Global Hoaxing Threatening Florida

March 14, 2015 by Leave a Comment

A new report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting says that not only don’t the Governor and Senators believe in Global Warming, the entire state appartus has been ordered not to use the term.

“The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years.

But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes.

DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.

The policy goes beyond semantics and has affected reports, educational efforts and public policy in a department that has about 3,200 employees and $1.4 billion budget.

“We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability,’ ” said Christopher Byrd, an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to 2013. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”

FCIR | Korten

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Debating Cause of Climate Change is Moral and Scientific Equivalent of Debating Gravity

February 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

A Republican, a meteorologist and a business owner weighs in on Climate Change and the deniers>

To the heart of your question, why don’t more climate scientists enter into the public debate? Because the debate is over. It’s the moral and scientific equivalent of debating gravity. The experts have spoken, and because a very small minority of stakeholders and shareholders don’t care for the implications there is vociferous push-back from certain special interests. I worked in television news for 35 years. Mainstream media likes a good on-air food-fight, a protagonist and antagonist, shouting at each other about their worldviews. It attracts curiosity and eyeballs – it’s ultimately good for ratings. But it’s a false equivalent, and it’s a terrible way to conduct science. We put a handful of (paid) climate skeptics and industry lobbyists on a stage with thousands of the world’s leading climate PhD’s, and think this is somehow serving the public interest? It’s not. It’s creating more confusion, more delay and more denial, as viewers and readers pick and choose their reality as easily as changing channels on their TV or grazing over their morning horoscope. I can absolutely understand why more professionals don’t want to subject themselves to inane banter with science-deniers.

Scott Mandia via Open Mind

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91 Think Tanks and Industry Groups Primarily Responsible for Climate Change Denial

December 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

“An extensive study into the financial networks that support groups denying the science behind climate change and opposing political action has found a vast, secretive web of think tanks and industry associations, bankrolled by conservative billionaires.

“I call it the climate-change counter movement,” study author Robert Brulle, who published his results in the journal Climatic Change, told the Guardian. “It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.”

“His work, which is focused on the United States, shows how a network of 91 think tanks and industry groups are primarily responsible for conservative opposition to climate policy. Almost 80 percent of these groups are registered as charitable organizations for tax purposes and collectively received more than seven billion dollars between 2003 and 2010.

“Among those named as key nodes of the network were the American Enterprise Institute, which claims to have no institutional position on climate change, and the Heritage Foundation, which campaigns on a number of issues.

Read All

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Yes for Us! No for Them!

September 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

How long before those who send these guys to office get a clue: ugly, selfish, destructive behavior.

Colorado House Republicans Unanimously Support Flood Relief, Unanimously Opposed Sandy Aid

also

Though scientists have noted that climate is a key cause of these Colorado floods, Coffman, Gardner, Lamborn, and Tipton are all deniers of climate science.

Crestview, Colorado, September 2013 flooding

Crestview, Colorado, September 2013 flooding

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Time to Bing Google?

July 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Like many of you I started using the Google search engine way back when.  The clean interface and quick results of a search were much better than the awful AOL and Microsoft searches.  I went on to use Gmail for my corporate and personal accounts.  I enjoy  the cloud accessibility of Google Docs.

Google

However!

Enough may be enough.  Not only is my gmail account regularly unavailable or slow, or the search engine pops up with messages that the security certificate has been compromised, but today I learn that Google is not only in bed with the infamous James Imhofe of Oklahoma but is drawing the bathwater too. For Shame!

 

In a shameful act of corporate hypocrisy, Google on Thursday will host a fundraising lunch for Sen. James Inhofe, the delusional or dishonest Oklahoma Republican who famously declared that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

It’d be unconscionable for any organization to lift a finger to help the antiscience lawmaker translate his medieval beliefs into public policy or spread more dangerous misinformation on the gravest challenge of this generation.

