Friday, November 18, 2011

The millions billions trillions of dollars that fund climate denialism alarmism

Global warming hysterics continually claim that the 'denialism industry' is a lavishly-funded arm of the petroleum industry and that climate scientists are objective seekers of scientific truth trying to warn the world of an impending apocalypse.

JoNova has a nice corrective to that lie:
For the first time, the numbers from government documents have been compiled in one place. It’s time to start talking of “Monopolistic Science”. It’s time to expose the lie that those who claim “to save the planet” are the underdogs. And it’s time to get serious about auditing science, especially when it comes to pronouncements that are used to justify giant government programs and massive movements of money. Who audits the IPCC?
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?
... 
By setting up trading networks, tax concessions, and international bureaucracies before the evidence was in, have we ensured that our understanding of the role of carbon in climate science would be sped up, but that our knowledge of every other aspect of climate science would be slowed down to an equal and opposite extent?
The truth will come out in the end, but how much damage will accrue while we wait for volunteers to audit the claims of the financially well-fed?Monopolistic funding creates a ratchet effect where even the most insignificant pro-AGW findings are reported, repeated, trumpeted and asserted, while any anti-AGW results lie unstudied, ignored and delayed. Auditing AGW research is so underfunded that for the most part it is left to unpaid bloggers who collect donations from concerned citizens online. These auditors, often retired scientists, are providing a valuable free service to society, and yet, in return they are attacked, abused, and insulted.
The stealthy mass entry of bankers and traders into the background of the scientific “debate” poses grave threats to the scientific process. The promise of “trillions of dollars” on commodity markets—with all of that potential money hinging on finding that human emissions of carbon dioxide have a significant role in the climate—surely acts like blanket of mud over open dispassionate analysis.
All of this means we must be extra diligent in only focusing on just the evidence, the science, the empirical data. Illogic and unreason cloud a debate already loaded with bias. When there are so many incentives encouraging unclarity and overcomplexity, the simple truths need help to rise to the top. But who funds the counter-PR campaign—now that even Exxon has been howled out of the theater of science. There is hardly any money promoting Natural Causes of Climate Change, while billions upon trillions promote Unnatural Forces.
In this scientific debate, one side is gagged while the other side has a government-funded media campaign.
The bottom line
Even if monopolistic funding has affected science, the total amount of money paid to each side won’t tell us whether The Planet’s climate is warming or whether that warming is due to carbon-dioxide. The point of this report is to show how the process of science can be distorted (like any human endeavor) by a massive one-sided input of money. What use would money be, if it didn’t have some impact?
The massive amounts of money involved only makes it more imperative that we look hard at the empirical evidence.

"[T]he empirical evidence...". Ya know, the stuff that you paid for that the climate scientists keep hiding, deleting, manipulating. If you ask for the data (your data), they fight you for years, and email their buddies telling them to delete it rather than give to you. If you ask for their email communications, they take you to court to hide their conversations.

Global warming 'science' has all of the integrity and objectivity that you'd expect from an un-audited multi- million billion trillion dollar monopoly.

It's time to get serious about auditing science. Just like we audit the financial industry. Because science is a financial industry.

25 comments:

  1. "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."

    That's about $4 billion per year. Less than the yearly "compensation" upper management of Goldman Sachs takes home for wrecking the economy.

    "Despite the billions: “audits” of the science are left to unpaid volunteers."

    Just like in the rest of science. I wouldn't mind getting paid for "auditing" (peer-review), but for the most part we're just a bunch of liberal do-gooders who aren't in it for personal enrichment.

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  2. Michael,

    $79 billion isn't trillions. You're out by a factor of at least 20. As Troy notes, it's only 4 billion dollars per year. The annual subsidy for fossil fuels is around 450 billion dollars.

    I keep on challenging you to disprove AGW. Greenhouse gases work by retaining heat in the atmosphere and causing warming. Increasing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cause increased retention of heat in the atmosphere and cause increased warming. CO2 is a greenhouse gas which humans have caused to increase from 270 to 390 ppmv. Therefore humans are causing increased global warming.

    All you have to do is disprove one of these propositions.

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  3. @bachfiend
    CO2 is a greenhouse gas which humans have caused to increase from 270 to 390 ppmv. Therefore humans are causing increased global warming.

