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New Anti-global warming debate?


Whatevergate

Whatevergate

Filed under:
— gavin @ 16 February 2010

It won’t have escaped many of our readers’ notice that there has been what can only be described as a media frenzy (mostly in the UK) with regards to climate change in recent weeks. The coverage has contained more bad reporting, misrepresentation and confusion on the subject than we have seen in such a short time anywhere. While the UK newspaper scene is uniquely competitive (especially compared to the US with over half a dozen national dailies selling in the same market), and historically there have been equally frenzied bouts of mis-reporting in the past on topics as diverse as pit bulls, vaccines and child abductions, there is something new in this mess that is worth discussing. And that has been a huge shift in the Overton window for climate change.

In any public discussion there are bounds which people who want to be thought of as having respectable ideas tend to stay between. This is most easily seen in health care debates. In the US, promotion of a National Health Service as in the UK or a single-payer system as in Canada is so far outside the bounds of normal health care politics, that these options are only ever brought up by ‘cranks’ (sigh). Meanwhile in the UK, discussions of health care delivery solutions outside of the NHS framework are never heard in the mainstream media. This limit on scope of the public debate has been called the Overton window. The window does not have to remain static. Pressure groups and politicians can try and shift the bounds deliberately, or sometimes they are shifted by events. That seems to have been the case in the climate discussion. Prior to the email hack at CRU there had long been a pretty widespread avoidance of ‘global warming is a hoax’ proponents in serious discussions on the subject. The sceptics that were interviewed tended to be the slightly more sensible kind – people who did actually realise that CO2 was a greenhouse gas for instance. But the GW hoaxers were generally derided, or used as punchlines for jokes. This is not because they didn’t exist and weren’t continually making baseless accusations against scientists (they did and they were), but rather that their claims were self-evidently ridiculous and therefore not worth airing. However, since the emails were released, and despite the fact that there is no evidence within them to support any of these claims of fraud and fabrication, the UK media has opened itself so wide to the spectrum of thought on climate that the GW hoaxers have now suddenly find themselves well within the mainstream. Nothing has changed the self-evidently ridiculousness of their arguments, but their presence at the media table has meant that the more reasonable critics seem far more centrist than they did a few months ago.

A few examples: Monckton being quoted as a ‘prominent climate sceptic’ on the front page of the New York Times this week (Wow!); The Guardian digging up baseless fraud accusations against a scientist at SUNY that had already been investigated and dismissed; The Sunday Times ignoring experts telling them the IPCC was right in favor of the anti-IPCC meme of the day; The Daily Mail making up quotes that fit their GW hoaxer narrative; The Daily Express breathlessly proclaiming the whole thing a ‘climate con’; The Sunday Times (again) dredging up unfounded accusations of corruption in the surface temperature data sets. All of these stories are based on the worst kind of oft-rebunked nonsense and they serve to make the more subtle kind of scepticism pushed by Lomborg et al seem almost erudite.

Perhaps this is driven by editors demanding that reporters come up with something new (to them) that fits into an anti-climate science theme that they are attempting to stoke. Or perhaps it is driven by the journalists desperate to maintain their scoop by pretending to their editors that this nonsense hasn’t been debunked a hundred times already? Who knows? All of these bad decisions made easier when all of the actually sensible people, or people who know anything about the subject at all, are being assailed on all sides, and aren’t necessarily keen to find the time to explain, once again, that yes, the world is warming. So far, so stupid. But even more concerning is the reaction from outside the UK media bubble. Two relatively prominent and respected US commentators – Curtis Brainard at CJR and Tom Yulsman in Colorado – have both bemoaned the fact that the US media (unusually perhaps) has not followed pell-mell into the fact-free abyss of their UK counterparts. Their point apparently seems to be that since much news print is being devoted to a story somewhere, then that story must be worth following. Indeed, since the substance to any particularly story is apparently proportional to the coverage, by not following the UK bandwagon, US journalists are missing a big story. Yulsman blames the lack of environmental beat reporters for lack of coverage in the US, but since most of the damage and bad reporting on this is from clueless and partisan news desk reporters in the UK, I actually expect that it is the environmental beat reporters prior experience with the forces of disinformation that prevents the contagion crossing the pond. To be sure, reporters should be able and willing (and encouraged) to write stories about anything to do with climate science and its institutions – but that kind of reporting is something very different from regurgitating disinformation, or repeating baseless accusations as fact.