 But it’s especially galling and disappointing for a company whose self-proclaimed mission is improving the lot of humankind through the power of accurate information. Never mind a company that has publicly stressed the importance of clean energy and whose own chairman called out climate change deniers as fabulists.
[If the Chron stops you from reading this because you aren’t a subscriber, find the discarded business section of today’s (July 10, 2013) paper at your coffee shop  and look for the James Temple column. Or, go to the library, or e-mail me and I’ll send you the whole article.  It’s hot!]
So I am slowly trying Microsoft’s Bing search engine, as well as several others.  Mail may soon follow…perhaps a nice, stable, local provider?

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Climate Scientist Sues Right Wing Propaganda Organs for Libel

October 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’m not one who thinks taking things to the courts is always the best course of action.  Justice is sometimes served; truth sometimes goes missing.  In this case, I’d have to know more about the thinking behind it.  Michael Mann, leading climate scientist and director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, has indeed been vilified.  In at least one article he was compared to child molester Jerry Sandusky.

He announced today he was suing the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with CEI analyst Rand Simberg and National Review reporter Mark Steyn.

But, will winning the law suit repair anything?  Has he been damaged by the scurrilous accusations where it matters — in his peer-group, his university or community?  Is he unable to publish, or has his earning capacity been injured? Will the bad opinion of him held by those who believe such crap be changed by a finding of guilty? Or, will they heap calumny on the legal system that comes up with the finding?

And if he fails to prevail?  As the article says, getting a guilty verdict in a libel trial can be immensely difficult — depending to some degree how ‘public’ a figure he is, and therefore how much calumny is acceptable.

Of course Mann, and his suit, lie within the context of the larger science-denial fight.  He says directly that he hopes to fight back against “the onslaught of dishonest and libelous attacks that climate scientists have endured for years by dishonest front groups seeking to discredit the case for concern over climate change.”

How would the success or failure of his lawsuit reduce the onslaught of attacks, or at least reduce the numbers of those who are persuaded by attacks and faith over evidence and rationality?

What is wanted is a turn around from the incredible belief-over-evidence mania that has gripped a large portion of the United States in the last 30 years. If wise and canny strategists think Mann’s law-suit will assist in that endeavor — and remember, the Scopes Monkey Trial resulted in ambiguous success for both sides of the same issue — than it gets my weak g0-ahead.

Personally I’d rather see tens of thousands surrounding the What House, and fundamentalist churches across the nation, echoing the cries of Florida officials about rising sea-water and the damage to house and home, and matching with What Are You Going to Do About this!

Of course Michael Mann may not be able to accomplish such demonstrations, and the lawsuit is his best shot at Doing Something!

Good Luck… and the rest of us, please check out

FRONTLINE – CLIMATE OF DOUBT,  Thursday, your favorite PBS station

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Climate Change — We Look Like a Joke, Right?

October 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Clinton: “If you’re an American, the best thing you can do is to make it politically unacceptable for people to engage in denial. I mean, it makes us — we look like a joke, right?

You can’t win the nomination of one of the major parties in our country if you admit that the scientists are right? That disqualifies you from doing it?

You could really help us there. It’s really tragic because we need a debate in America, and in every country, between people who are a little bit to the right and people who are a little bit to the left about what the best way is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions

Bill Clinton’s Message

How Clinton Frames it….

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Paul Ryan: Climate Science Denier and Conspiracy Theorist

August 12, 2012 by 1 Comment

From Climate Progress

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, is a virulent denier of climate science, with a voting record to match.

A favorite of the Koch brothers, Ryan has accused scientists of engaging in conspiracy to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” He has implied that snow invalidates global warming.

Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate disasters like the drought devastating his home state, and to eliminate the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E):

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Oil industry-funded “BEST” study finds global warming is real, manmade

July 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Published: 12:21 AM GMT on July 30, 2012
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) group is in the news again, surprising climate change skeptics with results from a new study that shows the earth has warmed 2.5 °F over the past 250 years, and 1.5 °F over the past fifty years, and that “essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.” Dr. Richard Muller, who heads the BEST team, now considers himself a “converted skeptic,” which he wrote about in a New York Times op-edon Saturday:

“Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”

Not only is the lead scientist of the project a former climate change skeptic, BEST itself is funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, an organization that is rooted deep in the oil industry and the manufactured doubt industry.

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Kerry Blasts the Deniers

June 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

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