    CO2 counts for 3.62% of the greenhouse effect. Of that 3.50% is natural and 0.12% is caused by humans.

    Therefore out of the increase of CO2 from 270 to 390 ppmv the human contribution is 4.1 ppmv.

    So yes, we do contribute to GW but I won't lose sleep over that!

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  4. hurrr durrr, i dont want to beleive in it so it is an evil conspiracy by ahtiests and libruls

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  5. Coincidentally enough, I would going through a collection of old 'In Search of...' videos and found a fascinating 1970's take on global climate shift. Not exactly cohesive with the current fashions in science.
    Someone has posted the entire episode on youtube.
    Check it out!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ndHwW8psR8

    ReplyDelete
  6. Troy puffed:
    "Just like in the rest of science. I wouldn't mind getting paid for "auditing" (peer-review), but for the most part we're just a bunch of liberal do-gooders who aren't in it for personal enrichment."
    Funny assertion, Troy. We're? Who is we're? Scientists?
    Most of the 'scientists' I have known and do know are volvo driving corporate lackeys doing specific (ie compartmental)research for parties unknown. The interesting ones work OPENLY for the weapons and defence industry. Nor would I say they were any more liberal than the norm, and certainly NOT 'do gooders'. Nor would I say most of them are pro AGW. Many are politically naive, a couple are quite arrogant about their field and it's application to EVERYTHING... but they are old pals, and so tolerated.
    Not what I would call liberals. More like workers unions without the beer halls.

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  7. Crusador,

    Please check out this Pew survey.

    On page 33, you'll find that 20% of the general public identify as liberal, compared to a whopping 52% of scientists. Party affiliation: public 23:35:34:4 (repub:dem:indep:dunno) vs. scientists 6:55:32:4.

    Views on climate change on page 39. Warming is due to human activity? Public 49, scientists 84.

    You shouldn't rely too much on anecdotal and/or cherry-picked evidence if you want to have an informed opinion.

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  8. Pepe,

    You are an idiot. At least you're not linking to your favorite site, 'Plant Fossils of West Virginia', compiled by a coal mining engineer, but you're still using the same figures.

    It is idiotic to be just considering the processes that put CO2 into the atmosphere; burning fossil fuels, animal respiration, bush fires, volcanic activity, out gassing from the oceans, melting of permafrost, etc, and calculating that humans are 'responsible' for a very low percentage, without considering the processes taking CO2 out of the atmosphere; plant photosynthesis, regrowth of burnt forests, subduction of sedimentary carbonate rocks, solution of CO2 in the oceans.

    Humans are burning fossil fuels, containing carbon which hasn't seen the light of day for at least 100 million years, and which took tens of millions of years to form. Where are new fossil fuels being formed at the same rate we're burning it?

    You're a moron.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @bachfiend
    ...repeating ad nauseum the same rubbish doesn't make it true. It was rubbish when you first stated it and it's still rubbish now despite your being corrected several times.

    I rest my case!

    Many thanks for your contribution...

    ReplyDelete
  10. @bach...
    Give me your address! I will send you a keyboard with accents FREE OF CHARGE, so you can connect with the world!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Pepe,

    If I use my laptop, I could put accents into your name, but you're not worth the trouble. Even a creationist uses a cycle of at least 6 arguments before returning to the first, but you have only one which you repeat ad nauseum.

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  12. @bach...
    ...uses a cycle of at least 6 arguments before returning to the first...

    ...CO2 is a greenhouse gas which humans have caused to increase from 270 to 390 ppmv...


    Introspection or navel gazing?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Pepe,

    No introspection. I keep pointing out the facts and you continue to refuse to refute them.

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  14. Pepe,

    This is America. So SPEAK AMERICAN! We don't need no stinkin' accents.

    ReplyDelete
  15. @oleg
    This is America ...We don't need no stinkin' accents.

    No accents and no metric system?

    Si señor!

    ReplyDelete
  16. @bachfiend
    I keep pointing out the facts and you continue to refuse to refute them.

    Supposed ill effects of more CO2 are from flawed computer models.

    (William Happer is professor of physics at Princeton University, in the US, and the author of The Truth About Greenhouse Gases – published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.)

