest in scientific/technological issues was facilitated

by the establishment of a "scientific-technological elite" within the conservative policyplanning

network years earlier, when the movement was developing and lobbying for the

"Star Wars" project (Blumenthal 1986:3 10). These scientific advocates in the conservative

movement, such as Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow, and Bruce Ames at the Marshall Institute,

played a visible role in the movement's opposition to the treatment of ozone depletion as a

social problem. In the past decade, several conservative think tanks enlisted the services of scientists

sympathetic to their interests on such issues as pesticide exposure and environmental

carcinogens. Some of these more well-known scientists, who are often critical of the "mainstream,"

peer-reviewed scientific community, include Michael Fumento, Steven Milloy, and

Michael Sanera. It thus appears that the utilization of sympathetic scientists is becoming a distinct

mobilization strategy for conservative think tanks, one that complements the roles

played by occupational activists in defending industry positions-e.g., nuclear scientists who

promote nuclear power-in scientific controversies (Mazur 1981).

The conservative think tanks in this study enlisted the aid of the five leading American

climate change skeptics identified earlier in several ways. Perhaps the most telling evidence is

that, except for Robert Balling, each of the skeptics served as a fellow for at least one conservative

think tank. Sallie Baliunas was a Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public

Policy at the Hoover Institution and the Chair of the Science Advisory Board at the Marshall

Institute. Richard Lindzen served on the Science Advisory Board of the Marshall Institute, and

Patrick Michaels was a Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute. Along

with being an advisory editor for the Cato Institute's quarterly magazine Regulation, Fred Singer

was also a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the

Hoover Institution, and later a Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy

at the Hoover Institution.

In addition to serving formally as think tank fellows, these climate change skeptics also

wrote 20 of the 224 documents discussed earlier: 17 works written specifically for use by the

think tanks, and three works reprinted by the think tanks. Baliunas authored seven original

works for three conservative think tanks: four policy studies and one speech for the Marshall

Institute, a policy paper for the Heartland Institute, and a speech for NCPA. Balling wrote five

original works for three think tanks: a book and a chapter in an edited book for the Pacific

Research Institute (PRI), a policy study and a chapter in an edited book for CEI, and a speech

for NCPA. Lindzen contributed both an original article in Cato's Regulation and a revision of

that article in an edited book for PRI. Michaels wrote five documents for two conservative

think tanks: a policy study for the Marshall Institute and a book, two speeches, and a Washington

Post op-ed essay for the Cato Institute. Finally, Singer authored an op-ed essay in the Wall

Street Journal that was reprinted by NCPA. Interestingly, none of the think tanks circulated

reprints of the peer-reviewed climate science articles or even unpublished research papers

authored by any of the skeptics. They relied instead on reprinting contributions of these scientists

to popular media or to their in-house publications.

Another way that members of conservative think tanks aligned themselves with the

skeptics was by citing these scientists as experts in other global warming documents produced

by countermovement organizations. Apart from those 20 documents written by climate

change skeptics, we find that 62 (30.4 percent) of the remaining 204 documents cited at least

one of the skeptics as an expert scientific source. Baliunas was the least cited skeptic, with

only 17 citations in 13 documents. Although he was not a fellow at any of the think tanks,

Balling was the most widely cited skeptic, with 92 citations in 21 documents. The fact that

nearly 70 percent of these documents do not utilize the scientific authority of the skeptics is

not surprising, given the paucity of citations in most conservative think tank documents.

Besides contributing, either as authors or sources of expertise, to the body of written documents

debunking global warming, several skeptics also appeared at public events sponsored by

conservative think tanks in 1997. For example, Balling spoke at the June 13th press conference

for members of the House of Representatives sponsored by NCPA. ~Michaelsd irected a Cato Policy

Forum with William O'I

the July 15th CEI press conference at the National Press Club. Finally, Baliunas spoke at the

September 29th press conference sponsored by NCPA for members of the Senate. Thus, the conservative

think tanks relied not only upon the scientific opinion of these skeptics, as evidenced

in the citation patterns, but also sought the direct personal involvement of these scientists.

Groups involved in scientific controversies often employ sympathetic professional scientists

to give their positions the scientific legitimacy only credentialed experts can provide

(Mazur 1981). As Dorothy Nelkin (1984) argues, the end result is that expertise itself becomes

a mere resource to be exploited for political and economic gain. These conservative think

tanks gained apparent legitimacy by utilizing the services of sympathetic scientists in promoting

their "scientifically based" counter-claims on global warming. Indeed, we doubt whether

these conservative think tanks could have promoted counter-claims cloaked in scientific literacy

without enlisting the expertise of trained scientists. By publicly promoting the ideas of the

climate change skeptics outside of traditional scientific channels (e.g., peer-reviewed conference

papers and journal articles), conservative think tanks engaged in what Andrew Austin

(2002:83) describes as an "end-run around established scientific norms." In view of this, and given the sizable change in the political opportunity structure created by the 1994 Republican

takeover of Congress, it is important to examine whether the skeptics have experienced an

increase in visibility in recent years.