So what is likely to happen now? As the various panels and reports on the CRU affair conclude, it is highly likely (almost certain in fact) that no-one will conclude that there has been any fraud, fabrication or scientific misconduct (since there hasn’t been). Eventually, people will realise (again) that the GW hoaxers are indeed cranks, and the mainstream window on their rants will close. In the meantime, huge amounts of misinformation, sprinkled liberally with plenty of disinformation, will be spread and public understanding on the issue will likely decline. As the history of the topic has shown, public attention to climate change comes and goes and this is likely to be seen as the latest bump on that ride.

Eppure si riscalda.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/whatevergate/
 
Whatevergate

Whatevergate


Filed under:
— gavin @ 16 February 2010

It won’t have escaped many of our readers’ notice that there has been what can only be described as a media frenzy (mostly in the UK) with regards to climate change in recent weeks. The coverage has contained more bad reporting, misrepresentation and confusion on the subject than we have seen in such a short time anywhere. While the UK newspaper scene is uniquely competitive (especially compared to the US with over half a dozen national dailies selling in the same market), and historically there have been equally frenzied bouts of mis-reporting in the past on topics as diverse as pit bulls, vaccines and child abductions, there is something new in this mess that is worth discussing. And that has been a huge shift in the Overton window for climate change.

In any public discussion there are bounds which people who want to be thought of as having respectable ideas tend to stay between. This is most easily seen in health care debates. In the US, promotion of a National Health Service as in the UK or a single-payer system as in Canada is so far outside the bounds of normal health care politics, that these options are only ever brought up by ‘cranks’ (sigh). Meanwhile in the UK, discussions of health care delivery solutions outside of the NHS framework are never heard in the mainstream media. This limit on scope of the public debate has been called the Overton window. The window does not have to remain static. Pressure groups and politicians can try and shift the bounds deliberately, or sometimes they are shifted by events. That seems to have been the case in the climate discussion. Prior to the email hack at CRU there had long been a pretty widespread avoidance of ‘global warming is a hoax’ proponents in serious discussions on the subject. The sceptics that were interviewed tended to be the slightly more sensible kind – people who did actually realise that CO2 was a greenhouse gas for instance. But the GW hoaxers were generally derided, or used as punchlines for jokes. This is not because they didn’t exist and weren’t continually making baseless accusations against scientists (they did and they were), but rather that their claims were self-evidently ridiculous and therefore not worth airing. However, since the emails were released, and despite the fact that there is no evidence within them to support any of these claims of fraud and fabrication, the UK media has opened itself so wide to the spectrum of thought on climate that the GW hoaxers have now suddenly find themselves well within the mainstream. Nothing has changed the self-evidently ridiculousness of their arguments, but their presence at the media table has meant that the more reasonable critics seem far more centrist than they did a few months ago.

A few examples: Monckton being quoted as a ‘prominent climate sceptic’ on the front page of the New York Times this week (Wow!); The Guardian digging up baseless fraud accusations against a scientist at SUNY that had already been investigated and dismissed; The Sunday Times ignoring experts telling them the IPCC was right in favor of the anti-IPCC meme of the day; The Daily Mail making up quotes that fit their GW hoaxer narrative; The Daily Express breathlessly proclaiming the whole thing a ‘climate con’; The Sunday Times (again) dredging up unfounded accusations of corruption in the surface temperature data sets. All of these stories are based on the worst kind of oft-rebunked nonsense and they serve to make the more subtle kind of scepticism pushed by Lomborg et al seem almost erudite.

Perhaps this is driven by editors demanding that reporters come up with something new (to them) that fits into an anti-climate science theme that they are attempting to stoke. Or perhaps it is driven by the journalists desperate to maintain their scoop by pretending to their editors that this nonsense hasn’t been debunked a hundred times already? Who knows? All of these bad decisions made easier when all of the actually sensible people, or people who know anything about the subject at all, are being assailed on all sides, and aren’t necessarily keen to find the time to explain, once again, that yes, the world is warming. So far, so stupid. But even more concerning is the reaction from outside the UK media bubble. Two relatively prominent and respected US commentators – Curtis Brainard at CJR and Tom Yulsman in Colorado – have both bemoaned the fact that the US media (unusually perhaps) has not followed pell-mell into the fact-free abyss of their UK counterparts. Their point apparently seems to be that since much news print is being devoted to a story somewhere, then that story must be worth following. Indeed, since the substance to any particularly story is apparently proportional to the coverage, by not following the UK bandwagon, US journalists are missing a big story. Yulsman blames the lack of environmental beat reporters for lack of coverage in the US, but since most of the damage and bad reporting on this is from clueless and partisan news desk reporters in the UK, I actually expect that it is the environmental beat reporters prior experience with the forces of disinformation that prevents the contagion crossing the pond. To be sure, reporters should be able and willing (and encouraged) to write stories about anything to do with climate science and its institutions – but that kind of reporting is something very different from regurgitating disinformation, or repeating baseless accusations as fact.

