The manmade global warming discussion is supposed to be about learning how our planet's climate system operates, yet rather than discussing the actual details of our planet's geophysical system, all they come up with is frothing at the mouth and that tribalism. Here's a sampling of comments I've received in the past few days. Which I follow with some observations of my own.
After that I share a trove of information about a favorite source of self-certain authority among the climate science denying crowd, the shady Idso family cottage industry "co2science-org" and "Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change."
I'm sharing my experience, hoping it may help others better understand and confront that Republican/libertarian hostility and revulsion at learning about our planet, it's biosphere and the climate system we depend on.
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Bull shit they will not debate as the skeptics have the data and the alarmists have nothing but GCMs.
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Because co2science-org is an organization of actual scientists that reference scientific literature.
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Maybe you should take your head out of the sand and acknowledge the fact that a lot of evidence supports skeptical arguments. But no, you'll just cherry-pick some false graph from some alarmist blog and act like you proved me wrong. Jeez, you people are worse than creationists...
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I object to the claim that humans have caused a majority of the observed warming since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
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wow massive bloviation, and critical commentary pretending you require evidence. OK here is a link with several hundred temperature reconstructions that show a MWP warm as or warmer than present. http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php I have challenged greentarded liars like yourself to disprove a single one of them, no takers. All you brought was shit talk and ignorance to a science and evidence based dialog,
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I see you are capable of expressing butt hurt, conjecture, and baseless hyperbole, but not capable of addressing the facts presented to you. That makes you a liar, thanks for confirming that condition, given your comment that I replied to employs insult to make your point, without evidence. You must have special training in being a colossal hypocrite. When you get some time off being a hypocrite and a liar, I would love to see your response to the evidence in the CO2 science MWP project.
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Hundreds of peer reviewed temperature reconstructions indicating the MWP was global, and warmer than present, you know, the evidence you missed the first time you asked for it. http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php ..... and the reason I am convinced you have special training as a lying sack of shit. (about my "training")
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At the end of the day these people seem incapable of explaining any of their "skeptical arguments." Nothing but labels, finger-pointing and condemnation - and their okay with that shallowness.
The MWP happened, that's all they want to know. Well, so what, it happened. Why not learn about the reasons for it, and what kind of warming it was? Instead they pretend climate scientists doesn't know about the MWP. It's ludicrous.
The point is the MWP wasn't anything like what is going on today. Yet, Idso and clan will go through amazing contortions of self-deception and lying about legitimate evidence in order to dance around the obvious.
Current warming is an altogether different creature, no getting around that reality! But they'll deny it to the grave, as though adding greenhouse gases at a rate of 3+ gigatons a month, after month, after month and just "poof" they disappear or something? We'll they don't and it does have a major impact!
They steadfastly refuse to learn about why that is so and what makes today so different. They don't want to think about any of that. They are too busy getting angry at everyone else and weaving preposterous conspiracy fantasies and they take themselves so damned seriously.
The real future-shock question for rational young people is how to negotiate this mass of hostile faith-based people. I mean the more obvious our weather predicament is becoming it seems the more confused and angry and entrenched they become. As though admitting they made a mistake is the worst thing imaginable.
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As for co2science-org and the Idso's lucrative cottage industry of intentional fraud, allow me to present the following array of reports and articles:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2827&from=rss_home#.VqUQiulyHwx
Human Activities Produce More Carbon Dioxide Emissions Than Do Volcanoes
Released: 6/14/2011
"VANCOUVER, Wash. — On average, human activities put out in just three to five days, the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide that volcanoes produce globally each year.introend This is one of the messages detailed in a new article "Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide" by Terrance Gerlach of the U.S. Geological Survey appearing in this week's issue of Eos, from the American Geophysical Union. ...
"Gerlach looked at five published studies of present-day global volcanic CO2 emissions that give a range of results from a minimum of about one tenth of a billion, to a maximum of about half a billion metric tons of CO2 per year. Gerlach used the figure of about one-quarter of a billion metric tons of volcanic CO2 per year to make his comparisons. The published projected anthropogenic CO2 emission rate for 2010 is about 35 billion metric tons per year.
Gerlach's calculations suggest present-day annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions may exceed the CO2 output of one or more supereruptions per year. Supereruptions are extremely rare with recurrence intervals of 100,000-200,000 years; none have occurred historically, the most recent examples being the Toba eruption 74,000 years ago in Indonesia and the Yellowstone caldera eruption in the United States 2 million years ago. ..."
