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Archibald, D

6/15

OMG this clone tipped AUS?!

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aus spector 17 September 2011  note --> cooling

He’s awakening the Right through a US-style grassroots rebellion

The New York Times dubbed it a ‘tempest with echoes of a tea party.’ Julia Gillard has called it the ‘Americanisation’ of Australian politics. Others say it’s just the latest iteration of the city-rural divide that saw the rise of One Nation in the 1990s, and the ‘Joh for Canberra’ revolt that thwarted John Howard’s ambitions in the 1980s.

For Tim Andrews, one of the masterminds behind the anti-carbon tax protests that have Labor’s hold on government on tenterhooks, it’s the start of something bigger: the rise of an activist centre-right with the potential to revolutionise Australian politics the same way the Tea Party has in the United States.

A former president of the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation and editor of the conservative opinion website Menzies House, Andrews, 28,is no stranger to media attention – or to attention-grabbing activism.

His personal blog Inside The Mind of Tim was plastered across Australia’s tabloid news sites when his satirical play on a PJ O’Rourke article was misread as a sincere attempt to recruit men to the Liberal Party through its ‘hot women’.Close friend and NSW Young Liberal President Scott Farlow credits him with spearheading the ‘grassroots rebellion’ that saw Malcolm Turnbull ousted from the Liberal leadership at the end of 2009. The ABC’s Hungry Beast featured him as one arm of a very corrupt and conspiratorial octopus, in a report on US billionaires David and Charles Koch earlier this year.

But Andrews’ latest project, Stop Gillard’s Carbon Tax, is his most successful yet. Part blog, part mailing list, part campaigning engine, the website is key cog in a network of conservative activist groups that have emerged in response to the government’s increasingly unpopular carbon tax.

Andrews’email listalone has almost 25,000 subscribers – small change compared to GetUp!’s 370,000, but they are ‘very, very active’ he says. Each time Andrews sends out an email, he receives at least 300 in return, to which he responds personally to as many as possible. Besides, he adds, the Left have had decades of practice building these kinds of campaigns – through the union movement, student activism and so on.

Which is part of what makes the anti-carbon tax rallies so remarkable, he says. ‘Suddenly people with no political background or experience wanted to do something [about the tax]. It shows how concerned people are about this issue.’ Some of the community Andrews caters to are concerned because they don’t believe the science is as settled as many on the Left claim. Others are worried about the economic impact, despite Gillard’s repeated assurances that most families will be compensated more than the tax will cost them.

For Andrews himself, it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. He doesn’t dismiss that the earth is warming, or even that humans have something to do with it. But he does question the speed at which climate change is happening – what he calls ‘the alarmist thesis’ – and the likely consequences if we don’t act immediately. Moreover, he questions the consequences if we do act:We’re not going to be living in some sort of dystopia [if Labor’s carbon tax is passed]. But there will be real economic impacts. And at what cost? Nobody seems to look at opportunity cost when it comes to the climate change debate.

Affable but fiercely ideological, with dark blond hair and the beginnings of a beard, Andrews’ carefully enunciated accent belies his private school education. But like many of the twenty-something Liberals who came of age under Howard he was not ‘born to rule’ in the mould of an Alexander Downer or Malcolm Turnbull, growing up in Sydney’s Strathfield with his mother and grandmother. The signed portrait of Margaret Thatcher that decorates his bookshelf makes more sense when you learn that his great-grandparents fled the Russian Revolution.

And for all the press his activities have attracted, he is uncomfortable when conversation turns to himself, resuming his trademark mile-a-minute enthusiasm only when we return to some policy or political issue. He is keen not to take too much credit for the climate protests, pointing to other activists such as the No Carbon Tax campaign and the group behind the Convoy of No Confidence.

A dual US and Australian citizen, Andrews relocated to Washington DC in 2008, with the explicit intention of learning from America’s well-developed network of conservative think tanks and lobby groups. Since moving, he has worked with Americans For Tax Reform and the Koch Foundation; as a student, he interned with the Washington-based libertarian Cato Institute.