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  17. Pepe,

    Perhaps Harper is right, but his opinion is a small minority opinion among scientists who have the expertise to judge the quality of the models and data analysis. Since you are not qualified by a hugely long shot (I suspect my cat is more qualified), you have no rational reason to prefer Harper's opinion. Instead, you simply believe what you want to believe.

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  18. Pepe,

    William Harper isn't denying that AGW isn't true (although he does trot out some of the AGW denialist claims, such as in the past with the Milankovich cycles and warming due to slight variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt, rises in CO2 levels follow warming; which we know about anyway), he just thinks that it will be benign or beneficial.

    He doesn't disagree with the argument I've summarized, and the conclusion I've stated; humans have caused increased global warming. I said nothing about the expect amount of warming to be expected from future increases in CO2.

    However, Harper does make errors in fact. He claims that 50 MYA ago, CO2 levels were 2,000 ppmv and life was flourishing. I think he means the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum 55 MYA, which was a mass extinction event, due to a rapid out-gassing of methane from deep ocean deposits leading to increase CO2 levels of similar amount to be expected if we burn all our fossil fuels, but over a period of 25,000 years, not the centuries we are doing it. And it was associated with a temperature increase of 7C.

    You don't want to live through mass extinction events. Your species might survive, but you might have an absolutely miserable time of it and not survive.

    He also brings up the irrelevant fact that humans can survive in submarines with a CO2 level in the thousands ppmv, which has absolutely nothing to do with its greenhouse effect.

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  19. @bachfiend

    In any event, I won't be able to change your mind and you won't be able to change mine.

    As far as I am concerned, AGW and CO2 levels are being blown way out of proportion. What is worse is the now de facto attitude of official science that does not suffer any criticism or dissidents, having forgotten, it seems to me, that critical thinking is what makes science progress.

    You may go ahead and continue saying that I am an idiot and a moron as per this new scientific paradigm counter argumentation strategy. That won’t stop me, and all others like me, to see straight through the smoke screens put up by your official science.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Pepe,

    I'm always open to convincing. 'Plant Fossils of West Virginia' and William Harper's paper aren't convincing. I still think AGW is true for the reasons I've given. I also think that it's much more likely that the effects on the whole will be bad rather than good, overwhelmingly so. Growing crops in Northern Canada and Siberia is unlikely to outweigh the loss of crop land in more temperate lands.

    We are barely feeding 7 billion humans now.. Could AGW result in us being able to feed 9 billion? Well, yes it's possible. Could AGW also result in us not being able to feed 5 billion. Also possible. It all depends on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist.

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  21. It all depends on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist.

    Don't worry, God will take care of us.

    ReplyDelete
  22. true cristian (sic),

    I'm not certain whether your comment is a Poe, so I'll treat it as if it's serious.

    What if you are wrong?

    I should also note I got William Happer's name wrong.

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  23. @bachfiend
    I'm always open to convincing...

    If a theory fails its predictions it should be revised if not abandoned, don't you think? You can get a taste of AGW failed predictions here.

    It all depends on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist.

    I am a realist and make decisions solely on hard data. To me, yes there is some GW, mainly form natural causes.

    As for feeding the planet, if wealth was more evenly distributed and man not so selfish, the planet could easily feed 50 billions.

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  24. I am a realist and make decisions solely on hard data.

    And yet you believe in invisible beings.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Pepe,

    Climate is complex. Making predictions when there are many factors working in opposing directions is difficult. Your list of 'failed predictions' include ones where a future prediction is REPLACED by another future prediction over a different time frame. The snows of Kilamanjaro disappearing in 50 years instead of 20 for example. So it's impossible to state that they are failed predictions.

    How do you think that we could feed 50 billion? Let's see. Humans would have to become mainly vegetarian, using farm land mainly for crops intended for human consumption. There'd be some meat production still, because large areas of Australia for example aren't suited for crops, and are capable of running very few cattle anyway. Oceanic fisheries could also provide some protein but are already being overfished. The one largely untapped source of protein is insects. We eat shrimps, prawns and crabs, so it shouldn't be a problem eating locusts and grasshoppers, which are more efficient than livestock in turning plant matter into protein. I can imagine that we could feed perhaps 14 billion.

    ReplyDelete