Out of 13,950 only 23 article peer reviewed articles dispute Man Made Climate Change

There is no science in their adjustment of the data

 

Are you familar with the principle of tempo and mode?

 

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th February 2013.

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/02/18/secrets-of-the-rich/

Conspiracies against the public don’t get much uglier than this. As the Guardian revealed last week, two secretive organisations working for US billionaires have spent $118m to ensure that no action is taken to prevent manmade climate change(1). While inflicting untold suffering on the world’s people, their funders have used these opaque structures to ensure that their identities are never exposed.

The two organisations – the Donors’ Trust and the Donors’ Capital Fund – were set up as political funding channels for people handing over $1m or more. They have financed 102 organisations which either dismiss climate science or downplay the need to take action. The large number of recipients creates the impression that there are many independent voices challenging climate science. These groups, working through the media, mobilising gullible voters and lobbying politicians, helped to derail Obama’s cap and trade bill and the climate talks at Copenhagen. Now they’re seeking to prevent the US president from trying again(2).

This covers only part of the funding. In total, between 2002 and 2010 the two identity-laundering groups paid $311m to 480 organisations(3), most of which take positions of interest to the ultra-rich and the corporations they run: less tax, less regulation, a smaller public sector. Around a quarter of the money received by the rightwing opinion swarm comes from the two foundations(4). If this funding were not effective, it wouldn’t exist: the ultra-rich didn’t get that way by throwing their money around randomly. The organisations they support are those which advance their interests.

A small number of the funders have been exposed by researchers trawling through tax records. They include the billionaire Koch brothers (paying into the two groups through their Knowledge and Progress Fund) and the DeVos family (the billionaire owners of Amway)(5). More significantly, we now know a little more about the recipients. Many describe themselves as free market or conservative think tanks.

Among them are the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Hudson Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Mont Pelerin Society and the Discovery Institute(6). All of them pose as learned societies, earnestly trying to determine the best interests of the public. The exposure of this funding reinforces the claim by David Frum, formerly a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, that such groups “increasingly function as public-relations agencies”(7).

One name in particular jumped out at me: American Friends of the IEA. The Institute of Economic Affairs is a British group which, like all the others, calls itself a free market thinktank. Scarcely a day goes by on which its staff are not interviewed in the broadcast media, promoting the dreary old billionaires’ agenda: less tax for the rich, less help for the poor, less spending by the state, less regulation for business. In the first 13 days of February, its people were on the BBC ten times(.

Never have I heard its claim to be an independent thinktank challenged by the BBC. When, in 2007, I called the institute a business lobby group, its then director-general responded, in a letter to the Guardian, that “we are independent of all business interests”(9). Oh yes?

The database, published by the Canadian site desmogblog.com, shows that American Friends of the IEA has received (up to 2010) $215,000 from the two secretive funds(10). When I spoke to the IEA’s fundraising manager, she confirmed that the sole purpose of American Friends is to raise money for the organisation in London(11). She agreed that the IEA has never disclosed the Donors’ Trust money it has received. She denied that the institute is a sockpuppet organisation: purporting to be independent while working for some very powerful US interests.

Would the BBC allow someone from Bell Pottinger to discuss an issue of concern to its sponsors without revealing the sponsors’ identity? No. So what’s the difference? What distinguishes an acknowledged public relations company taking money from a corporation or a billionaire from a so-called thinktank, funded by the same source to promote the same agenda?

The IEA is registered with the Charity Commission as an educational charity(12). The same goes for Nigel Lawson’s climate misinformation campaign (the Global Warming Policy Foundation(13)) and a host of other dubious “thinktanks”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it is outrageous that the Charity Commission allows organisations which engage in political lobbying and refuse to reveal their major funders to claim charitable status(14).

This is the new political frontier. Corporations and their owners have learnt not to show their hands. They tend to avoid the media, aware that they will damage their brands by being seen to promote the brutal agenda that furthers their interests. So they have learnt from the tobacco companies: stay hidden and pay other people to do it for you(15).