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Overview of Greenhouse Gases
http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html
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Idso's Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_the_Study_of_Carbon_Dioxide_and_Global_Change
Remarkable recent increases
The Center's yearly grants and contributions have increased since 2005:[11]
2009: $1,548,145
2008: $1,065,971
2007: $ 674,725
2006: $ 300,554
2005: $ 25,563
2004: $ 30,422
2003: $ 25,449
Guidestar on CO2Science
2005-2009 numbers come from the Center's 2009 IRS Form 990, 2003-2004 from its 2007 990, on Guidestar.org
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From Heartland Institute itself.
https://www.heartland.org/craig-idso
Dr. Craig D. Idso is the coauthor, with Dr. Robert M. Carter and Dr. S. Fred Singer, of Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) (The Heartland Institute, 2011), and with Dr. Singer of a preceding volume titled Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) (The Heartland Institute, 2009). He is leading an international panel of scientists that is writing a comprehensive assessment of climate science to be published in 2013.
Dr. Idso is the founder, former president, and currently chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The Center was founded in 1998 as a non-profit public charity dedicated to discovering and disseminating scientific information pertaining to the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide enrichment on climate and the biosphere.
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Heartland Institute’s ridiculous new lie: “Climate change is good for you”
Guess which major news network bought it
LINDSAY ABRAMS | April 8, 2014
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/08/heartland_institutes_ridiculous_new_lie_climate_change_is_good_for_you/
Heartland Institute … in its NIPCC “Climate Change Reconsidered II: the Biological Impacts” document, will say that climate change is good for the world, will have a net benefit for both plants and human health. This is the latest line run by right wing think tanks like Heartland, the coal industry’s ACCCE coalition, Peabody Coal, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and echoed across the blogosphere by climate deniers.
This set of messaging and all ‘reports’ to back this line, all appear to be coming from one organization, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, and specifically from its chairman and former president, Craig Idso, one of the NIPCC’s lead authors, who has been arguing the same “C02 is beneficial” line for nearly 20 years, along with his father, Sherwood Idso. ...
In 2012, leaked documents from the Heartland Institute revealed that they were paying Craig Idso $11,600 a month for his NIPCC work. We do not know how much Idso has been paid since that time, or prior.
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Heartland Institute NIPCC Climate Denier Craig Idso: “Climate Change Is Good For You”
By Guest • Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Climate Investigations Center: Craig Idso and Heartland Institute Climate Change Denial "NIPCC" Report
Connor Gibson | 9 April 2014
http://polluterwatch.com/category/freetagging/craig-idso
[http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/04/08/heartland-institute-nipcc-craig-idso-climate-change-good-you]
Background
Craig Idso, his father Sherwood B. Idso, and brother Keith Idso, founded Arizona-based organization in 1998.
The Center's claimed mission is to “separate reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change.” Its main publication is CO2 Science, a weekly magazine that features articles questioning the science verifying man-made climate change and its impacts.
In 2012, leaked documents from the Heartland Institute revealed that they were paying Craig Idso $11,600 a month for his NIPCC work. We do not know how much Idso has been paid since that time, or prior.
The organization’s total funding peaked in 2009 at $1.5 million a year. Funders have included ExxonMobil (total, $100,000 since 1998), Donors Trust, Sarah Scaife Foundation and a number of other right wing funders. See Conservative Transparency for a recent (but not full) breakdown. The Center's IRS 990’s are here at Citizen Audit.
Publications produced by Craig Idso, with members of C02Science,org:
In 2011 he and Sherwood wrote a book entitled “The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment”.
Idso has produced a series of video documentaries espousing his theory of C02’s beneficial effect on plant life.
Keith and Sherwood Idso wrote a paper in 1992 about how C02 benefits plant life, referenced in the NIPCC’s Summary for Policymakers.
After founding the organisation, Idso got his PhD in geography at Arizona State University under the tutelage of one of the very early climate deniers employed by the fossil fuel industry, Robert C Balling Jr.