Impact of Change in Political Opportunity Structure

deniers

http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/skeptics.htm

Claude Allègre
Tim Ball
Robert Balling
Sallie Baliunas
Bob Carter
Ian Clark
Michael Crichton
William M. Gray
Craig D. Idso
Keith E. Idso
Zbigniew Jaworowski
David Legates
Richard Lindzen
Bjørn Lomborg
Steve McIntyre
Pat Michaels
Steven Milloy
Kary Mullis
Benny Peiser
Frederick Seitz
Fred Singer
Willie Soon
Edward J. Wegman

Case Study: Polar Bear Junk Science and Koch Industries

On this page

Page - March 29, 2010

In 2007, several prominent climate denial scientists published a non-peer reviewed article (Dyck, Soon et al, 2007 “Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the "ultimate" survival control factor?”), concluding that polar bears are not being threatened by anthropogenic global warming. One of the paper’s authors, Dr. Willie Soon, disclosed in the acknowledgments section that he had received direct corporate funding for the work, stating “W. Soon’s effort for the completion of this paper was partially supported by grants from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, American Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil Corporation.” (Exxon grants to Soon’s organization are detailed below. The exact amount received from the Koch foundation was not found on its 990 forms. The American Petroleum Institute does not disclose the multiple grants it has made to such climate denial organizations over the years.)

The paper, which did not include any new scientific research, but drew from other published work, appeared in the journal Ecological Complexity as a "Viewpoint" piece. This article declared Arctic sea ice decline was less severe than recent well-founded conclusions in peer-reviewed literature. The authors question the climate science of Arctic warming and the scientific modeling that indicates climate change as a threat to polar bear populations. Leading polar bear and Arctic ice scientists criticized the article for containing "no new research" and drawing erroneous conclusions from existing research.

Two polar bear experts, Dr. Ian Stirling and Dr. Andrew Derocher, published a response to the paper, stating that the 2007 article did not adequately support the claim that non-climate factors were causing the polar bear population decline. Stirling and Deroucher wrote, "[The article's authors] …suggest that factors other than climate warming are responsible for a decline in the polar bear population of Western Hudson Bay… In our examination of their alternative explanations, and the data available to evaluate each, we found little support for any."

Oil interests and their allies likely realize that polar bear protections might hinder oil exploration in the Arctic. In addition, because polar bear decline is an iconic symbol of the climate crisis, undermining the scientific proof of polar bears in peril would potentially delay overall climate policy measures that will reduce oil consumption.

The co-authors of the paper include long time climate deniers: Sallie Baliunas, David Legates and Tim Ball. Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas have a documented history of receiving money from oil interests. ExxonMobil Foundation tax records and company documents confirm a series of grants to the Center for Astrophysics, which employs both Soon and Baliunas. In 2008, ExxonMobil contributed $76,106 to Soon and Baliunas' institute, the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, with funding totaling over $340,000 in four grants since 2005.

Soon and Baliunas were the authors of another controversial climate "junk science" report in 2003, funded by the American Petroleum Institute. The paper, "Lessons & Limits of Climate History: Was the 20th Century Climate Unusual?", published by another industry-funded think tank, the George Marshall Institute, attacked the research of climate scientist Michael Mann, who has also been a prominent target in the "Climategate" controversy detailed above. Soon, Baliunas and Legates teamed up on a version of the same paper, published in a small journal Climate Research, which generated such an uproar that the Editor in Chief and several others resigned in protest. Both Soon and Baliunas have been associated as spokespeople, advisors and board members of multiple Koch-funded climate denial groups over the past decade.

The 2007 polar bear junk science paper prompted a letter to ExxonMobil from North Carolina Representative Brad Miller, Chair of the US House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, which raised a key question about Exxon's funding, which could well have been asked of Koch and API:

"To people outside the scientific community, one PhD may seem like another. Certainly Exxon knows better, however. Yet according to Dr Soon, an astrophysicist by profession, ExxonMobil funded the development of his "opinions" on global warming and its potential impact on polar bear populations…The Congress and the Public have a right to know why ExxonMobil is funding a scientist whose writing is outside his area of expertise to create the impression that expert scientists have conducted vigorous, peer reviewed work that says the problems with polar bears [and climate change] are unproven or unserious."

Exxon responded, denying responsibility for Soon's research and claiming that the paper had undergone a "lengthy peer review process."