They need a network of independent-looking organisations which can produce plausible arguments in defence of their positions. Once the arguments have been developed, projecting them is easy. Most of the media are owned by billionaires, who are happy to promote the work of people funded by the same class(16). One of the few outlets they don’t own – the BBC – has been disgracefully incurious about the identity of those to whom it gives a platform.

By these means the ultra-rich come to dominate the political conversation, without declaring themselves(17,1. Those they employ are clever and well-trained. They have money their opponents can only dream of. They are skilled at rechannelling the public anger which might otherwise have been directed at their funders: the people who have tanked the economy, who use the living planet as their dustbin, who won’t pay their taxes and who demand that the poor must pay for the mistakes of the rich. Anger, thanks to the work of these hired hands, is instead aimed at the victims or opponents of the billionaires: people on benefits, the trade unions, Greenpeace, the American Civil Liberties Union.

The answer, as ever, is transparency. As the so-called thinktanks come to play an ever more important role in politics, we need to know who they are working for. Any group – whether the Institute of Economic Affairs or Friends of the Earth – which attempts to influence public life should declare all donations greater than £1000. We’ve had a glimpse of who’s paying. Now we need to see the rest of the story.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ktanks-network

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...enial-networks

3. http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fak...ances-free-tax

4. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-bradley-devos

5. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-bradley-devos

6. See the xls attachment at the bottom of http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fak...ances-free-tax

7. http://nymag.com/news/politics/conse...-frum-2011-11/

8. http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage

9. http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/m...naughty-george

10. http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fak...ances-free-tax

11. Caroline Rollag, 18th February 2013.

12. http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/...idiaryNumber=0

13. For a good summary of the GWPF and its secret funding, please see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-restricted-us

14. Here’s what happened when I tried to get the conservative “think tanks” to tell me who funds them: http://www.monbiot.com/2011/09/12/think-of-a-tank/

15. For a fascinating account of how the Tea Party movement was orignally proposed by tobacco companies, before it was launched by the Koch brothers, see this paper: http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/conten...50815.abstract

16. See these revelations about the collusion between the corporate media and the Adam Smith Institute: http://www.monbiot.com/2012/10/01/pl...99s-boot-boys/

17. http://www.monbiot.com/2010/10/25/toxic-brew/

18. http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/01/ho...ke-the-system/

- - - Updated - - -

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th February 2013.

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/02/18/secrets-of-the-rich/

Conspiracies against the public don’t get much uglier than this. As the Guardian revealed last week, two secretive organisations working for US billionaires have spent $118m to ensure that no action is taken to prevent manmade climate change(1). While inflicting untold suffering on the world’s people, their funders have used these opaque structures to ensure that their identities are never exposed.

The two organisations – the Donors’ Trust and the Donors’ Capital Fund – were set up as political funding channels for people handing over $1m or more. They have financed 102 organisations which either dismiss climate science or downplay the need to take action. The large number of recipients creates the impression that there are many independent voices challenging climate science. These groups, working through the media, mobilising gullible voters and lobbying politicians, helped to derail Obama’s cap and trade bill and the climate talks at Copenhagen. Now they’re seeking to prevent the US president from trying again(2).

This covers only part of the funding. In total, between 2002 and 2010 the two identity-laundering groups paid $311m to 480 organisations(3), most of which take positions of interest to the ultra-rich and the corporations they run: less tax, less regulation, a smaller public sector. Around a quarter of the money received by the rightwing opinion swarm comes from the two foundations(4). If this funding were not effective, it wouldn’t exist: the ultra-rich didn’t get that way by throwing their money around randomly. The organisations they support are those which advance their interests.

A small number of the funders have been exposed by researchers trawling through tax records. They include the billionaire Koch brothers (paying into the two groups through their Knowledge and Progress Fund) and the DeVos family (the billionaire owners of Amway)(5). More significantly, we now know a little more about the recipients. Many describe themselves as free market or conservative think tanks.

Among them are the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Hudson Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Mont Pelerin Society and the Discovery Institute(6). All of them pose as learned societies, earnestly trying to determine the best interests of the public. The exposure of this funding reinforces the claim by David Frum, formerly a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, that such groups “increasingly function as public-relations agencies”(7).