So what is likely to happen now? As the various panels and reports on the CRU affair conclude, it is highly likely (almost certain in fact) that no-one will conclude that there has been any fraud, fabrication or scientific misconduct (since there hasn’t been). Eventually, people will realise (again) that the GW hoaxers are indeed cranks, and the mainstream window on their rants will close. In the meantime, huge amounts of misinformation, sprinkled liberally with plenty of disinformation, will be spread and public understanding on the issue will likely decline. As the history of the topic has shown, public attention to climate change comes and goes and this is likely to be seen as the latest bump on that ride.

Eppure si riscalda.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/whatevergate/


Don't bother Jonah. There is absolutely no point. I'm writing something for my masters about the treatment of the subject in the media. I'll post it up in a couple of days. But in the mean time, I'm outta here! Screw this thread of true believers. The hypocrasy of all this is amazing.
 
i have yet to see any of these AGW guys show any current science showing run away warming due to man made CO2 emissions, yet they blather on and on about everything BUT the science.

Everything in the bible is true - the Archbishop of Canterbury told me, and he should know! I mean, why would he lie about about something like that?
 
Here's an example of what Cap & Trade can do for you, from James Delingpole: (Note: British, not American)

Heroic, monotesticular UKIP MEP Nigel Farage was bumped off the BBC Question Time panel at the last minute last week. Shame. That particular edition was broadcast from Middlesbrough and it would have been fascinating to hear the audience’s response to the choice things he was planning to say about the closure of their local steelworks.

Here is how he describes it in a letter:

Sir

Corus’ steelworks at Redcar, near Middlesbrough, “Teesside Cast Products”, is to be closed (”mothballed” is the euphemism). It is Britain’s last great steelworks and an essential national resource. Without it, we are at the world’s mercy.

Corus is owned by Tata Steel of India. Recently, Tata received “EU-carbon-credits” worth up to £1bn, ostensibly so that steel-production at Redcar would not be crippled by the EU’s “carbon-emissions-trading-scheme”. By closing the plant at Redcar – and not making any “carbon-emissions” – Tata walks off with £1bn of taxpayers’ money, which it will invest in its steel-factories in India, where there is no “carbon-emissions-trading-scheme”.
There’s more. The EU’s “emissions-trading-scheme” (ETS) is modelled on instructions from the “International Panel on Climate-Change” (IPCC) of the United Nations Organisation. The Chairman of the IPCC is one Dr Rajendra K.Pachauri, a former railway-engineer, who obtained this post by virtue of his being Chairman of the “Tata Energy-Research Institute” – set up by Tata Steel.

UKIP’s leader in the EU’s “parliament”, Nigel Farage, revealed these data in a speech at Strasbourg, on 10th February, and was due to appear in the BBC’s “Question-Time” programme, from Middlesbrough, on 18th February, where the closure of the Redcar-plant was inevitably discussed. Almost at the last minute, his invitation to join the “Question-Time” panel was cancelled, without explanation.

An article, on the subject, by Neil Hamilton, which was due to appear in this week’s Sunday Express, has also been “pulled”.

Yours etc

The Corus scandal has been covered before, of course, by Booker, North et al. What bothers me, though, is how remarkably little traction it has had in the MSM. The sums of taxpayers money being squandered are stupendous; the pointlessness of the exercise beyond all reason; yet somehow – a bit like the fact that thanks to EU regulations on landfill waste disposal we’re now all supposed to put up with having our stinking, rat-infested trash collected just once a fortnight – it’s being treated as yet another of those government impositions about which we’re merely supposed to shrug our shoulders and tamely accept as just another of those things.

The mighty Booker reported on another example of this at the weekend. Gordon Brown has secretly blown another £60 million of taxpayer’s money the nation can ill-afford to spend on “buying carbon credits from the Third World for the use of government buildings and other official purposes – so that our civil servants can continue to benefit from the CO2 emissions needed to keep their offices warm and lit.”

