Democracy Has Prevailed.

February 16, 2010

Climate Science Circle Jerk at The Trib.

This time in a column by H. Sterling Burnett. He's the senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
The Climategate scandal is a textbook case of professional malfeasance that should give Congress reason to pause before agreeing to a binding international agreement that would hamstring the world economy in order to prevent the climate from changing.

Climategate was a series of leaked e-mails last year from the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, arguably the world's most prominent research center promoting the idea that humans are causing catastrophic global warming.
Already there's a problem. The e-mails were not "leaked" (which implies someone on the inside (a "whistleblower" of some sort) released them to the public. They were not. They were "hacked" (ie stolen) from the outside.

There's also another problem with Burnett's column. The e-mail scandal has already been debunked. The AP even says so.

And that's the entirety of Burnett's argument. Once that's gone, there's nothing left but the irony. Take a look:
Global warming alarmism has become a gravy train for scientists, bureaucrats and corporations that profit from the billions of taxpayer dollars spent researching and fighting climate change.

For instance, former Vice President Al Gore has become a millionaire serving as an adviser to and board member of corporations that profit from government subsidies for "climate friendly" energy and technologies.

In addition, the Climategate scientists have received tens of millions of dollars in research grants since global warming hit the big time. The research money over the last six years is more than all the climate research dollars their universities received the previous 20 years. If human-caused warming becomes a non-issue, all this money goes away.
Interesting device here: gravytrain. It implies that the scientists involved are shaping their arguments to please the people paying them.

NOW can we look at the National Center For Policy Analysis' funding? Specifically what's come from the foundations controlled by Tribune-Review owner Richard Mellon Scaife?

Yes, let's.
  • The NCPA received $62,500 in grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2008.
  • The NCPA received $125,000 in grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2007.
  • The NCPA received $125,000 in grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2006.
That's about $300,000 in just three years.

Mediamatters reports that foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife have given a total of $2.285 million to the National Center For Policy Analysis. Incidentally, that's more than 4 times what Exxon Mobil gave them.

For all that money Scaife sent their way, you'd think the NCPA would be able to produce a better product.

Needless to say, The Circle Jerk continues.

7 comments:

EdHeath said...

Or http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/16/hacked-climate-science-emails-climate-change

Apparently what is in question is one paper co-written by Phil Jones and at least one Chinese author twenty years ago. The Chinese author has since lost some of the data used in the paper (the Daily Mail claims Jones lost it, apparently not the case). One paper does not the whole of climate change science make, and we can hardly hold Jones responsible for the actions of someone on the other side of the world.

Oh yes, and one more time, the emails from the East Anglia CRU were not "leaked", they were stolen. Suppose someone had "leaked" the names of the attendees of the meetings on energy policy that Cheney had held early in the Bush administration, to say nothing of the content of the discussions. Republican/conservatives would be screaming treason. Because it is always ok when a Republican/conservative does it, never ok when a Democrat/liberal does it.

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

The e-mails were not "leaked" (which implies someone on the inside (a "whistleblower" of some sort) released them to the public. They were not. They were "hacked" (ie stolen) from the outside.

Remember when a hack democrat judge unsealed Jack Ryan's Divorce records?
They were later ordered sealed again.

Remember the Democrats refused to make a issue of them becuase it would be unethical?
No, That is because they didn't.

EdHeath said...

Well, HTTT, I don't live in Illinois, so I don't know who said what about what a judge did to Jack Ryan. From what I do know about that issue, making public what Ryan did was almost a public service, in terms of warning any women he might become involved with in the future of what sorts of interests he has. I don't think you want to hold Jack Ryan up as some sort of victim.

Anyway, are you seriously saying that because a Democrat hurt Jack Ryan, the whole world must suffer the effects of climate change, that billions of people should suffer for decades or perhaps even centuries, because one Republican was hurt?

Anyway, you never answered my question, why does the US and other countries' National Academy of Science's say man made global warming is real?

Dayvoe said...

Ed;

He's not going to answer you. He's going to change the subject. I suspect he'll be talking about how Barney Frank ran a house of prostitution or how Rosie O'Donnell thinks that 9/11 was caused by Dubya.

ANYTHING to avoid that question.

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

Anyway, you never answered my question, why does the US and other countries' National Academy of Science's say man made global warming is real?
How about a variant in the progressive "big oil" is funding the skeptics?
Grant money. No Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change No money for research.
Dayvoe how I change the subject with this lie from Biden.
I never once doubted that additional American
forces would, in fact, meet the military objective of settling things down.

There is video of Biden saying the surge would not work.
It is like Cheney saying I never said "they would welcome us with open arms".

Ol' Froth said...

Grant money? Are you serious? Climatologists who work for governments get paid regardless of their findings. Only scientests who work in academia are worried about grant money, and if they didn't get grants to study climate, they'd get grants to study something else. Hell, if they wanted on the grant money gravy train, the fossil fuels industry is ready and willing to throw millions of dollars at scientests who come up with results that disprove global warming and climate change. However, science doesn't start with a conclusion and then work backwards to find data that supports the conclusion. They start with data and then work towards an explanation for what the data is telling us.

EdHeath said...

See Dayvoe, HTTT actually did take a stab at answering my question. Although you were also right, he also threw in a comment that changed the subject.

HTTT, thank you for your answer on the NAS and other Academies of Science (by the way, I *am* going to ignore your Biden remark). On the surface, I do not think it is very compelling. If climate researchers (or most academic researchers in general) were most motivated by money, they would have gone into a different field, or found some corporation to work at.

Now, I confess I don't know what does motivate academic researchers, whether it is the chance to do work they will be remembered for or the chance to prove they are smarter than their colleagues, or whether they simply want to reveal the truth of the world to the rest of us. Probably some combination (in varying amounts) of these and other things I haven't thought of. Researchers do compete for grant money, so having a hot topic for research like global warming has got to help. But lets be clear, academic researchers do not get rich in their jobs (except maybe in the medical field, and then only if they are closely associated with a private funding source).

So I don't know why climate scientists feel they have to tell us that that people are causing global warming. I believe they would still have comfortable jobs if there was no furor over global warming. Some have probably brought themselves more pain in their jobs because of their research into global warming (see Phil Jones). I also doubt that climate scientists are particularly political in one direction or other (James Hansen would be an exception).

But I don’t think your money answer is correct. Have you read of a scientific reason why current climate change theory, either natural or caused by man, is false? Mind you, I am not talking about little bits, rather something big enough to cover all of climate change theory.