That ‘Americanisation’ of Australian politics Gillard referred to in a public forum in Sydney’s inner west earlier this month? Andrews is one of the people responsible for it. But he believes it’s taking Australian politics forward, not backwards:

When people say we need a centre-right GetUp! in Australia, I tell them GetUp! is where politics in the US was in 2004. The problem with the GetUp! model is that it is very top down. And it doesn’t work. They don’t have what I think is necessary, which is a two-way communication where it’s your supporters who are driving the change and you’re providing the support for them to pursue their ideas rather than setting the agenda for them.

As for allegations that this apparently grassroots uprising has been bankrolled by big business with an interest in quashing action on climate change?

Tell me who these organisations are that are funding us? You saw this happening in the US as well. Initially when the Tea Party emerged, the Left just laughed at it. They said it was clearly astroturfed. Then it became, “They’re just extremist.” Every single step it has been discredit and mockery. Saying it is the “Convoy of No Consequence” when some people spent a week driving from Kalgoorlie to Canberra. This is going to come back to bite the Left. You can’t just dismiss and deny the debate that the debate exists.

For his fellow conservatives, Andrews is more optimistic – and he may be joining them again on their home turf soon: 

This is very, very new.*

Rachel Hills blogs at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman (rachelhills.tumblr.com)

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http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/14/meet-david-archibald-the-fringe-scientist-predi/198886

ox News promoted predictions of "an impending ice age" from David Archibald, anoil and mining CEOwho has said that he wants to be in DeSmogBlog's "Global Warming Disinformation Database." So far, Archibald has not won that dubious distinction -- but if he did, it would look something like this:

Credentials

Background

Archibald started working in coal and oil shale exploration in 1979, then went on to become a financial analyst and stockbroker before returning to oil companies in the 2000s. In 2003 he led an oil exploration company called Oilex, then joined a Canadian oil exploration company in 2006 at the same time he was CEO of mineral exploration company Westgold Resources. As of 2008, he was operating 8.6 million acres of oil exploration permits in Australia as of 2008. In a phone call with Media Matters, Archibald stated that he currently runs his own company in the oil industry.

When called out for having ties to the coal industry in 2008, Archibald responded that his most recent ties were actually to the oil industry:

You know you are being effective when people complain about you. The letter in the Sept. 8 issue of Oil & Gas Journal, though, followed an established formula, starting with an impugned association with the coal industry (OGJ, Sept. 8, 2008, p. 12).

A point by point refutation would be tedious, but I am compelled to say that neither I nor the Lavoisier Society has any association with or funding from the coal industry. I left the coal industry in 1980 to join the oil industry. Right now I am the very happy operator of oil exploration permits totaling 8.6 million acres of Palaeozoic intracratonic rift sediments in the Canning basin of northwestern Australia.

Stance on Climate Change

From an interview with regular Fox News guest Michelle Fields for the right-wing website PJ Media:

FIELDS: Is global warming a real thing?

ARCHIBALD: Not at all.

FIELDS: But global cooling is, then?

ARCHIBALD: Yes.

[...]

ARCHIBALD: There's nothing you can do and it's a natural solar cycle.

Key Quotes

Key Deeds

April 14, 2014

David Archibald was interviewed on Fox News' Fox & Friendsby Fox host Eric Bolling to promote his new book and advance his claim of "global cooling." Bolling omitted Archibald's ties to the fossil fuel industry, and introduced the segment by saying, "remember that harsh, cold winter? Well it could become the norm. Our next guest says the earth is heading into another ice age":

March 24, 2014

The conservative publishing company Regnery published Archibald's book titled "The Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short." In it, he warns of future food shortages and increasing oil prices due to a prolonged global cooling period. Archibald has written that "[t]he main purpose of this book is to prescribe the strategic energy plan that the United States should adopt," such as expanding nuclear energy, and transforming coal into liquid fuels.