More resources at DeSmogBlog: Craig Idso; Sherwood Idso
Idso, the Greening Earth Society and the Western Fuels Association
Robert Balling, Idso's mentor, was one of the leading scientists paid by the Greening Earth Society, the climate science-denying front group created by the Western Fuels Association, one of the first and earliest coal industry groups funding the denial of climate change. But the coal industry's line was not 'climate denial' but 'climate change is good for you'. The Western Fuels Association is a cooperative of utilities and power companies supplying coal from the Powder River Basin in the western U.S.
Robert Balling was one of the seven scientists deployed by Western Fuels in the 1990s to challenge the prevailing consensus in climate science. Other names included some who are still on the core climate denial team today: Willie Soon and Patrick Michaels.
It was the Greening Earth Society for which Craig and Keith Idso penned a paper in 1995: “The Greening of the American West: The Atmosphere’s Rising CO2 Concentration Is Stimulating Woody Plant Growth in the U.S. Forests, Grasslands, and Deserts.”
Idso, Fred Palmer and Peabody Coal
From its inception, the Chair and CEO of the Western Fuels Association and the Greening Earth Society was Fred Palmer, who was also a registered lobbyist for the Western Fuels Association, a coalition of utility and coal companies.
Palmer is now the Senior Vice President of Government Relations at Peabody Energy (Peabody Coal). (Guardian backgrounder 2011), and was in the media in 2010 leading the charge for “green coal.” He chaired the World Coal Association from 2010 to 2012. Peabody is behind the recent climate denial hub "Advanced Energy for Life" campaign, working with Burson Marsteller as revealed by Climate Investigations Center.
From 2001-2002, Craig Idso served as Director of Environmental Science at Peabody Energy in St. Louis, MO. This was to set up the long relationship with the company that continues to this day. ... (and there's plenty more.)
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Heartland Institute's Smoke And Mirrors Attempt To Debunk Consensus Science
Shauna Theel | April 8, 2014
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/08/heartland-institutes-smoke-and-mirrors-attempt/198805
"The NIPCC has no standing whatsoever. It is not a reviewed document, it is not open for review at any point and it contains demonstrable garbage and falsehoods. In contrast the IPCC process is rigorous, open and there are 2 major reviews. This is irresponsible journalism."
Fox News is suggesting a report by the Heartland Institute "debunked" a top climate change report while obscuring the background of the organization, which previously denied the science demonstrating the dangers of tobacco and secondhand smoke. ...
But how much trust should you put in the Heartland Institute? In 1998, Bast was claiming that "smoking in moderation has few, if any, adverse health effects," citing a few "experts." (Simultaneously, he was touting to a tobacco industry funder that "Heartland does many things that benefit Philip Morris' bottom line.") This was left out of Fox News' report. Today, his organization is claiming in the NIPCC that "few (if any) [species] likely will be driven even close to extinction" from climate change and "no net harm" overall will result, citing a few "experts." (The organization's current funders are largely unknown, often funneled through the right-wing's "dark money ATM," but it has received funding from ExxonMobil and Koch-connected foundations in the last decade.)
While IPCC's dozens of authors are unpaid, at least three of the NIPCC's four lead authors are paid by the Heartland Institute. One of the authors, Craig Idso, used to work for the coal company Peabody Energy and wrote a contracted study for the industry group The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The IPCC reviews the current state of scientific knowledge, while the NIPCC's references in its Summary for Policymakers include publications that date back to 1904 and few references from this century other than non-peer-reviewed reports from itself and its authors. As climate scientist Donald Wuebbles noted at the end of the Fox News report, the NIPCC report is "full of misinformation" and "not peer-reviewed." ...
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Climate Denial Goes Vegas
The Heartland Institute hits the Strip with some much-needed comedic relief
Alexander Zaitchik | July 7, 2014
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/07/climate-denial-goes-vegas/199974
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Secret Heartland Institute memos map a climate-denial campaign
By Jess Zimmerman on 14 Feb 2012
http://grist.org/list/secret-heartland-institute-memos/
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Global Warming Deniers and Legitimate Skeptical Scientists
http://rationallythinkingoutloud.com/the-deniers-i-know-of/
jhayes@rationallythinkingoutloud.com
Keeping track of all the global warming deniers and legitimate skeptical scientists is tough so I’m working on building my own quick reference page here. As I read stories coming from that side of the debate (can you really even call it a legitimate debate anymore?) I add those folks to my list here..:
Craig D. Idso (a faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, AZU) publisher (chairman) of CO2Science.org website.