The Koch-funded climate denial groups kicked into gear before the paper was published. Regardless of the non-peer reviewed status of the Ecological Complexity paper, it gave the appearance of a peer reviewed paper. Multiple Koch- and Exxon-funded groups rebroadcast the story through their websites and other media outlets, emphasizing the paper and its 'findings' that polar bears are not endangered by climate change. When the Bush Administration was forced to consider listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act (by a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace and other environmental groups), Sarah Palin and her officers in the Alaskan government referenced the 2007 Dyck, Soon et al. polar bear paper in its formal protest of government action to protect the polar bear, before the paper was even published.

Additional Koch-funded groups and industry groups threatened to sue the Federal government for listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and National Association of Manufacturers.

2007 morano minority report

Brief highlights of the report featuring over 400

international scientists:

Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical

Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peerreviewed

studies and won several awards. "First, temperature changes, as well as rates of

temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by

IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even

0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special

about the recent rise!"

Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the

Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a

2006 paper titled "The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on

Earth." "Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases' double man would not perceive

the temperature impact," Sorochtin wrote. (Note: Name also sometimes translated to spell

Sorokhtin)

Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the

Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made

climate fears in 2007. "There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate

change], but there's no need to be worried," Uriate wrote.

Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the

development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The

Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally

recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, "I find the Doomsday

picture Al Gore is painting - a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number -

entirely without merit," Tennekes wrote. "I protest vigorously the idea that the climate

reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial,

and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather

Center in Sao Leopoldo - Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. "The

media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and

many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the

climate system as the cause of the recent global warming," Hackbart wrote on May 30,

2007.

France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin

and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a

climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming - Myth or Reality? -

The Erring Ways of Climatology. "Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is

warming up' - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts' and ‘sea level rises,' the

Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the

average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance. ... Nonbelievers

in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the

existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!"

Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the

Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with

the UN IPCC: "It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2

lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible

amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction."

Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological

Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki,

criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. "The effect of

solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there

seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic

radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in

global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of

greenhouse gases," Winterhalter said.

Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in

Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. "I consider the part of the IPCC report, which

I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong," Mangini

noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: "The earth will not die."

Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a

scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years

experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published

nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and

Modeling: "To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for

major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft)

with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to

directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate

on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable

scientific review process."

Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist

with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed

climate skepticism in 2007. "The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done

by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop

worrying may mean to stop being paid," Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.

India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the

Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. "We appear to be

overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened

in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles."

USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association

of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to

review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: "Al Gore brought me back to

the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And

because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about

climate change I have decided that ‘real' climatologists should try to help the public

understand the nature of the problem."

Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World

Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University

of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: "Significant new

peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous humancaused

global warming."

New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray,

an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and

author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: "The

[IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers' might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the

report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide

environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon

dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so."

South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa's Atomic Energy

Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: "The globalwarming

mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With

religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming."

Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for

the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in

Warsaw: "We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made

global warming-with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for

politics and the global economy-is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of

the atmospheric CO2 levels."

Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and

Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work

emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation

between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation."

Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate

and atmospheric science consultant: "To date, no convincing evidence for AGW

(anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior

is not consistent with AGW model predictions."

China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively

Exaggerated' - Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan's and Sun Xian's 2007 study published in the

peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2

greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively

exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global

climate change."

Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish

National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the

Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member

of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peerreviewed

papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: "The sun is the source of the

energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate.

Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth's surface will therefore affect

climate."

Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of

Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the

Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. "Another of these hysterical

views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many

persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on

climate."

USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in

Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public

Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: "In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar

variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the

puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The

GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this." Wojick added: "The public is not well

served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by

advocates."

# #

Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary

climate hacks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

HACKS

Meet the scientists Trump could tap to undermine climate regulations

David Legates

Steve Kooni

Richard Lindzen

Ryan Maue

Judith Curry

John Christy

Will Happer

Background

Methods...

Education and Professional Experience

Publications

Affiliations

Discussion

Conclusion

Data Availability Statement

The skeptics who could snag science adviser slots

Pruitt's prospects

Critics want to boot EPA 'cronies'...

Invalidating the EPA’s Endangerment Finding

Climate Contrarians Overrepresented in Media Coverage, New Survey Finds

Scientific survey finds media may be skewing its coverage of climate science by

seeking out views of a small minority who questions man-made warming.

James Lawrence Powell

Science and Global Warming

List of 24 articles rejecting anthropogenic global warming, with links where available. See abstracts or excerpts from abstracts here.

Industry-friendly experts

From SourceWatch

Examples

Other SourceWatch Resources

References

Individual skeptics

Organizational skeptics

SourceWatch resources

Case Study: Polar Bear Junk Science and Koch Industries

# #