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
We can grow grapes today. The plot in wikipedia article you referred to definitely showed that in the Northern Hemisphere it is warmer today than during the MWP, yet you have stated it was far hotter during the MWP than today. I just want to see the basis for your claim as you said you don’t say anything without a basis.
Kevin
Anon E Mouse
Kevin – The basis for my claims are obviously on items I have read elsewhere, since like yourself I am not directly involved in the analysing of data in this field so you may believe one thing and I may believe another.
You may say that “So and so is wrong” (I mention this as I read Leake in papers regularly) but I would make any statement or post in bad faith…
Also it is you who is trying to forward a minority view that (man made) CO2 causes global warming. As I have always stated I just don’t know but I agree the climate is/always has changed and your data sets only go back to the 1800’s.
However I will at this point say that I am actually unable to find a graph or data that shows the MWP was hotter but I will continue to look.
That statement about vineyards in the MWP is actually a given but seems not to (at present)be supported by any facts (I can currently find).
I don’t say anything without a basis for comment and I could point you to several websites where that claim is made but I have to (presently) admit that where they got their data from to make those claims I do not know.
But I will find it Kevin so just hang in there.
I do not accept your case but (as it stands as I make this post) I have to concede that (perhaps) it wasn’t warmer in the MWP…
Perhaps…
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Oxford Kevin
Hi Mr Mouse, I think I might have tracked down the data you were looking for, but perhaps not. Anyway I have written a blog piece that you can view with my thoughts on what I think it means.
http://oxfordkevin.carbonclimate.org/?p=176