The BIG LIE: Sceptics Funded by Big Oil -no, the Alarmists are.

Image: Cartoons by Josh

How often do you see articles (eg LINK) saying that “sceptics are funded by BigOil?” 

 OK, please BigOil, we NEED funds, we have not received our share. Where are they?

(see Hey Big Oil! Where's our $$$$s?) 

 “Sceptics are lavishly funded by BigOil.”

Well, no! The Wall Street Journal last year exposed this to be a lie. (link)

When did it become received media wisdom that global warming skepticism was all the work of shadowy right-wing groups lavishly funded by oil companies? As best we can tell, it started with a 1995 Harper's magazine article claiming to expose this "high-powered engine of disinformation." Today anyone who raises a doubt about the causes of global warming is accused of fronting for, say, Exxon, whatever the facts.

  

We know that BigOil sponsors the influential “progressive” think tank of Pew Charitable Trusts thanks to Joanne Nova (link) and also, from the same link, we know that the Heartland institute does NOT depend on BigOil funding even though that has constantly been an assertion. 

The favorite target of global warming alarmists is the group of big international oil companies. Big Oil is accused of generously funding the global warming skeptics, like The Heartland Institute.  (link)

We also have recently had a paper by Cook et al (2013) claiming a “consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.”

Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. 

This paper has been rebutted everywhere, including by Lord Christopher Monckton

0.3% CONSENSUS, 

NOT 97.1%

 Also by Anthony Watts: (link)

You’d think such simple elementary errors in data would have been caught in peer review, after all, that is what peer review is for. 

I think that there was a goal by Cook and his crowd, and that goal was to match the 97% number that has become a popular meme in the literature and the media. This intent seems confirmed by a recent statement by one of the co-authors, Dana Nuccitilli in a media argument that 97% global warming consensus meets resistance from scientific denialism

The above-mentioned Dana Nuccitelli describes himself as "a blogger on environmentalguardian.co.uk. He is an environmental scientist and risk assessor and also contributes to (UN)SkepticalScience.com." (LINK)  

(UN)SkepticalScience is a blog run by the aforementioned John Cook. Of  Cook’s blog, Realist Scientist  and author John Droz Jr writes: (link)

I started with the assumption that Mr. Cook was a competent and well-intentioned person. After some looking around there, here’s what I found out and concluded.

The first red flag is the fact that Science (by definition) is skeptical, so why the repetition in the name? It’s something like naming a site “The attractive fashion model”.

Of more concern is the fact that (c0ntrary to what one might be led to believe by the title) the site is actually focused against skeptical scientists — specifically those who have the temerity to question anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Hmmm.

- See more at: http://www.masterresource.org/2010/08/skeptical-science-website/#sthash.S9S8R5o7.dpuf

Anthony Watts recently put Dana Nuccitelli under the search light and found….uh oh! He is payed by BigOil. That’s right – this alarmist blogger and contributor to (UN)Skeptical Science is in the pay of BigOil.

His Linkedin page (Link) describes him as an Environmental Scientist at Tetra Tech.

Alex Jones reveals more of the Alarmists funded by BigOil: (link)

WWF 

Donna Laframboise‘s recent article entitled, The WWF’s Vast Pool of Oil Money chronicles the rise the globalist green charity – seeded with funding from global petroleum giant Royal Dutch Shell, who’s former President of 15 years, John Loudon, later served as president of WWF International for four years after that. 

Greenpeace:

Greenpeace dictate on their own website that the idea of free speech no longer applies when it comes to the climate debate, and will often attack climate skeptics based on their alleged connections to ‘Big Oil’.

However.....

Their own militant stance makes it all the more interesting that Greenpeace itself is funded by Standard Oil money, and so is Sierra Club – according to the watchdog website Activist Cash. 

Rockefeller Brothers Foundation
Greenpeace $1,080,000.00 1997 – 2005
Sierra Club $710,000.00 1995 – 2001
ACORN $10,000.00 2002 – 2002 

Rockefeller Family Fund
Greenpeace $115,000.00 2002 – 2005
Sierra Club $105,000.00 1996 – 2002
ACORN $25,000.00 1998 – 1998 

Rockefeller Foundation
Greenpeace $20,285.00 1996 – 2001
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Sierra Club $38,250.00 1997 – 2000 

Suffice to say that the neither of these champions of climate change and global government – the WWF and Greenpeace, would exist without all that juicy Big Oil Money.

and, lest we forget, Al Gore sold his TV Channel to .....yep....BigOil. (link)

“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”

Yet these hypocrites and their supporter still continue their relentless lies.  Carbon Sense Coalition's Viv Forbes was attacked on Menzies House.(Link) e.g.