January 29, 2012

Climate scientist Dana Nuccitelli of Skeptical Science criticized Archibald's publication in Energy & Environment, which he described as "the controversial journal which publishes 'skeptic' research which is too erroneous to meet the standards in standard peer-reviewed journals." Another blogger has questioned the integrity of a previous article from Archibald published in Energy & Environment, finding that Archibald wrote the same paragraph twice, along with many other scientific errors.

Nuccitelli noted that Archibald is a proponent of the myth that recent warming has been driven by the sun, when in fact solar activity has trended downward as temperatures have continued to rise.

2010

Archibald served as Anthony Watts' "constant companion" during a speaking tour in Australia, where Archibald presented his work on solar cooling at each stop. Watts, the driving force behind the manufactured "Climategate" controversy, currently runs the "skeptic" website WattsUpWithThat.com, where he frequently features misinformation from contrarians such as Fred Singer and Christopher Monckton. Watts posted a note of gratitute to Archibald after the tour.

October 4, 2007

University of Chicago ocean chemist David Archer criticized Archibald for using his web interface for "deception."

2006

Archibald stated that he began researching in climate science in 2006.

2005

Despite no background in medical science, Archibald invented a formula for prostate cancer pills along with two Purdue scientists, made from vegetables such as "broccoli and chilli [sic]," and started testingthem in clinical trials. According to his biography, "[t]his drug demonstrated efficacy during in vitro trials at Queensland University in 2009 and will be entering human trials in 2012."

Affiliations

Publications

==

“STOP ACADEMIC CENSORSHIP” screamed the full caps headline on the half-page advert in the Murdoch-owned The Australian newspaper earlier this week.

Referring to the Danish climate change contrarian and US think tank boss Bjorn Lomborg, the advert claimed: “We stand for academic freedom. We stand with Dr Lomborg.”

For those playing catch-up, a research centre based on the methods ofLomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center think tank was to be established at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

After it emerged the centre was being funded with $4million of taxpayer cash, academics and students at UWAprotested at Lomborg’s apparent lack of academic credentials and the questionable methodology of his centre, particularly when it came to how it dismissed the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

In a statement, the university’s Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson said Lomborg’s centre was in an “untenable” position and so he would be handing back the $4 million. Lomborg would no longer take an adjunct professor role at the university.

This, as I wrote on The Guardian, was the cue for Australia’s conservative commentariat to lose the plot. Now the Australian Government has pledged to find a new home for Lomborg.

Placing the advert was the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance – a private company run from a Sydney apartment unit by its “executive director” Tim Andrews.

The ATA had been fundraising for just over a week on the GoFundMe website with a $22,500 target before the advert was placed in The Australian. The campaign came with a fundraising video voiced by Melbourne-based Christopher Field, who also directed a video project based on work by climate science denialist Lord Christopher Monckton (thatproject included interviews with a who's who of climate science misinformers, included Marc Morano, Fred Singer, Donna Laframboise and blogger Anthony Watts).

According to one supporter of the ATA ad campaign, “these climate fascists need to confronted” while another reckoned “green religion bigots” had been exposed. Another suggested there should be more adverts “to challenge the climate hoax”.

Koch Ties Among Bjorn Lomborg's Fan Network

So what is the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance and who is Tim Andrews?

Andrews is a graduate of the Koch Associate Program in the US – an effort by the billionaire Republican activist Koch brothers to train activists to push their free market libertarian ideals.

The Koch’s and the foundations they control have pushed millions into organisation that push climate science denial and campaign to block laws cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Andrews also spent time as an intern at the Koch-linked Cato Institute. In a 2011 article in the right-wing The Spectator magazine, Andrews was described as one of the “masterminds” of Australia’s anti-carbon tax protests of that year.

