Tag: Climate change

Last year’s disclosure of email correspondence between climate scientists was a wake-up call to the world. The emails showed leading climate scientists exhibiting “professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data.”

Since then, there have been several reviews of this episode, each finding there was no untoward behavior by the scientists. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Patrick J. Michaels takes a look at these reviews and finds that their purported independence is not as advertised.

The Climategate Whitewash Continues

Global warming alarmists claim vindication after last year’s data manipulation scandal. Don’t believe the ‘independent’ reviews.

Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.

Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, “nothing to see here.” Last week “The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review,” commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia. The review committee was chaired by Sir Muir Russell, former vice chancellor at the University of Glasgow.

Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal

Last week’s report on Koch Industries by Greenpeace has sparked a bit of critical discussion beyond the usual news coverage.

At Reason.com, the underwhelming nature of the report’s revelations is noted: “The Greenpeace noise machine managed to persuade the Guardian to publish a ‘shocking’ article detailing the amazing fact that donors tend to support groups that advocate points of view with which they generally agree.”

The article also notes the tremendous amount of money given to causes purported to support environmental issues: “In 1999, individuals, companies and foundations gave an average of $9.6 million a day to environmental groups.”

To place that number in context, Greenpeace is creating an issue over Koch donations of $25 million given over three years.

A Scientific American article contains a statement from Cato Institute (an organization that receives Koch funding) founder and President Edward Crane that shows how Greenpeace is deflecting attention from the real issue:

“I’m concerned that Greenpeace appears to be more interested in our funding sources than in the accuracy of the research that is being funded,” he added. “Climategate (not to mention peer-reviewed publications) would vindicate that accuracy.”

Curiously, that article finds it necessary to use apologetic quotation marks when mentioning the term “free market,” as though this concept is something readers of that publication may not have been exposed to, or may not believe exists.

In the article Greenpeace Report : Koch brothers and Exxon deserve medals at Mens News Daily, we see that we ought to be offering thanks: “If Charles and David Koch and ExxonMobil are playing even a fraction of the part in public education as Greenpeace claims, then we owe them our thanks.”

In Global Warming: Who’s funding the fight?, Environmental Policy Examiner notes the Koch’s long-time support for free markets and institutions that support economic freedom: “The Greenpeace story doesn’t mention how long Koch (and Exxon, for that matter) have been funding organizations like this. That’s because their funding predates any controversy about global warming.”

In a later article on the same site, author Thomas Fuller looks at an example of the exaggerated claims made in the Greenpeace report:

Greenpeace calls the Manhattan Institute a “climate denialist” organization because they hosted Bjorn Lomborg twice in the last two years. So they are sliming Koch Industries for providing some funding to the Manhattan Institute, whose “climate crime” is hosting Bjorn Lomborg. They say Lomborg “challenges and attacks policy measures to address climate change.” …

Greenpeace appears to have lost its collective mind. Lomborg is not a denialist. He understands climate change and anthropogenic contributions to it. He supports actions to alleviate it. He just doesn’t agree with Greenpeace on specific policies. His real sin, in the eyes of Greenpeace, is that he wants us to remember the other problems facing this planet, such as poverty and disease. But it is absolutely straight jacket insane to call him a “denialist.”

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.