To acquaint yourself with the full grisly details read it here. Alternatively, just torture yourself gently by reading the conclusion:

Thus we pay billions of dollars to the Asian countries for the right to continue emitting CO2 and other greenhouse gases here in the West, including the £60 million contributed by British taxpayers to keep our civil servants warm. As a result we enrich a small number of people in China and India, including Maurice Strong, who now lives in exile in Beijing, having been caught out in 2005 for illicitly receiving $1 million from Saddam Hussein in the “Oil for Food” scandal. He played a key part in setting up China’s carbon exchange, to buy and sell the CDM credits administered by the UNFCCC – of which Strong himself was the chief architect.

The net result of all this trading and jiggery-pokery is that, after billions of pounds and dollars have changed hands, with a hefty commission for those bankers and other carbon traders along the way, there is no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions whatever. But at least our political class can continue to work in warm offices and fly righteously round the world on our behalf – while the rest of us foot the bill.
Meanwhile our prospective next prime minister David Cameron has come up with a whizzo new scheme to make our inflated electricity bills even more painful than before:

He said: ” We need to apply gentle social pressure on people to bring down their energy use.

“So just as they’re doing in California, we will make each energy bill come with an illustration of how much energy people’s neighbours are using in comparison to their own usage, inspiring them to consume less in competition.”

The Booker is right. With honorable exceptions – such as UKIP and, on the environment at least, the BNP – our political class seem to have absolutely no understanding of the grotesque injustices being inflicted on their electorate in the name of the non-existent threat of “Climate Change.”
What will it take, I wonder, for these imbeciles to wake up and smell the coffee? Will a hung Parliament do? Or will it have to be bloody revolution?
 
I remember a story some time ago (probably more than 5 years ago) that revealed how the UK energy companies (may have been a single company) received £800M in carbon credits from the EU and promptly collected an extra £800M from it's customers to cover the cost of the carbon credits which they had been given for nothing - I think they were allocated at the beginning of the first year that the carbon-trading system was implemented.
 
<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "> EPA Chief Goes Toe-To-Toe With Senate GOP Over Climate Science </nyt_headline>

<nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "> By ROBIN BRAVENDER of Greenwire
</nyt_byline> Published: February 23, 2010

U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson today defended the science underpinning pending climate regulations despite Senate Republicans' claims that global warming data has been thrown into doubt.

"The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming," Jackson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "That conclusion is not a partisan one."

Jackson's comments came as the Senate panel scrutinized President Obama's $10 billion budget request for EPA. The administration's fiscal 2011 proposal would cut the agency's total funding by about $300 million from 2010 levels while allotting $56 million -- including $43 million in new funding -- for regulatory programs to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Senate Republicans used the hearing as a platform to blast EPA over its plans to begin rolling out greenhouse gas regulations next month after it determined last year that the heat-trapping emissions endanger human health and welfare. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the panel's ranking member, called on EPA to reconsider that determination after recent reports have revealed errors in the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that were used to underpin EPA's finding and a recent controversy surrounding e-mails stolen from climate scientists that some have dubbed "Climategate."

"We've been told that the science still stands," Inhofe said. "We've been told that the IPCC's mistakes are trivial. We've been told that Climategate is just gossipy e-mails between a few scientists. "But now we know there's no objective basis for these claims," he added. "Furthermore, Climategate shows there's no 'consensus;' the science is far from settled."

Committee Republicans released a report (pdf) today detailing concerns over the content of the e-mails that were lifted last year from computers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, a research institute whose studies help form the basis of the IPCC reports. Some of the e-mails reveal frustration with attacks from global warming skeptics, and opponents of greenhouse gas regulations have pointed to several of the exchanges as proof that scientists intentionally withheld climate data.

The Obama administration, as well as the majority of climate scientists and Democratic lawmakers, have maintained that nothing in the e-mails upends the scientific consensus that man-made emissions are contributing to climate change.

Jackson said that although science "can be a bit messy, the dust will settle" and that she has not seen anything at this point to show that the endangerment finding is not on solid ground.
"I do not agree that the IPCC has been totally discredited in any way," Jackson said, adding that it is important to understand that the IPCC is a body that follows open and impartial practices.
"Let me be very clear," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) the committee chairwoman. "The majority of this committee believes in strong numbers that we must act," on global warming, she added. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) angrily blasted his Republican colleagues for their implications that global warming science had not been settled. "This country faces many many problems, not the least of which, we have national leaders rejecting basic science," Sanders said. "I find it incredible, I really do, that in the year 2010 on this committee, there are people who are saying there is a doubt about global warming. There is no doubt about global warming."