Craig D. Idso – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia — …Craig D. Idso advocates that atmospheric carbon dioxide is not related to air temperatures and that increasing atmosphere carbon dioxide concentrations will instead benefit plant growth.[2] With his name on 67 papers, Idso was the most represented author[3] in a list of 938 peer reviewed papers alleged to be skeptical of global warming.[4]
Craig Idso (Desmogblog.com profile)
ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Craig Idso
Craig Idso – SourceWatch
Reliable sources: Climate Realists, Craig Idso, ocean acidification edition | The Way Things Break
Chriss. W. Street —a denial propagandist with zip, nadda, no scientific credentials. A political writer most notably for Andrew Breitbart’s publications
Pure Fabrication, Lies and Global Warming Denial Propaganda from Non-other Than Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government | Rationally Thinking Out Loud
James Taylor — a professional denial propagandist. He not a climate scientist or even a scientist in any way. He’s a lawyer paid by the Heartland Institute to write climate change denial propaganda.
James Taylor (Desmogblog.com profile)
James M. Taylor – SourceWatch
Noel Sheppard — an extreme right wing partisan denier and the lack of brains behind Newsbusters.com.
Noel Sheppard – SourceWatch
Climate change ignorance caused by humans! « Greenfyre’s
Noel Sheppard’s Very Convenient Lie | ConWebWatch — The NewsBusters blogger has repeatedly asserted — without any real evidence — that Al Gore is only in global warming activism for the money. Will he put up or shut up?
Desmogblog.com articles tagged “noel sheppard“
Noel Sheppard is begging you not to take him seriously | Media Matters for America
Alan Caruba — a staunch conservative PR specialist and prolific anti-science global warming denier.
Alan Caruba – SourceWatch
Anxious Al Caruba | Center for Media and Democracy
Alan Caruba
Alan Caruba – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lorne Gunter a columnist for the right wing National Post with a real fact checking problem.
Fact checking, National Post style: Lorne Gunter on global cooling (part 1) | Deep Climate
Richard Littlemore | Lorne Gunter: Incompetent or Lying? Either Way, Worth Firing
Richard Littlemore | Fake Glacier Claim Rises Again
John Christy — a “skeptical” climate scientist
The Gospel According to John | Global Warming | DISCOVER Magazine
Should you believe anything John Christy and Roy Spencer say? | ThinkProgress
The New York Times > Science > Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
A piece of denial video produced by Answers In Genesis in which Dr. Christy appears: Global Warming – A Sceintivic and Biblical Expose of Climate Change – YouTube
Examining Dr. John Christy’s Global Warming Skepticism
Global warming skeptic: John Christy
George H. Taylor —Meteorologist
The Marshall Institute – George H. Taylor
ExxonSecrets Factsheet: George H. Taylor
William Happer — Professor of Physics, famous for the line given in his testimony before congress “I am not a climatologist, but …“
How Many Licks Does It Take to Get to the Center of the Climate Tootsie Roll Pop? « Global Warming: Man or Myth?
William Happer
Bill Chameides: Non-Climate Scientist ‘Climate Scientist’ Sets the Record Straight
Statement of William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, Princeton University, Before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair February 25, 2009
William Happer EPW Testimony – YouTube
Professor William Happer on climate alarmism | Australian Climate Madness (Denial Article)
The Truth About Greenhouse Gasses for The Global Warming Policy Foundation (Denial Article)
The Truth About Greenhouse Gases Article | First Things (Denial Article)
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CRAIG IDSO - NIPCC
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15
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SHERWOOD IDSO - President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=14
FACTSHEET: CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND GLOBAL CHANGE, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF CO2 AND CLIMATE CHANGE
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=24
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I'm tossing this in because it's such a classic example of how the Republican/libertarian PR machine builds their scientific consensus - and the garbage they satisfy themselves with.
Oregon Petition
http://debunking.pbworks.com/w/page/17102969/Oregon%20Petition
Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project
Posted on 11 March 2010 by angliss
http://www.skepticalscience.com/scrutinising-31000-scientists-in-the-OISM-Petition-Project.html
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Climate sceptics – who gets paid what?
Leaked documents show US thinktank the Heartland Institute has been making payments to experts and scientists to cast doubt on climate science. Here, we profile some of the figures
Leo Hickman
Wednesday 15 February 2012
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