Monthly Archives: August 2009

The question is,  are Potential Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) or Anthropgenic Global Warming (AGW) the greater threat?   Perhaps as one wag said,  neither,   Congress and Obama are the greatest threats to mankind.   Well anyway,   on July 23, another asteroid hit Jupiter.  And unlike the one several years ago which was photographed extensively,  no one saw this one coming.  All they saw was the impact. Wattsupwiththat blog has a guest commenting on PHAs and AGW.   It is interesting.    Read it here

In case you missed this story,  the editor of the American Chemical Society’s publication the C&E News, is under attack.

The June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor in chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society member scientists. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that “deniers” are attempting to “derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change.”   The blog, Climate Depot has been all over this story and it may be of interest to you.      Read it here

Everytime a paper is written that refutes some part of the “the Science is Settled  AGW” theory,  we hear charges that the author is funded by Exxon-Mobil. The JoNova blog has made two insightful entries that examine the funding for Skeptics and the funding for the AGWs.   The first entry sums up the funding issue this way:

The Summary

The US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.

Despite the billions: “audits” of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.

Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon-trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 – $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.

Meanwhile in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying a grand total of $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government has put in, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in just the single year of 2008.

The large expenditure in search of a connection between carbon and climate creates enormous momentum and a powerful set of vested interests. By pouring so much money into one theory, have we inadvertently created a self-fulfilling prophesy instead of an unbiased investigation?

Hardly a fair contest,  $79 billion versus $23 million.   But to get more insight on the way this affects the perception of what theory or theories are correct. Read more here

The second entry shows how the AGW machine attacks scientist that do not share their views.

Thousands of scientists have been funded to find a connection between human carbon emissions and the climate. Hardly any have been funded to find the opposite. Throw 30 billion dollars at one question and how could bright, dedicated people not find 800 pages worth of connections, links, predictions, projections and scenarios? (What’s amazing is what they haven’t found: empirical evidence.)

Normally this might not be such a problem, because the lure of fame and fortune by categorically “busting” a well-accepted idea would attract some people. In most scientific fields, if someone debunks a big Nature or Science paper, they are suddenly cited more often; are the next in line for a promotion and find it easier to get grants. They attract better PhD students to help, are invited to speak at more conferences, and placed higher in the program. Instead in climate science, the reward is the notoriety of a personal attack page on Desmog¹, ExxonSecrets² or Sourcewatch³, dedicated to listing every mistake on any topic you may have made, any connection you may have had with the fossil fuel industry, no matter how long ago or how tenuous. The attack-dog sites will also attack your religious beliefs if you have any. Roy Spencer, for example, has been repeatedly attacked for being Christian (though no one has yet come up with any reason why that could affect his satellite data).

Ironically, the “activist” websites use paid bloggers. DeSmog is a funded wing of a professional PR group Hoggan⁴ and Associates (who are paid to promote clients⁵ like David Suzuki Foundation, ethical funds, and companies that sell alternative energy sources like hydro power, hydrogen and fuel cells.) ExxonSecrets is funded by Greenpeace⁶ (who live off donations to “save” the planet, and presumably do better when the planet appears to need saving).

Read more here