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/0...es-toe-to-toe-with-senate-gop-over-72892.html

Bernie Sanders: Climate Change Skeptics Like Those Who Downplayed Nazism

Posted by Brian Montopoli


Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that people who do not take the threat of climate change seriously remind him of those who downplayed the growing threat of fascism and Nazism in the 1930s.

The climate change debate "reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s," Sanders said during a Senate hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's 2011 budget, which you can watch here. (The comments come at the 103rd minute.)

He continued: "And during that period with Nazism and fascism growing -- a real danger to the United States and Democratic countries all over the world -- there were people in this Congress, in the British parliament saying, 'don't worry! Hitler is not real! It'll disappear! We don't have to be prepared to take it on.'"

Asked about the comments, Sanders Communications Director Michael Briggs told Hotsheet that the senator, who believes climate change is real, "was comparing [climate change skeptics] to people in this country who were isolationists who didn't think we needed to confront the threat."

Sanders took heat from Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the Senate's leading climate change skeptic, earlier in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. Inhofe said "I know the senator from Vermont wants so badly to believe that the science on climate change is settled but it's not," according to Politico.

Inhofe is pressing for a reappraisal of the government's position on climate change following revelations of errors in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (deemed "trivial" by Sanders) as well as the so-called "Climategate" controversy. He wants an investigation into what he calls "the greatest scientific scandal of our generation," complete with testimony from former Vice President Al Gore.

But as the New York Times notes, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson did not give an inch when it came to the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.

"The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming," she said. "That conclusion is not a partisan one."

Republicans criticized the EPA at the hearing for its plan to introduce greenhouse gas regulations next month.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/23/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6236161.shtml
 
Jonah, please just show us who makes up this consensus and where you come up with CO2 causing runaway warming. This is all you need to do. Pretty simple stuff if what you believe in is true.
 
in the name of the non-existent threat of “Climate Change.”

Hmmm - for me, climate change is a natural process and can be a real threat to some populations on the planet, such as those who think it's a great idea to build a town on the beach or on a known flood plain. The correct thing to do in that case would be to relocate before a disaster occurs or build flood prevention into the surrounding areas. The cost of those measures should be bourne by the people living there.

For me, the bone of contention has always been the AGW alarmist view that humans are accelerating a warming period beyond natural bounds and that if we don't spend billions of pounds on 'green projects' then the Earth will be a scorched dust bowl by 2100.
 
New Anti-global warming debate? Part 1

Now, I know that you can find a similar list that is pro-AGW, but doesn't some of the credible names on this list of anti-AGW scientists give anyone pause? You get the idea that the pro-AGW crowd thinks that all scientists that are anti-AGW or uncommitted are troglodites or not real scientists.

I believe that there are many fine scientists on both sides, and many of the ones on the pro-AGW side assumed that the data they were working with was reliable. It is not. So, good scientific work with bad data still nets bad results.

Again, I say we stop any calls for action now, and just be good stewards of raw climate data at this point, and give future scientists a few centuries from now a solid foundation to begin work on climate models.

Also, by then all the fossil fuels may be depleted anyway and CO2 emissions drastically reduced automatically -- so it won't really matter.

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming
 
New Anti-global warming debate? Part 1

In 2002, Exxon Mobil donated $100-million — $10-million a year for 10 years running — to Stanford University “for research into global warming and renewable energy alternatives.”
ExxonMobil Donation To Stanford University Is No Answer To Company's "Global Warming" Ills, Concerns Raised that XOM Grant is a Stalling Tactic; Verdict on Global Warming is In, Technology to Deal With It Here Now.

NEWS RELEASE
December 20, 2002
For More Information Contact Peter Altman (512) 479-0335 or
or [email protected].

AUSTIN, TX. ///(November 20, 2002)/// The announcement by ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) that it will donate up to $10 million a year for 10 years to Stanford University for research into global warming and renewable energy alternatives is a "disappointing response" from a company that has not acknowledged the reality of climate change and has no goals or plans to deal with the problem, according to Campaign ExxonMobil. At ExxonMobil's 2002 annual shareholder meeting, Campaign ExxonMobil organized a more than 20 percent vote in favor of a company adoption of a plan for renewable energy resources.

