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Koch Brothers pay to show global warming is real
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Topic Started: Oct 31 2011, 08:01 PM (4,890 Views)
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ngc1514
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Oct 31 2011, 08:01 PM
Post #1
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Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real
By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press 4:16 a.m. Monday, October 31, 2011
WASHINGTON - A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.
The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.
Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.
What's different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to "The Daily Show" is paying attention is who is behind the study.
One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions. Link
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Chris
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Oct 31 2011, 09:38 PM
Post #2
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Well, if the Koch Bros fund it then they control it and it must be tainted, I mean if we follow the illogic of some liberals.
I didn't think though that the argument over climate was whether temps were rising but what was the cause and whether we can do anything about it.
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Chris
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Oct 31 2011, 09:45 PM
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Didn't take long to find this.
Lying, cheating climate scientists caught lying, cheating again- Quote:
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Oh dear. I really didn't want my first blog post in a week to be yet another one about global bloody warming. Problem is, if those lying, cheating climate scientists will insist on going on lying and cheating what else can I do other than expose their lying and cheating? The story so far: ten days ago a self-proclaimed "sceptical" climate scientist named Professor Richard Muller of Berkeley University, California, managed to grab himself some space in the Wall Street Journal (of all places) claiming that the case for global warming scepticism was over. Thanks to research from his Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures (BEST) project, Professor Muller stated confidently, we now know that the planet has warmed by almost one degree centigrade since 1950. What's more, he told the BBC's Today programme, there is no sign that this global warming has slowed down. Cue mass jubilation from a number of media outlets which, perhaps, ought to have known better – among them, the Independent, the Guardian, The Economist and Forbes magazine. To give you an idea of their self-righteous indignation at the supposed ignorance of climate change deniers, here is the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson in full spate: - Quote:
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We know that the rise in temperatures over the past five decades is abrupt and very large. We know it is consistent with models developed by other climate researchers that posit greenhouse gas emissions — the burning of fossil fuels by humans — as the cause. And now we know, thanks to Muller, that those other scientists have been both careful and honorable in their work.
Nobody’s fudging the numbers. Nobody’s manipulating data to win research grants, as Perry claims, or making an undue fuss over a “naturally occurring” warm-up, as Bachmann alleges. Contrary to what Cain says, the science is real.
Problem is, Eugene, almost every word of those two paragraphs is plain wrong, and your smugness embarrassingly misplaced. As you know, I had my doubts about Muller's findings from the start. I thought it was at best disingenuous of him to pose as a "sceptic" when there is little evidence of him ever having been one. As for his argument that the BEST project confounds sceptics by proving global warming exists – this was never more than a straw man. Now, though, it seems that BEST is even worse than I thought. Here is what Muller claimed on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: - Quote:
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In our data, which is only on the land we see no evidence of [global warming] having slowed down.
But this simply isn't true. Heaven forfend that a distinguished professor from Berkeley University should actually have been caught out telling a lie direct. No, clearly what has happened here is that Professor Muller has made the kind of mistake any self-respecting climate scientist could make: gone to press with some extravagant claims without having a smidgen of evidence to support them. Here, to help the good professor out, is a chart produced by the Global Warming Policy Foundation's David Whitehouse. It was plotted from BEST's own figures.  Note how the 10 year trend from 2001 to 2010 – in flat contradiction of Muller's claims – shows no warming whatsoever. What's odd that BEST appears to have gone to great trouble – shades of "hide the decline", anyone? – to disguise this inconvenient truth. Here is a graph released by BEST:  The GWPF's David Whitehouse is not impressed: - Quote:
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Indeed Best seems to have worked hard to obscure it. They present data covering more almost 200 years is presented with a short x-axis and a stretched y-axis to accentuate the increase. The data is then smoothed using a ten year average which is ideally suited to removing the past five years of the past decade and mix the earlier standstill years with years when there was an increase. This is an ideal formula for suppressing the past decade’s data.
