House of Eratosthenes

It appears that in this movie I have not yet seen, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), words are tossed out that leave the impression there is perfect agreement from all credible scientists: Earth getting warmer, disaster looms, man is the cause. The only debate remaining about this, concerns “dirty” scientists, if you will, who have been bought off by coal and oil interests. This may be the thing captured by film reviewer Roger Ebert:

Gore says that although there is “100 percent agreement” among scientists, a database search of newspaper and magazine articles shows that 57 percent question the fact of global warming, while 43 percent support it. These figures are the result, he says, of a disinformation campaign started in the 1990s by the energy industries to “reposition global warming as a debate.”

This strongly implies, and is indeed being interpreted by the pro-global-warming folks who have seen the movie (or else something else is?) as saying, all global warming skeptics are either non-scientists or else bought off by the energy companies.

The word “all” makes the statement an absolute. So this conflicts with the following:

SourceWatch is a Wiki-powered repository for notes about sources. It’s used for gathering dirt on sources who achieve recognition, while articulating viewpoints contrary to the interests of those who maintain SourceWatch. SourceWatch has an exhaustive list of “Climate Change Skeptics,” and seems to have done a meticulous job of gathering newspaper articles, journal articles, and other evidence against global warming skeptics — especially anecdotes about money changing hands from the energy industry.

The SourceWatch list of climate change skeptics, includes the following. Some have documented ties to coal and oil concerns. Interestingly, some do not.

Individual Skeptics
1. Dennis Avery
2. Sallie L. Baliunas
3. Robert C. Balling
4. David Bellamy
5. Bob Carter
6. Ian Castles
7. John R. Christy
8. Ian Clark
9. Paul Driessen
10. Bill Gray
11. Andrei Illarionov, chief economic adviser to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin
12. Aynsley Kellow
13. William Kininmonth
14. Richard S. Lindzen
15. Bjorn Lomborg
16. Stephen McIntyre
17. Ross McKitrick
18. Patrick J. Michaels
19. Alan Moran
20. Alan Oxley
21. Garth Paltridge
22. Tim Patterson
23. S. Fred Singer
24. Carlo Stagnaro
25. Philip Stott
26. Wolfgang Th�ne
27. Jan Veizer
28. Lord Lawson

Organizational Skeptics
1. Scientific Alliance (UK)
2. George C. Marshall Institute (US)
3. International Policy Network (UK)
4. Institute of Economic Affairs (UK)
5. Competitive Enterprise Institute (US)
6. Institute of Public Affairs (Australia)
7. Friends of Science (Canada)
8. Lavoisier Group (Australia)
9. New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
10. The United Kingdom House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs
11. Australian APEC Study Centre
12. Cooler Heads Coalition

Throughout all of the 28 individuals listed above, if any one amongst them can be tied to the energy industry economically, I would expect SourceWatch to make the tie and get it documented. And indeed they do, where they can. But the tie isn’t always there…even though I have been told, by many global-warming proponents, that the tie should always be there.

Will check this out line-by-line myself.

Gore continues to sacrifice large chunks of his personal time, to head off the oncoming weather crisis. Interestingly, though, all of the things he’s doing, are things that increase his reserves of political capital — he does nothing, so far as I know, to deplete that political capital. No demands that anybody actually do anything that would inconvenience anybody. No accelerated timeframes for converting to solar power. No proposals to get eighteen-wheeler diesel trucks off the road. No proposals to relocate the nation’s financial center out of Manhattan, away from water’s edge. In fact, to the best I know, all year long he hasn’t done anything outside of P.R.

Odd, since one has to doubt movies and photo-ops are going to save our planet.

What if a global warming skeptic received money from the energy industry? Is it possible they could have deposited this money, and subsequently, articulated some skepticism that turns out to be correct? Definitely possible; in fact, unless one is trying to assert some out-and-out skullduggery is going on, it’s difficult to ascertain what any one scientist’s source of income has to do with anything.

Update 6/29/06: In an intellectual exercise of Devil’s Advocate, I’ve picked #2 as the lucky girl: Sallie L. Baliunas. Her Wikipedia Entry contains an impressive assortment of information; nothing derogatory, not even the much-talked-about energy industry funding. In fact, the only negative statement on the page that I can see, is this: “However, her viewpoint – that solar variation accounts for most of the recent climate change – is not widely accepted among climate scientists.”

This just goes to show what a problem science is having nowadays. Real “science” stands mute on what viewpoints are widely accepted and what viewpoints are not. Real science constructs a viewpoint out of the available facts, calls it a “theory,” tests the resilience of the theory through the failure of repeated efforts to tear it down, and invites assistance from colleagues in trying to tear it down. Only fake science is in the business of “accepting viewpoints.”

My own viewpoint is, this statement shows why Wikipedia is not-quite-official.

Regarding Baliunas’ energy-industry funding. I do not doubt for a single second that the funding history is there. But if I were more accepting of the MMGW (man made global-warming) ideas, and enthusiastic about making other people more accepting, it would be critically important to me to be armed with this anecdotal evidence about Dr. Baliunas. So where is it?