When Andrews created the stopgillardscarbontax.com website to help drive the 2011 protests, he recruited Cato Institute climate science denialist Patrick Michaels as an advisor.

Michaels, who once admitted that about 40 per cent of the funding for his work came from the fossil fuel industry, is now a member of an academic advisory board at the ATA.

According to its website, the ATA is a “unique grassroots advocacy & activist organisation comprised of over 25,000 members dedicated to standing up for hardworking Australian taxpayers”. The site states:

We oppose the high taxes, wasteful spending, and crippling red tape that are hurting Aussie families and businesses, and provide a voice for everyone who opposes the big-government agenda.

The ATA is a private company registered to a unit address in Sydney. Records provided to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show two shareholders – Tim Andrews and his mother.

Free market activists

As the ATA was gathering support before its early 2012 launch, its business plan, written by Andrews, explained how the organisation was driven by a particular ideology, rather than what was necessarily good for “hardworking taxpayers”.

According to the business plan, ATA had a goal “to become Australia’s leading and most influential centre-right grassroots advocacy body in order to transform Australia to a new level of free market public policies by focusing on cutting tax, regulation and waste”.

For close watchers of the network of US think tanks backed by the Koch brothers, the language is glaringly familiar.

When the ATA launched its Perth chapter in November 2012, the special guests were climate science denialist bloggers JoNova and David Evans and fellow denier, David Archibald, who has a background in oil and mineral exploration.

The ATA is also listed as a sponsor of the Heartland Institute’s upcoming conference for climate science denialists to be held in Washington DC next month.

From the start, the ATA has engaged with climate science denialists while opposing any plans to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. It seems to me inconsistent that a group supposedly there to stand up for taxpayers is barracking in favour of a $4million taxpayer-funded grant handed out secretively and arbitrarily with no competitive process and no consultation whatsoever.

Rather than representing “hard working taxpayers” it appears the ATA is instead representing climate science denial and the interests of free market activist billionaires like the Koch brothers.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/05/28/climate-science-deniers-and-free-market-activists-backing-bjorn-lomborg

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Senior academics at an Australian university are asking their bosses to pull the plug on a $4 million taxpayer funded research centre fronted by climate science contrarian Bjorn Lomborg.

The University of Western Australia (UWA) was given $4 million to establish the Australia Consensus Centre — a new arm of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, the US-registered think tank headed by Lomborg.

The cash grant came after more than $400 million was slashed for sciencefunding in the government’s 2014 budget.

Bjorn Lomborg, a favourite among conservatives and climate science deniers for his contrarian views on climate change, has claimed that while global warming is a problem, it should be placed well down a list of global priorities for aid and development spending.

DeSmogBlog investigations have found that Lomborg’s US arm has received funding from foundations with links to the billionaire Koch brothers and to billionaire “vulture capitalist” and major Republican donor Paul Singer.

UWA announced on April 2 that Lomborg would be given an adjunct Professor role at the university, but did not disclose the $4 million of taxpayer funding.

While Lomborg told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he had worked with UWA to prepare a proposal for the government, it has been reported that the idea came from the office of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has said that “coal is good for humanity”.

UWA has also said it was approached by the government to house Lomborg’s centre, not the other way around.

Academics from UWA and elsewhere have expressed frustration that the $4 million was handed over without any apparent competitive process being carried out.

The university’s Student Guild launched a “Say NO to Bjørn Lomborg” campaign, saying the decision to offer the money toUWA was “politically motivated, and it is an insult to the staff and students” at the university.

The Copenhagen Consensus Center claims to do cost-benefit analysis of policies to tackle global problems and claims that targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions are too expensive and that climate change won’t begin to have negative impacts on the world’s economy until near the end of this century.

Dr Frank Jotzo, a leading climate economist at the Australian National University in Canberra, claimed in The Guardian that the Copenhagen Consensus Center methodology “has no academic credibility” and pointed to fundamental flaws in the way the CCC assessed the impacts of climate change.