Muller's colleague Professor Judith Curry – who besides being a BEST co-author chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology – is even less impressed. - Quote:
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There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’
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Mike
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Oct 31 2011, 09:49 PM
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I believe most folks have come to a similar finding absent the need for testing and measuring. How can you deny what you live and experience daily and throughout the seasons? The question that lurks is how to feed seven billion people affect by the change?
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Chris
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Oct 31 2011, 10:51 PM
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Intuituins are important, Mike, but shouldn't we confirm them with facts and logic before taking action?
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Brewster
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Oct 31 2011, 11:20 PM
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Chris, please follow your own advice, and use facts and logic, not dig around and find some unfounded Denier talking point.
I've been ignoring your agenda-driven drivel, and will continue to do so, but this one goes too far. It's just plain dangerous.
Learn some real science, and how statistics works before spouting off and quoting yet one more willfully ignorant Denier
Judith Curry Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot.
I don't really expect the US Right to actually read two pages of facts, so I'll just copy 'n' paste a couple of paragraphs which will give you the flavour:
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I didn’t expect Judith Curry to embarrass herself more than she did with her fawning over Murry Salby’s folly. But she’s topped (perhaps I should say “bottomed”) herself by a huge margin. Anthony Watts was so excited he actually suspended his blog hiatus to report the story. He quotes the GWPF that “BEST Confirms Global Temperature Standstill,” and cites a story in the Daily Mail reporting that Judith Curry (a member of the Berkeley team) has roundly criticized Richard Muller (leader of the Berkeley team), on much the same basis. He quotes Curry herself, from the article: - Quote:
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As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.
With this statement, Curry reveals how little she understands the data created by the team of which she is a member, let alone the “other sets of data.” Which we might have anticipated, given that from what we’ve seen, she made little or no contribution to the actual Berkeley analysis. Judging by her comments, it’s a good thing for the Berkeley team that she didn’t. It seems to me that there are only two possibilities. Either Judith Curry hasn’t bothered to analyze the data from her own team — or she’s not competent.
The fact that someone from Texas could possibly doubt any facet of Global Warming after this past summer just shows how people are willing to ignore almost anything that doesn't fit their political agenda.
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Chris
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Oct 31 2011, 11:25 PM
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"Chris, please follow your own advice, and use facts and logic, not dig around and find some unfounded Denier talking point."
Ad hom.
"I've been ignoring your agenda-driven drivel, and will continue to do so, but this one goes too far. It's just plain dangerous."
Ad hom.
In fact I see nothing from you but ad hom. And you call that science, brewster? Nothings changed with you, has it. No facts, no logic.
Edited by Chris, Oct 31 2011, 11:26 PM.
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Brewster
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Oct 31 2011, 11:56 PM
Post #8
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I gather you didn't read the article, just posted your repeated "ad hom" nonsense when I point out usual modus operandi.
Why don't you surprise me some day and actually learn some facts? Maybe you'd be surprised to find my "ad homs" suddenly stop.
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Chris
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Nov 1 2011, 12:00 AM
Post #9
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- Brewster
- Oct 31 2011, 11:56 PM
I gather you didn't read the article, just posted your repeated "ad hom" nonsense when I point out usual modus operandi.
Why don't you surprise me some day and actually learn some facts? Maybe you'd be surprised to find my "ad homs" suddenly stop. Thanks for admitting all you've got is ad homs. I read your ad hom article.
I gather you didn't read the facts and logic of the article I posted. You certainly didn't respond to it, merely attacked one of the messengers.
Why don't you surprise us all and when someone disagrees with your agenda actually post some facts and logic in rebuttal..
Edited by Chris, Nov 1 2011, 12:01 AM.
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Brewster
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Nov 1 2011, 12:01 AM
Post #10
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One last comment before I sign off again:
- Mike
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The question that lurks is how to feed seven billion people affect by the change?
Mike, you have the question backwards.
It should read; "The question that lurks is how to feed seven billion people unless we stop Climate Change?"
And as I have posted several times, it is much cheaper to stop it than it is to deal with the conseqences of "Business as Usual."
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