Today's Sunday Rimes runs pseudo-science as if it were real science - their "scientists", however, have links to the Exxon-funded "Heartland Inst." lobby group.
The Sunday Times today run pseudo-science as if it were real science with a story titled:
“World may not be warming, say scientists”
So just who are these ‘scientists’ making the claim at the heart of The Sunday Times’s story?
According to the lobbying transparency organisation SourceWatch, the so-called “Science and Public Policy Institute” (SPPI) – who are named in The Sunday Times as the organisation behind the “research” – are none other than a spin off of the Exxon-funded group “The Frontiers of Freedom”.
The SPPI website shows that they are also linked to the Exxon-funded lobby group, the Heartland Institute. Indeed, the first press release of the SPPI listed a Heartland Institute staffer as its press contact.
The Royal Society has attacked Exxon for its funding of such front groups, which have been described as “the climate denial industry”.
The ‘research paper’ was not ‘peer reviewed,’ which isn’t surprising given that the ‘scientist’ who authored the paper is Anthony Watts, known to the rest of us as one of the world’s leading climate denial bloggers and somebody without any climate science credentials.
The SPPI draws heavily on the papers of Lord Monckton, who the SPPI list among their “personnel”. Viscount Monckton is a UKIP peer who claims to have a Nobel Prize when he doesn’t.
He also claims to have a cure for HIV! Of course he doesn’t. He described the Copenhagen conference as “a sort of Nuremburg rally,” and recently attacked a young Jewish climate campaigner as “Nazi”.
Also today, The Mail on Sunday reports the astonishing claim that “there has been no global warming since 1995”.
In reality, according to both the World Meteorological Society (WMO) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the 2000s were the warmest decade on record.
The Mail’s claim is particularly ironic given that the website of the climate denial lobby group, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, promotes a graph of temperatures beginning in 2001, presumably precisely to conceal the marked warming recorded through the 20th Century and the fact that nine of the ten warmest years occurred this decade.
In related news, it has been reported how a quote held up by sceptics as a ‘smoking gun’, as it was purported to have come from former IPCC and Met Office climate scientist Sir John Houghton, was fabricated.
Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation quoted Houghton as saying “unless we announce disasters no one will listen” – but on the letters page of today’s Observer, Houghton demands a public retraction from Peiser.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, whilst demanding transparency from the scientific community, refuses to reveal who fund them. As Left Foot Forward has already reported, however, many of their key people have ties to the fossil fuel industry.
61 Responses to “Sunday Times publish pseudo-science as it were fact – their “scientists” have links to big oil”
Oxford Kevin
Mr Mouse,
I never said the MWP existed anywhere, dont use the strawman argument. You stated that during the MWP it was far hotter in the Northern Hemisphere than it is now. You also said that you say nothing without having a basis for it. Please provide a basis for your claim.
One of the forms of the methods of discussion that skeptics often use is that when they are losing a particular argument they try to switch the discussion to something else. You have been trying to do that whilst not dealing with the issue at hand, which I have pushed on is your claim of the MWP being far hotter in the NH than now.
I think the best way of resolving an argument is to resolve each issue one at a time where possible, in this way each issue can be left as resolved and then move on to the next argument, otherwise the discussion just swings back and forth between different issues and gets nowhere.
One point that you have made in your last comment I can’t let go of though. You don’t trust the CRU data set, do you believe that the data set was intentionally manipulated to provide the result of global warming or do you think the figures have been manipulated badly out of incompetence? To demonstrate why I am reasonably confident in their results in a discussion with you would take a discussion longer than the one we already have.
That is why I used a different data than the CRU data set to demonstrate warming and as part of that to demonstrate that 2005 rather than 1998 is the warmest year. As I pointed out then the raw data, the processed data, the code for processing the data, the peer reviewed article describing the methodology for processing the data has all been publicly available for sometime.
Oxford Kevin
A correction. Where I said “I never said the MWP existed anywhere”, I meant to say.
“I have never said anywhere that the MWP never existed”
I imagine if Johnathan Leake was reading this mistake of mine he would be claiming global warming alarmist says that the MWP never existed. I must be more careful with my words.
Kevin
Anon E Mouse
Kevin – Generally I tend to go on cock up rather than conspiracy but this weekend I’ll grab a couple of beers, dig out the some files I have regarding the CRU and see what you think…
I am genuinely pressed at work and not deliberately not responding: please do not assume that I do not have a response by any lack of one.
Why would Johnathan Leake be interested in your comments particularly btw?
(Oh and I don’t get hung up on little things like the structure of a sentence being incorrectly put – I’m not that petty)
Oxford Kevin
Jonathan Leake wouldn’t be interested in my comments, I am not important enough for him to worry about. I was just referring to his ability to misrepresent what people say.
I’m not sure if you should bother spending your time looking into the CRU e-mails. It has taken so long to not even get evidence that I am still waiting as to whether or not the MWP was far hotter than today or not.
Anon E Mouse
Kevin – (With respect to you) I am actually busy at the moment and digging out the computer is going to be a hassle!
It wasn’t the CRU emails I was going to mail – just some ice core data that I have for you to agree were correct (or not agree of course).
As for the MWP, since we don’t have thermometer based temperatures how can I prove to you that it was hotter?
Why do you think it wasn’t? How could one grow grapes in a colder climate?