One name in particular jumped out at me: American Friends of the IEA. The Institute of Economic Affairs is a British group which, like all the others, calls itself a free market thinktank. Scarcely a day goes by on which its staff are not interviewed in the broadcast media, promoting the dreary old billionaires’ agenda: less tax for the rich, less help for the poor, less spending by the state, less regulation for business. In the first 13 days of February, its people were on the BBC ten times(.

Never have I heard its claim to be an independent thinktank challenged by the BBC. When, in 2007, I called the institute a business lobby group, its then director-general responded, in a letter to the Guardian, that “we are independent of all business interests”(9). Oh yes?

The database, published by the Canadian site desmogblog.com, shows that American Friends of the IEA has received (up to 2010) $215,000 from the two secretive funds(10). When I spoke to the IEA’s fundraising manager, she confirmed that the sole purpose of American Friends is to raise money for the organisation in London(11). She agreed that the IEA has never disclosed the Donors’ Trust money it has received. She denied that the institute is a sockpuppet organisation: purporting to be independent while working for some very powerful US interests.

Would the BBC allow someone from Bell Pottinger to discuss an issue of concern to its sponsors without revealing the sponsors’ identity? No. So what’s the difference? What distinguishes an acknowledged public relations company taking money from a corporation or a billionaire from a so-called thinktank, funded by the same source to promote the same agenda?

The IEA is registered with the Charity Commission as an educational charity(12). The same goes for Nigel Lawson’s climate misinformation campaign (the Global Warming Policy Foundation(13)) and a host of other dubious “thinktanks”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it is outrageous that the Charity Commission allows organisations which engage in political lobbying and refuse to reveal their major funders to claim charitable status(14).

This is the new political frontier. Corporations and their owners have learnt not to show their hands. They tend to avoid the media, aware that they will damage their brands by being seen to promote the brutal agenda that furthers their interests. So they have learnt from the tobacco companies: stay hidden and pay other people to do it for you(15).

They need a network of independent-looking organisations which can produce plausible arguments in defence of their positions. Once the arguments have been developed, projecting them is easy. Most of the media are owned by billionaires, who are happy to promote the work of people funded by the same class(16). One of the few outlets they don’t own – the BBC – has been disgracefully incurious about the identity of those to whom it gives a platform.

By these means the ultra-rich come to dominate the political conversation, without declaring themselves(17,1. Those they employ are clever and well-trained. They have money their opponents can only dream of. They are skilled at rechannelling the public anger which might otherwise have been directed at their funders: the people who have tanked the economy, who use the living planet as their dustbin, who won’t pay their taxes and who demand that the poor must pay for the mistakes of the rich. Anger, thanks to the work of these hired hands, is instead aimed at the victims or opponents of the billionaires: people on benefits, the trade unions, Greenpeace, the American Civil Liberties Union.

The answer, as ever, is transparency. As the so-called thinktanks come to play an ever more important role in politics, we need to know who they are working for. Any group – whether the Institute of Economic Affairs or Friends of the Earth – which attempts to influence public life should declare all donations greater than £1000. We’ve had a glimpse of who’s paying. Now we need to see the rest of the story.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ktanks-network

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...enial-networks

3. http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fak...ances-free-tax

4. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-bradley-devos

5. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-bradley-devos

6. See the xls attachment at the bottom of http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fak...ances-free-tax

7. http://nymag.com/news/politics/conse...-frum-2011-11/

8. http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage

9. http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/m...naughty-george

10. http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fak...ances-free-tax

11. Caroline Rollag, 18th February 2013.

12. http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/...idiaryNumber=0

13. For a good summary of the GWPF and its secret funding, please see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-restricted-us

14. Here’s what happened when I tried to get the conservative “think tanks” to tell me who funds them: http://www.monbiot.com/2011/09/12/think-of-a-tank/

15. For a fascinating account of how the Tea Party movement was orignally proposed by tobacco companies, before it was launched by the Koch brothers, see this paper: http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/conten...50815.abstract