Curiouser still: This website purports to document “How ExxonMobil Funds The Climate Change Skeptics.” Their profile on Dr. Baliunas calls an abrupt halt to this topic, after proclaiming “A darling of the anti-climate movement, Baliunas has been a central scientist in the fight against action on climate change. She is used by virtually all of the Exxon-funded front groups as their scientific expert.” So we do have backup…in aggregate. The sole specific pertaining to Dr. Baliunas, in this profile anyway, is a citation on a Seattle PI story from the summer of 2003 which says,

The energy industry provides significant funding for groups that employ some of the authors or promote their new study. Soon’s co-authors were Sallie Baliunas, also from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center; Sherwood Idso and his son, Craig Idso of Tempe, Ariz., who are the former president and the current president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; and David Legates, a climate researcher at the University of Delaware.

What an interesting article this is. It makes reference to a “worldwide storm of e-mail among climate scientists, some of whom have proposed organizing a research boycott.”

Boycott? Scientists inflict assault on other scientists through boycotts? I thought scientists inflicted assault upon theories, with facts. Now, why would a scientist rely on a boycott, when it would be so much more scientific to rely on facts?

You know, it’s not that this questioning of energy industry funding isn’t healthful. I think it is. And I would go so far as to say, if the scientists who are skeptical of the emerging orthodoxy of climate change, and MMGW, are interested in promulgating their skepticism — I would look to them to take the initiative in producing a study that can be held up high, as utterly clean, sanitary and pristine, untouched by energy industry funding.

Legitimate questions are to be raised by the lack of such a study.

I would chastise the other side, too: A question is not an answer. Even if the absolutism stands that any & all credentialed climate-change skeptics are tied to the energy industry — and I have strong doubts that it will, since it appears to exist only in rhetoric — this would not be proof, nor would it even be circumstantial evidence, that the ecosystem is in a catastrophic or irreversible slide into oblivion.

As it is briefly touched-upon in the FAQ (Question #10), I have a bristling disagreement with the prevailing viewpoint about what “science” is. I agree with this prevailing viewpoint that science is sealed into a pristine environment, to be untouched by the “unwashed masses.” And I further agree with the prevailing viewpoint that once science has done its work, the “unwashed masses” have a role to play in what to do with what science has found out. And it seems to just naturally follow that if science says our environment is being harmed by our actions, and our continuing survival is placed in doubt by the unchanged continuance of those actions, it’s up to the “unwashed masses” to change the actions.

Where I disagree, is the point of hand-off between the intellectual elites sealed into that pristine envrionment, and the unwashed masses. Scientists are testifying about…stuff. In my mind, it’s their place to testify about facts. And it’s also their place to testify about what the facts mean. If you lack the proper education, you lack the reliable faculties to figure out what it means when Star A is 1’13” from Star B on June 21, and the distance between the two is 1’06” on December 21. Certainly, if you come up with an idea of what this means, and a “real scientist” comes up with a different idea, the real scientist’s idea is going to be a great deal more credible.

But let it be noted, that the above example dealing in parallax involves simple math, in which there is one legitimate answer and an infinite number of illegitimate ones. I use the term “illegitimate” to describe an assertion that is made with an irreconcilable contradiction to available facts.

Tainted with the stench of energy industry funding, or no, climate change dissent doesn’t fall within this boundary. Climate-change skeptic scientists are “testifying” about their opinions…and that in itself is a perversion of science…and we, the unwashed masses, are being instructed to ignore what they have to say — not because their theories are irreconcilably offensive to empirical facts, but because of funding issues. Funding issues which are not always specifically stated, and are often simply suggested. Funding issues, plus the testimony of other scientists, with other opinions, who are also perverting science by testifying about their opinions.

This is a fine line. As a layman, I do not need a scientist to say “I think X.” It is critically important to me, for the scientist to say “I think X because in order to think !X, you would have to explain Fact A, B and C.” I do not have the expertise to realize that, reliably, on my own. Once Explanation W comes along, to reconcile !X with Facts A+B+C, it means very little to me when the scientist stands on his scientist-podium and says “I still believe in X, because I think Explanation W is bollywonkers.” That means nothing…or at least, nothing more than a layman saying the same thing. You find a Fact D to make new problems for Explanation W, and we’re having a different conversation. But if a scientist has an article of belief that he doesn’t like W, when he’s already invested himself against it politically, what it basically comes down to is, I don’t care.

And here, we’ve descended far, far beneath that. We’re being told Explanation W is to be discounted…because Explanation W has the fingerprints of energy industry funding.

I think there’s a saying that touches on this issue. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table. Nobody’s given me any reason, to regard the corporate-funding slander against the climate change skeptics, as anything outside of that. None whatsoever.

Thing I Know #129. Leaders; votes; clergy; academics; pundits; prevailing sentiment; political expediency. Wherever these decide what is & isn’t true, an empire will surely fall.

Update 7/26/06: Significant overlap between the list above, and the sixty scientists who called on Canadian PM Stephen Harper to re-visit the science of global warming this April.

Also more overlap between those, and the table of names at Envirotruth.

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Memo For File XWednesday, June 28th, 2006

Memo For File X
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006