climate deniers

Thu, 2010-01-21 13:35Brendan DeMelle
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George Monbiot Unveils Winner of Annual Award For Most Distorted Climate Coverage

George Monbiot, the Guardian’s straight-shooting environmental columnist, today unveiled the winner of the second annual (and final, if Monbiot can resist the urge to dole it out next year) Christopher Booker prize, given to the “journalist” who most flagrantly ignores facts in favor of cramming the greatest number of thoroughly debunked climate denier claims into a single entry.  

This year’s winner, John Tomlinson, a columnist for the Flint Journal in Michigan, managed to cram an impressive 38 misleading statements into a piece only 805 words long, a rate of one misleading statement per 21 words.  All in direct response to Monbiot's earlier criticism of Tomlinson's distorted columns.

Tomlinson managed to beat “his own provisional world record for density: the ratio of falsehoods to words,” by cramming more climate denial into one piece than his previous effort earlier in the year which contained 18 errors in just 486 words, a rate of one error per 26 words. 

Wed, 2010-01-20 12:51Brendan DeMelle
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Climate Denial Industry Blowing Hot Air On Himalayan Glaciers

The climate denial industry is once again trying to make a huge to-do about a tiny error by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

With the Climategate Swifthack episode fading from the limelight, after a thorough debunking of far-fetched accusations that scientists made up global warming, the climate science attack machine now wants the world to focus on one paragraph out of a 938-page, three-year-old report.

The contrarians are questioning a single reference to Himalayan glaciers included in a 2007 IPCC report that does not meet the IPCC’s well-established evidentiary standards.

Here is their alleged smoking gun: The second of three 2007 reports from the IPCC included a statement that the likelihood of Himalayan glaciers disappearing "by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high."

But the reference to Himalayan glaciers melting at that early date didn’t originate from a peer-reviewed study, meaning it should not have appeared in the IPCC report. 

Sure, that’s slightly embarrassing.  But it isn’t grounds to declare the entire library of climate science a fraud. The IPCC’s findings have been validated and substantiated by assessments conducted by leading scientific institutions the world over. 

The real news here is that a single ‘error’ was discovered in just one of the IPCC’s reports, collectively reams of paper thick, and the ‘error’ isn’t an error at all.  The Himalayan glaciers are melting.  There is no debate about that in the scientific community.

Mon, 2010-01-11 11:07Brendan DeMelle
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Climate Denier Rod Liddle Considered For Editor Position at The Independent

Rod Liddle

The Independent, one of the only progressive papers in the UK, especially when it comes to climate change coverage, is considering appointing a climate denier as its new editor. 

The Independent's likely new owner, Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev, is apparently considering whether to make outspoken columnist Rod Liddle the new editor of the paper. 

Reader backlash against this decision is growing, and for good reason.

A Facebook group set up by outraged Independent readers, entitled ‘If Rod Liddle becomes editor of The Independent, I will not buy it again,’ has accumulated over 2,100 followers in just a few days.

The group page lists some of Liddle’s recent atrocious behavior on his blog at ‘The Spectator’:

Liddle has lately been using his blog at 'The Spectator' to indulge in the use of yawn-inducing, attention-seeking derogatory terms to insult ethnic minorities including decrying "Muslim Savages" here.

...and falsely accusing black men of being behind the majority of crimes in London while mocking the entire Black British community for contributing nothing but "rap music" and "goat curry".

And just this weekend, Liddle had these choice words in his Spectator column: "F*** off back to where you’re from, then, you Muslims."

Liddle’s penchant for racist and sexist remarks isn’t the only reason for concern though. 

He’s also a climate change denier.

Wed, 2009-12-09 14:57Brendan DeMelle
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Climate Contrarian Monckton calls young climate activists “Hitler Youth” and "Nazis"

Fifty young U.S. clean energy activists stormed the stage today in Copenhagen during a live webcast organized by Americans for Prosperity and featuring climate denier Lord Christopher Monckton

When the youth group interrupted the webcast to deliver the message that real Americans want clean energy and a fair climate treaty, Monckton went ballistic, calling the students “crazed Hitler youth” and “Nazis.”

The incident was not likely the intended result Americans for Prosperity hoped for as it launched the COP15 version of its "Hot Air Tour" (a.k.a. denial-a-palooza). AFP sent its team to Copenhagen "to make sure that our side of the story is told." But their live event today – complete with the student protest - was webcast to over forty climate denier rallies taking place in cities across the United States.

Thu, 2008-06-26 09:14Todd Carmichael
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New on the Endangered Species List: Perennial Arctic Ice

The North Pole could be free of sea ice for the first time in recorded history this summer, according to National Geographic News.

And that would have the effect of speeding global warming, as highly reflective ice gives way to heat absorbing water in the high Arctic.

As NatGeo reports, scientists were shocked last year when the high Arctic lost 65 per cent of its ice cover in one year, an unprecedented loss over a time scale they previously thought was impossible. And, perversely, that generates more of the Deniers' favorite commodity: doubt.

We can all now doubt that things were as bad as we might have feared. As it turns out: they're worse.
Tue, 2008-06-24 08:10Mitchell Anderson
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Oil Execs to the Big House Over Climate Change?

Should oil executives be prosecuted for high crimes against humanity? Top NASA scientist Jim Hansen thinks so.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Hansen said

“When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organizations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."


Clearly many the scientific community have finally had it with being nice with the oil lobby…

 

Mon, 2007-11-26 12:03Kevin Grandia
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Ignoring Expert Advice is the Only JunkScience

Found this little gem of information over at the John Locke Foundation's blog advocating that we just ignore the findings of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all together.

Excerpted from the astro-turf king himself, Steve "the junkman" Milloy's site, it appears that the climate denial crowd is fitting their bill entirely now, with what can only be labeled as total and outright denial.

Wed, 2007-11-14 21:42Kevin Grandia
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Big Tobacco then, Global Warming Now

Here's an October 1995 internal memo I came across written by someone at tobacco giant Philip Morris outlining all the "public policy grants" and the totals received by US think tanks and associations.

More than a few of the familiar names involved in the industry-funded war on climate science appear on this list, including:

Competitive Enterprise Institute - $200,000

...

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