16. See these revelations about the collusion between the corporate media and the Adam Smith Institute: http://www.monbiot.com/2012/10/01/pl...99s-boot-boys/

17. http://www.monbiot.com/2010/10/25/toxic-brew/

18. http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/01/ho...ke-the-system/

 

??? I don't think you understand what they are saying. The actual measured temperature declined but they don't think the measurements are accurate so they give us their estimate of actual temperature. And we can see from the graph what portion of the increase is due to an increase in the measured temperature and what portion is due to their estimates of the error. MORE than 100% is their estimates.
As well the most prevalent error in measurement is an INCREASE in teperature due to urbanization near the measurement stations requiring a DOWNWARD adjustment to the measured temperature

 

Source on that graph? I mean, excuse me for not holding Power Line Blog up as a major source of insight when it comes to climate science...

I figured you'd say that. Your type is never convinced. Of anything. The times I've seen you admit being wrong on this forum is exactly 0. But hey, feel free to keep believing in an international conspiracy headed up by a gigantic number of scientists (essentially everyone with the qualifications to work in the field), countless scientific bodies, and numerous governments to foist a complex and convoluted scientific theory upon us, forged from thousands of people working on thousands of peer-reviewed documents, all with the purpose of furthering a political system almost nobody involved professes to support.

I could charitably say that you have "an overactive imagination", but I'm not charitable at 2 AM after a few beers. I've seen more realistic, feasible conspiracy theories that involving Illuminati wizard attack squads and moon bear biker gangs. Take your tinfoil and (*)(*)(*)(*) off.

No, nobody thinks that. However, I will give you this - virtually everyone goes from the assumption that the size and mass of the earth is constant.

 

Just saying people are wrong is an even bigger fail than linking to your own rebuttal section

re "energy and environment" http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/04/correcting-misinformation-about-journal.html

The validity of an academic journal does not rely on popularity - although uptake and citation are indicators that others in the field

The uptake of the journal by libraries world wide is poor - you have cited 174 as carrying this journal - there are more libraries than that in Australia alone!! I note that claim is not referenced and it is not defined i.e. are we talking only university libraries or libraries in total?? Libraries like the National Library of Australia will often keep a vast array of literature up to and including "My Daily Poops"

And just indexing something is not the same as awarding academic validity


http://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=29360&tip=sid

Looks impressive until we compare it to say," Nature"
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21206&tip=sid&clean=0

Oh! And as for Peer Review process
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/peer-review-at-e.html

 

Al Gore is a fat-ass lying hypocrite fool who sold out his network to fossil fuel profits. Follow the money. Man-made global warming is one massive ruse for the tree-hugging freaks who think they can affect the natural cycles of the planet ... using someone else's money.

You cannot change it. And you are not getting my money.

[video=youtube;ygY57FdRcr0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygY57FdRcr0[/video]

 

Bloody hell!! ONE measurement in ONE place and you think this is relevant to GLOBAL measurements throughout the world?? I mean even IF it is true and the measurement has been "adjusted" they would have to do that in EVERY weather and temperature station in every spot in every country around the world

Only a "small" conspiracy eh?

But let's look at an Aussies response

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/09/willis-eschenbach-caught-lying/

 

So, I was curious where that image originally came from because Stagnant questioned the source. I Tineye'd the image (reverse image search) and apparently there is no legitimate source for the image, it came from some blog most likely.

http://www.tineye.com/search/6b8b2b3c0f64b96bde701d1d8faf077128cfd4d4/

So, I searched further because I wanted to get to the bottom of this and I ended up at The Economist with this story:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists

Interesting article if you aren't afraid of questioning your beliefs that this is confirmation bias or deliberate manipulation of data.

Some excerpts:

 

Do you have any proof of that statement?

 

I have this thing - every time someone drags Al Gore into a climate change thread I get to drag up Christopher Monckton and issue the challenge - which one is the bigger liar/idiot/scam artist??

 

...which has nothing to do with consensus.

You were very wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

Tell it to Judith Curry.

 

No, nothing at ALL.....LOL

 

Oooooh if you really cared you would have clicked on the links.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/...ke-moment-for-surface-temperature/#more-78476

 

You continue to be gullible. I will continue to be skeptical.