"The $10 million a year that ExxonMobil indicates that it may contribute for each of the next 10 years to Stanford is literally 'loose change' for a company that overpays its CEO $26 million a year and lavishes $600 million internally on research that worsens the global warming problem," said Campaign ExxonMobil National Coordinator Peter Altman. "While we are pleased that ExxonMobil has finally acknowledged the need for investments in low-pollution energy sources, this is no answer for unhappy shareholders. We are concerned that the Stanford project includes no goals, no actual reductions, and no commitment from ExxonMobil to use any of the energy sources that will be researched."Ross Gelbspan, author of the "The Heat is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription," said: "This is not the kind of research that is needed at a point in time when there is new evidence that the climate-change crisis is happening at the twice the originally predicted rate. Shell has invested $1 billion renewable energy. British Petroleum is the world's biggest vendor of solar systems. Toyota is beginning work next month on fuel-cell cars. By contrast, ExxonMobil is pretending that what is needed is research that will not bear fruit for 10 or more years. The problem is here today and the solutions are here today. ExxonMobil is ignoring both of those facts."

Andrew Logan, sustainable governance project program assistant at CERES, said: "It is estimated that ExxonMobil's planned investments in fossil-fuel exploration and production will create over 2 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next decade, while this Stanford research is being done. That will bring the total greenhouse emissions for which ExxonMobil is responsible to the same amount that 1.5 billion cars would emit in a year. This is not a company that is serious about finding solutions to the global-warming problem. This is a company that wants to hide behind the fig leaf of research to buy itself time to keep on polluting."Campaign ExxonMobil officials met Monday with ExxonMobil company representatives for a four-hour discussion about climate science, energy supplies, reductions projects and the company's reputational problems. The meeting also was attended by Andrew Logan of CERES, Sister Patricia Daly of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment and John Wilson of Christian Brothers Investment Services, Tracey Rembert of the Shareholder Action Network and Mark Mansley of Claros Consulting. Those attending from ExxonMobil were: Pat Mulva, vice president, Investor Relations; John Genova, general manager, Corporate Planning Department; Elissa Sterry, manager, Economics and Energy, Corporate Planning Department; Ken Cohen, vice president, Public Affairs; and Brian Flannery, manager, Science Strategy and Programs. During the meeting in Dallas, ExxonMobil officials made it clear that the company still does not accept the widely held conclusion that human activities are contributing to global warming reality of global warming.ExxonMobil announced last month it would spend $100 billion on new exploration and production of oil and gas over the next decade. Peter Altman pointed out: "To the layperson, $100 million to look into low emissions technology sounds like a lot. But it's only one tenth of 1 percent of what ExxonMobil will spend over the same time exploring and developing new sources of oil and gas, which is what is causing global warming in the first place."

London-based Claros Consulting researcher Mark Mansley said: "Shareholders concerned about ExxonMobil's position on global warming should understand that today's announcement changes nothing in terms of the long-term risk to their investment in the company. ExxonMobil is not acknowledging the reality of climate change, it does not have a plan for dealing with this reality and it remains dangerously behind its competitors in this regard."

Additionally, the Stanford Project will explore energy options that many experts say are problematic, including nuclear power and so-called "clean coal". Thus, ExxonMobil's investment may not even yield results in safer, cleaner energy sources, according to Campaign ExxonMobil.
Campaign ExxonMobil is a shareholder campaign to convince ExxonMobil to take a responsible position on climate change. Campaign ExxonMobil was founded by faith and environmental groups, and works with institutional investors, corporate governance activists and financial analysts to highlight the financial risks of ExxonMobil's current position.

CONTACT: Peter Altman, Campaign ExxonMobil at (512) 479-0335 or [email protected].

http://www.campaignexxonmobil.org/news/PR.112002.html
 
New Anti-global warming debate? Part 1

Good news, no matter which side of the fence you're on

Uh... no, no it isn't. It is like having the fox guard the hen house. Good news would be if the UN was shut down.
 
New Anti-global warming debate? Part 1

The Met office (Britain) has also agreed to completely re do the data sets under their control. God, I hope this cartoon actually posts!

DSC09185.jpg
We're on panel 3 right now.
 
New Anti-global warming debate? Part 1

Good news would be if the UN was shut down.

Would that be in reference to the IPCC or would you eliminate the UN altogether? I guess that would be a whole new debate. Is the UN an organization that is worth having around anymore?
 
New Anti-global warming debate? Part 1

Would that be in reference to the IPCC or would you eliminate the UN altogether? I guess that would be a whole new debate. Is the UN an organization that is worth having around anymore?

Hell no.. that thing is a waste of time and money and it's hardly in our best interests to be involved in it
 
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