#8. As Viv Forbes is a coal miner, he will be ripping far more carbon (coal) out of the ground to be burned to form CO2, than Tony Abbott could ever bury to offset an increase in CO2 levels.

To detractors Viv replied: (link)

We have spent our lives in productive tax-paying endeavours, mainly in activities related to farming and mining. We were both reared on farms, me a dairy farm near Warwick, and Judy a cattle grazing property near Mackay. We have overseen the operations of large beef properties, and owned two farms ourselves – one a hobby farm, one a real cattle and sheep operation where we have lived for the last 23 years. 

I have also spent a lot of my life in exploration, financial analysis, consulting and management involving base metals, oil/gas and coal, mainly in northern Australia.
Those who would like to silence me will accuse me of being an apologist for the coal industry. It is true that I am a non-executive director of a small coal exploration company and we hold shares in it. But this company does not produce coal and is largely unaffected by what the politicians are doing now. My experience in the coal business does mean that I understand the science and politics of coal.

Well done, Viv for standing up to the real science and opposing the falsified AGW hypothesis.

Thanks to Dale for the heads-up.

A bridge in the climate debate

The ideas as revealed in this essay are considered by its author, Anthony Watts, to be such a ‘light bulb’ experience that he has pinned it to the top of his blog site, which just happens to be the largest climate change blog site in the world Watts Up With That. Anthony writes in his essay as copied below with his permission that, “it is one of those seminal moments where I think a bridge has been created in the climate debate, and I hope you’ll seize the moment and embrace it.”

My own thoughts are that this video is well worth viewing and provides the opportunity to reflect. I haven't always agreed with all that Dr. Savory says, but he has over the years made an important contribution to the improvement of beef production systems and an understanding of its interaction with the environment especially strong evidence that refutes demands that livestock must be removed from ecosystems. Where Dr. Savory   and the Savory Institute have gone beyond the realms of where I can agree is when they wish to introduce arbitrary and undefined concept of  sustainable beef production and also their involvement in the Global roundtable of sustainable beef.

Anthony Watts continues: A bridge in the climate debate – How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change



Imagine, shooting 40,000 elephants to prevent the land in Africa from going to desert because scientists thought the land couldn’t sustain them, only to find the effort was for naught and the idea as to why was totally wrong. That alone was a real eye opener

The Sahara Desert in Africa, as seen from space – Image NASA

Every once in awhile, an idea comes along that makes you ask, “gee why hasn’t anybody seen this before?”. This one of those times. This video below is something I almost didn’t watch, because my concerns were triggered by a few key words in the beginning. But, recommended by a Facebook friend, I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did, because I want every one of you, no matter what side of the climate debate you live in, to watch this and experience that light bulb moment as I did. The key here is to understand that desertification is one of the real climate changes we are witnessing as opposed to some the predicted ones we often fight over.
It is one of those seminal moments where I think a bridge has been created in the climate debate, and I hope you’ll seize the moment and embrace it. This video comes with my strongest possible recommendation, because it speaks to a real problem, with real solutions in plain language, while at the same time offering true hope.
This is a TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory in Los Angeles this past week, attended by our friend Dr. Matt Ridley, whose presentation we’ll look at another time. Sometimes, TED talks are little more that pie in the sky; this one is not. And, it not only offers a solution, it shows the solution in action and presents proof that it works. It makes more sense than anything I’ve seen in a long, long, time. Our friend Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., champion of studying land use change as it affects local and regional climate will understand this, so will our cowboy poet Willis Eschenbach, who grew up on a cattle ranch. I daresay some of our staunchest critics will get it too.
To encapsulate the idea presented, I’ll borrow from a widely used TV commercial and say:

Beef, its what’s for climate

You can call me crazy for saying that after you watch this presentation. A BIG hat tip to Mark Steward Young for bringing this to my attention.

“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.

Published on Mar 4, 2013

There’s a longer version with more detail below, about an hour long. Also worth watching if you want to understand the process in more detail:

Feasta Lecture 2009
Extracts available at vimeo.com/8291896
Allan Savory argued that while livestock may be part of the problem, they can also be an important part of the solution. He has demonstrated time and again in Africa, Australia and North and South America that, properly managed, they are essential to land restoration. With the right techniques, plant growth is lusher, the water table is higher, wildlife thrives, soil carbon increases and, surprisingly, perhaps four times as many cattle can be kept.
feasta.org/events/general/2009_lecture.htm
Recorded 7 November 2009, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland