Category: Environment

This week’s release of a report by the extremist environmental group Greenpeace on Wichita-based Koch Industries contains claims that exaggerate the nature of the information contained in the report. These over-hyped “findings” are used to advance Greenpeace’s global warming alarmist agenda, but should give us cause to examine Greenpeace and its agenda.

The title of the report — “Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine” is the first exhibit. The peculiar use of the term “climate denial” — used in the report’s title and repeated many times in the report — makes it look as though the organizations named in the report deny the existence of climate itself, which is, of course, nonsense. Even the term “climate science denial,” which is also used, is misleading. We’ve seen in recent years the shaky foundation on which modern climate science rests — at least the science cited by environmental extremists and global warming alarmists like Greenpeace.

The accusatory language used in the report and its accompanying promotional materials — “secretly funding,” “quietly funneled,” “expose the connections,” — is misleading in two ways. First, it accuses Koch Industries and Koch Family Foundations of attempting to hide connections to the organizations named in the report. But these connections are not hidden. Instead, they are widely known.

For example, David Koch’s biography on the Koch Industries website notes that he serves on the board of directors of the Cato Institute, and that he is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The role of Charles Koch in the founding of the Cato Institute is widely known as a matter of history and is mentioned in documents on Cato’s website.

Second — and here’s where Greenpeace really exaggerates — the information the Greenpeace report characterizes as “uncovered” can be found by reading IRS form 990 documents. These are freely available at several locations such as Guidestar. They show how charitable foundations spend money, including contributions made to the organizations named in the Greenpeace report.

It’s not just the Greenpeace report itself that is way over-the-top in its sensationalism. Personal attacks are used too, as when a Greenpeace blog writes about the Kochs: “They are the dons of a massive climate crime family.” This type of demonization doesn’t help advance debate.

Then there’s the report’s accusation that a conservative “echo chamber” exists to spread misinformation about climate change — as though such things don’t exist among left-wing organizations like Greenpeace itself.

We must first recognize that the claims made in the Greenpeace report about climate science are far from settled, and that many scientists disagree with Greenpeace’s views. Many would say the report itself is full of misinformation about the state of climate science. For example, Greenpeace claims that the “ClimateGate” emails from last November casts no doubt on the scientific consensus regarding climate change.

As to charges of an echo chamber, the accompanying material to the report encourages the very type of “echoing” that the report denounces. It suggests a hashtag (a method of categorizing or tagging communications) to use on Twitter, for example. And it encourages linking the word “Koch” to the report: “Put up as many links as you can, everywhere and anywhere you can put up links. Help us make sure that when someone Googles ‘Koch,’ the top search result will be our report.”

This blatant push by Greenpeace to create the appearance of interest in the report is ironic when we realize the report accuses groups like Americans for Prosperity of “Astroturfing” — the alleged effort to create a false impression of grass roots interest in an issue or cause.

We have to wonder what Greenpeace is trying to accomplish with this report. The exaggerated claims of uncovering previously “hidden” information, the insistence that only Greenpeace’s radical global warming agenda is correct and everyone else is wrong, the character assassination of Charles and David Koch — all this should lead us to seriously question the credibility of Greenpeace.

Update: Greenpeace report on Koch Industries criticized.

Wichita’s Koch Industries has come under attack from an environmental extremist organization for its support of open debate and dialog about the science of climate change.

A report issued by Greenpeace uses inflammatory language and a one-sided view of the facts surrounding climate change in order to attack those it disagrees with. This comes at a time when scientists and the public are becoming increasingly skeptical of the claims of extremist organizations like Greenpeace — and with good reason, too.

Revelations such as the emails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, for example, have peeled back the veneer and revealed extremists who have more than the pure pursuit of science as their agenda. This Greenpeace report is another example.

As an example of the way the report presents facts in an attempt to make its case, here is the report’s criticism of one public policy foundation that received Koch funding: “… [it] has hosted Bjorn Lomborg twice in the last two years. Lomborg is a prominent media spokesperson who challenges and attacks policy measures to address climate change.”

To thinking people who value open discussion of issues — rather than wholesale and uncritical acceptance of environmental extremism — providing a forum for Lomborg (author of The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World and Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming) is a good thing to have done. We need institutions such as Americans for Prosperity, The Cato Institute, and The Heritage Foundation to provide balance to mainstream media that has bought in — emphatically and largely uncritically — to global warming alarmism.

There are those who have broken free from groups like Greenpeace, and the remarks of one give us insight into the true nature of these groups. Patrick Moore, who at one time was President of Greenpeace Foundation in Canada, has said this on the environmental extremists’ need to continually invent disasters: “At the beginning, the environmental movement had reason to say that the end of the world is nigh, but most of the really serious problems have been dealt with. Now it’s almost as though the environmental movement has to invent doom and gloom scenarios.”