On Friday, staff from across the University of Western Australia’s schools and departments packed out a lecture theatre for a special meeting in an attempt to get some answers from university administrators.

Professor Stuart Bunt, of the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, and vice president of the UWA Academic Staff Association, told DeSmogBlog:

Given the strength of feeling, many wanted to know if it was possible to cancel this. The question was rather ducked by the VC, Professor Paul Johnson. Our university prides itself on having high academic standards and selects staff very carefully. Some very young applicants, for example to our own school, have better publication records than Lomborg.

He said during the meeting, some were concerned how much academic freedom the Australia Consensus Centre might be able to have, given the reliance on government funding. “We were not reassured,” he said. “There’s a fear that people won’t be able to work without fear or favour.”

Bunt, who served 12 years on the university’s main decision-making Senate board, said academics were angry there had been a lack of consultation about the centre and Lomborg's appointment. He said it appeared the decision to appoint Lomborg and to establish the centre had been taken within a small group of university executives.

Bunt said he was also concerned that Lomborg’s work had been heavily criticised in the past. He said there appeared not to have been a risk analysis done on the impact that engaging with Lomborg might have on the university’s reputation.

Dr David Glance, the director of the Centre for Software Practice, told DeSmogBlog that some academics wanted to know if it was too late to cancel the centre entirely.

The main focus was staff wanting to know if there was an opportunity to reverse the decision. There was a lot of non-committal answers from Paul Johnson, the Vice Chancellor.

Glance said while the meeting started cordially, “it became less so towards the end” as frustrations began to rise. “People came out more depressed than when they went in,” he added.

DeSmogBlog was told by others in the meeting that academics expressed “shame and embarrassment” at the appointment of Lomborg and were “frustrated that they couldn’t get answers to their questions.”

In a highly critical letter released on the Conservation Bytes blog of Adelaide academic Corey Bradshaw, Professor Sarah Dunlop, Head of the School of Animal Biology at UWA, told university administrators that Lomborg’s academic record did not merit his appointment. The letter said:

Aside from the concerns expressed by others, the School is facing a difficult reputational challenge in terms of attracting high quality staff and students as well as establishing and maintaining national and international collaborations as a consequence of these events. As an example, an international Research Fellow has just informed us that, if Dr Lomborg’s adjunct appointment is confirmed, they will not bring their Fellowship to UWAbut, rather, transfer it to a more reputable University.

Additionally, existing PhD students in the School are concerned that this appointment will tarnish their accomplishments as graduates from this University. In addition, staff in the School have been inundated by correspondence from collaborators and stakeholders concerned about the University’s decision.

Professor Bunt said he was aware that other schools within UWA were considering drafting similar letters critical of the university’s decision.

UWA Adjunct Professor Paul Wills, of the School of Earth and Environment, told Fairfax media the appointment of Lomborg “tarnishes the reputation of the university.”

Dr Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at ANU, told The Guardian:

Within the research community, particularly within the economics community, the Bjorn Lomborg enterprise has no academic credibility. It is seen as an outreach activity that is driven by specific set of objectives in terms of bringing particular messages into the public debate and in some cases making relatively extreme positions seem more acceptable in the public debate.

Jotzo also said he believed the Copenhagen Consensus Centre was guilty of filtering out dissenting voices from its final recommendations.

The CCC has defended its methods, saying that Nobel Laureates and top economists have been engaged in the work.

UWA has said it will look to raise further funds for the Australia Consensus Centre. The CCC has said it would not accept cash from the fossil fuel industry.

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http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/02/09/exclusive-bjorn-lomborg-think-tank-funder-revealed-billionaire-republican-vulture-capitalist-paul-singer

billionaire “vulture capitalist” and major backer of the US Republican Party is a major funder of the think tank of Danish climate science contrarian and fossil fuels advocateBjørn Lomborg, DeSmogBlog has found.