There is a lot of money to be had in religion.

 

Riiiiiiigggggghhhhht!

 

Sure is. Those Fossil Fuel multinationals are worth billions.

 

...Which became irrelevant when Grasping for Peace posted that Economist article. Again, it's interesting that WUWT uses that one graph to indicate that the GISS adjustments are faulty, when in fact, that graph makes perfect sense when checked out correctly.

 

Sure is Willie Soon got over $1 million for selling his soul to Exxon

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/28/climate-change-sceptic-willie-soon

Can you show me a climate scientist getting the same amount?

 

I don't just say people are wrong but prove they are wrong in extensive detail. "Rebuttals to Criticisms" ...where do you want to begin?

I've updated the number as it is now 184 libraries.

"Found at 184 libraries and universities worldwide in print and electronic form. These include; Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Library of Congress, National Library of Australia, Stanford University, The British Library, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and MIT."

These are national and university libraries. Scholarly journals are mainly carried by university libraries. The point was to show that it was a legitimate scholarly journal, I never claimed it was the most popular.

Are you still disputing if E&E is peer-reviewed or not?

Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary scholarly journal (ISSN: 0958-305X)
- Thompson Reuters (ISI) Social Sciences Citation Index lists Energy & Environment as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
- EBSCO lists Energy & Environment as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal (PDF)
- Scopus lists Energy & Environment as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
- The IPCC cites Energy & Environment multiple times
- "E&E, by the way, is peer reviewed" - Tom Wigley, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- "I have published a few papers in E&E. All were peer-reviewed as usual. I have reviewed a few more for the journal." - Richard Tol Ph.D. Professor of the Economics of Climate Change, Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands
- "All Multi-Sciences primary journals are fully refereed" - Multi-Science Publishing
- "Regular issues include submitted and invited papers that are rigorously peer reviewed" - E&E Mission Statement

You keep making silly citation comparisons to the most popular journals on the planet like Nature which has been around since 1869. No one is making the strawman argument that E&E is cited anywhere near as much as a popular journal like Nature. What I have shown is that E&E is both peer-reviewed and various papers published there are highly cited.

Citation indexes can only tell you how popular a journal or paper is, it cannot determine it's scientific validity.

That just demonstrates that the peer-review process worked. I've already covered this twice,

Correcting misinformation about the journal Energy & Environment - Earth's Heat Source - The Sun

Was Dr. Manuel's paper published as peer-reviewed or an opinion piece?

 

Prove that Dr. Soon changed his position on climate change due to a funding source, if you cannot that means you can show now evidence of corruption and instead are spreading libelous lies.

Soon denied any group would have influenced his studies. "I have never been motivated by financial reward in any of my scientific research [...] I would have accepted money from Greenpeace if they had offered it to do my research,"

These companies funded him because they agreed with his views on climate change, Soon did not change his views because of funding. This is a very important difference your smears do not address.

 

It proves dick

The National Library of Australia keeps a copy of bloody near EVERYTHING and some keep it as a reference for those wanting to criticise bad material

But big Whoop if you think that a paltry 10 more libraries - out of how many world wide makes a difference

There is peer review and then there is peer review

It is widely noted that the editor has a political agenda and is willing to sacrifice quality for that agenda but what you have consistently failed to do is prove that the so called "peer review" is a valid process conforming to the academic standards expected of a serious non-biased journal

Just showing the paper to a couple of mates is NOT "peer review"

And no journal of any serious academic intent would publish an article like the "iron sun" except as a comedy piece because it brings into question editorial credentials

 

And yet the pseudo-scientists continually accuse spread the libelous lie that scientists only get their grant money if their results conclude that humans are responsible for the increase in temps.
And yet the pseudo-scientists, without any proof, continually accuse 93% of climate scientists of working for the UN in an effort extort money from the US.
Do you really not see the double standard?

 

Yeah. It is not your money.

- - - Updated - - -

What? Do you have any idea how much money flows to the scientists who play ball with the governments and come up with the right numbers?

 

The tree-hugging fools could care less.