Moore shows that he totally understands the harm of radical environmental groups like Greenpeace: “The environmental movement has evolved into the strongest force there is for preventing development in the developing countries. I think it’s legitimate for me to call them anti-human.”

This reveals the true anti-human, anti-progress agenda of environmental extremist groups like Greenpeace. They deny the tremendous progress and benefit to humans that industrialization — propelled by capitalism wherever it is allowed to thrive — has produced. They don’t want to let the debate and discussion proceed.

Koch Industries has provided this response to the Greenpeace report:

In a consistent, principled effort for more than 50 years — long before climate change was a key policy issue — Koch companies and Koch foundations have worked to advance economic freedom and market-based policy solutions to challenges faced by society. These efforts are about creating more opportunity and prosperity for all, as it’s a historical fact that economic freedom best fosters innovation, environmental protection and improved quality of life in a society.

The Greenpeace report mischaracterizes these efforts and distorts the environmental record of our companies. Koch companies have long supported science-based inquiry and dialogue about climate change and proposed responses to it. Koch companies have put tremendous effort into discovering and adopting innovative practices that reduce energy use and emissions in the manufacture and distribution of our products.

We believe the political response to climate issues should be based on sound science. Both a free society and the scientific method require an open and honest airing of all sides, not demonizing and silencing those with whom you disagree. We’ve strived to encourage an intellectually honest debate on the scientific basis for claims of harm from greenhouse gases. We have tried to help bring out the facts of the potential effectiveness and costs of policies proposed to deal with climate, as it’s crucial to understand whether proposed initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases will achieve desired environmental goals and what effects they would likely have on the global economy.

Wichita geophysicist Dennis Hedke will appear at two forums at Johnson County Community College on February 3 that will explore the topic of climate change. The documentary film Not Evil Just Wrong — the antidote to Al Gore and global warming extremism — will be shown, too. My review of this film is at ‘Not Evil Just Wrong’ a powerful refutation of Al Gore, environmental extremism. Following is a press release announcing the event.

From 12 noon to 2:30 pm on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 , a forum will be conducted in the Craig Community Auditorium (GEB 233) regarding the controversial issue of Global Warming/Climate Change and the impact the outcome of this debate could have on future energy policy, legislation and costs. The same forum will be repeated again from 6:30 to 9:00 pm in GEB 233. The featured speaker will be Dennis Hedke who is a Partner in the firm Hedke-Saenger Geoscience, Ltd., based in Wichita, KS. He is engaged in consulting assignments both nationally and internationally. He has long been involved in research related to the earth’s climate, and the efficient delivery of energy. His research encompasses a broad range of issues across the geopolitical spectrum. Following his introductory comments, there will be a viewing of the documentary “Not Evil, Just Wrong” which addresses the numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations contained in Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”. One of the Producers of the documentary, Ann McElhinney, will be available as part of a panel to take questions after the viewing. Mr. Hedke, radio talk show host Chris Stigall and members of an environmental group with an opposing point of view will also be on the panel.   For questions, contact Jerry Magliano at 913-530-1761.

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is one of the most valuable resources for information on economics and politics. A while back the Journal launched The WSJ Guide to ObamaCare. Now there’s a guide to Journal editorials and op-eds on climate change available at The Wall Street Journal Guide to Climate Change.

Here are a few samples:

Writing about the hacked emails, Rigging a Climate ‘Consensus’ states: “The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at, and how a single view of warming and its causes is being enforced. The impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.”

In The Climate Change Climate Change: “Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation. If you haven’t heard of this politician, it’s because he’s a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming”

In Don’t Count on ‘Countless’ Green Jobs: “If the green-jobs claim sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. There’s an unavoidable problem with renewable-energy technologies: From an economic standpoint, they’re big losers. Renewables simply cannot produce the large volumes of useful, reliable energy that our economy needs at attractive prices, which is exactly why government subsidizes them.”

In An Inconvenient Democracy: “With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate, the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon. With this doomsday machine activated, Mr. Obama hopes to accomplish what persuasion and debate among his own party manifestly cannot. This reckless ‘endangerment finding’ is a political ultimatum: The many Democrats wary of levelling huge new costs on their constituents must surrender, or else the EPA’s carbon police will inflict even worse consequences.”

Wichita Geophysicist Dennis Hedke has compiled a great deal of useful information that he uses in making presentations on the science, economics, and politics of climate change and global warming alarmism.

Now he’s compiled his material and made it available on his new website HeadOnIssues.org.

Hedke says in the site’s introductory message to readers: “Most, if not virtually all of the data presented comes from very high quality outside sources. I have simply accessed it and in some cases ‘interpreted’ it, though much of it is self-explanatory. … And, yes this is a ‘poltical’ website. There has never been a time like the present to be involved in the political process, and I hope you will take the time and effort to become engaged, avoiding apathy.”