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Icecap.us, Just Who Are These Global Warming Denialists
By Mark Schauss | April 13, 2009
I just love it when people tell me that global warming is a sham and point to groups of so-called scientists to back up their claims such as the bunch from icecap.us. Being the eternal skeptic myself, I decided to find out who the people are at icecap so I looked over the list of adviser’s and I headed to Sourcewatch.com to find out where these people get their funding. Guess what? Yup, they are people who make their living from those who would most suffer from controls on global warming emissions.
Let’s look at who some of these people are:
Robert C. Balling Jr –Balling has acknowledged receiving $408,000 in research funding from the fossil fuel industry over the last decade (of which his University takes 50% for overhead). Contributors include ExxonMobil, the British Coal Corporation, Cyprus Minerals and get this OPEC!!!
Sallie Baliunas – Between December 1998 and September 2001 she was listed as a “Scientific Adviser” to the Greening Earth Society, a group that was funded and controlled by the Western Fuels Association (WFA), an association of coal-burning utility companies.
Robert M. Carter– Sits on the advisory board os the Institute of Public Affairs which is funded by the mining and tobacco industry along with Monsanto.
Reid A. Bryson– While certainly a climatologist and skeptic, Dr. Bryson passed away last year yet is still listed on icecap as being a consultant. Maybe they discovered how to channel the deceased?
To me, I’d rather follow 30,000 scientists who believe that global warming is real than a handful of industry backed people. My biggest concern is that if the skeptics are wrong and we do nothing, billions of people will suffer. Paying a little bit more for energy is well worth the expense to protect our world.
Topics: Environment, Global Warming, Opinion, Our World, Websites | 21 Comments »
May 7th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
All humans will suffer from controls on global warming emissions.
Mark Chauss must be a global cooling denialist. I’m a meteorologist and a sea ice analysist/forecaster for NOAA. I have studied and observed Atmospheric Science for 45 years. I just look at the facts. The earth has cooled since its peak in 1998. The temperature trend rounded the curve and the cooling accelerated in 2007. Antarctica has a yearly net ice gain, which increases with each passing year. The Arctic is beginning to see a net increase this year. I predict the Northwest Passage will remain closed this summer but the Northeast Passage will probably open. Incidentally, the northeast passage was open for a few years in the early 20Th century. Sure, there “was” a well documented warming from around 1850 to 1998. Even more interesting is how the great climate models never verify a forecast, and, missed the current 10+ year cooling trend.
If it makes sense to enact measures to reduce CO2 emissions when experts forecast warming, then surely it also makes sense to emit extra CO2 when experts forecast cooling. Or perhaps not.
Perhaps any link between climate change and carbon dioxide is not so strong or important. Consider the historical record.
The tiny fraction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased through the twentieth century. And yet, during that time, global average temperatures rose till about 1940, fell till about 1975, rose again till 1998, and then dropped away again. It is not surprising, then, that despite claims “the science is settled,” thousands of scientists disagree with forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming.
History again provides useful guidance.
Dave Percy Anchorage, Alaska
May 14th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Yes, I am a global cooling denialist. Also, my name is spelled Schauss.
While I respect your background, I respect the tens of thousands of other with similar credentials who disagree with your comments. Carbon dioxide is not the only reason for global warming and you know it (or are denying it). Deforestation, growth of cities and many other reasons are causing a man-made rise in global temperatures.
July 1st, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I suggest Mr. Schauss check out the Petition Project: http://www.petitionproject.org/ and review the information contained therein.
July 1st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
How many of the 9,000+ PhDs are climatologists? Not many. How many work in the industries that cause global warming and have a vested interest in denying it? Oh, a whole bunch of them, just do some simple Google searches on the names. Also, having a PhD does not make one an expert in the science behind global warming. And the fact that only 31,000+ Americans signed the petition, is dwarfed by the 100,000+ scientists who signed petitions backing the concept of human involved global warming.
The Petition Project is a farce.
Oh and calling me Mr. Schauss, when you know I have a doctorate is purposely insulting. If you want to be taken seriously, act serious and respectful.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I notice that the Global warming supporters attack the scientists who
believe that the earth is in fact cooling instead of attacking the science. Perhaps those supporter of the global warming theories are the ones that have an agenda instead of a studious interest. God save us from
scientists with a theory to prove regardless of the consequenses. The global warming theorists are alot louder but that doesn’t make them right.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Too bad you have added no scientific proof otherwise. You lay out the same unsubstantiated arguments. The global warming denialist have a far greater agenda than we do and that is greed.
July 24th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
You are right-on, Dr. Schauss. I have looked into claims from the global warming deniers many times, and they constantly twist the facts, cherry-pick the statistics, even tell outright lies. For example, they make claims such as “2008 was the coolest year of the last decade”, which is not true. It was cooler than the previous 7 years, but only because they were 7 of the 10 hottest years since direct measurements of global temperature began in 1880. 2008 was also among the 10 hottest years since 1880. If you want scientific proof the world is warming and not cooling, just go to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/. Here is a quote: “Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis [see ref. 1] of surface air temperature measurements. In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880”. If 2008 was the ninth warmest year since 1880, then it was warmer than 120 of the past 129 years! Yes, they are using one of the warmest years since measurements began to try to prove that the world is cooling. If that isn’t cherry-picking statistics to twist the truth, I don’t know what is. If you look at the graphs on that same web page, you can clearly see a warming trend for around the last 30 years. You can also see that although 1998 was an abnormally hot year, it was not the peak – there was already one year hotter after 1998. If you are really a scientist, “Dave”, you are not a very good one to miss such an obvious fact. Global temperatures vary more year to year than the average rate of increase caused by global warming, and so you should expect some years to be hotter and others colder than the general trend. A good scientist without an agenda would also take into account the fact that there is a roughly 11 year cycle of sunspot activity and that the sun warms the earth more when there is more activity. The minimum activity of the current cycle should be somewhere in the range of 2008 to 2010. So this has been making the climate somewhat cooler over the last few years than it would have been. But soon the sunspot activity should start to increase, which will have the opposite effect. Also, the climate models predict that global warming should increase the amount of snow that falls on Antarctica at first. The cause of the increase in snow is global warming itself, because a hotter atmosphere holds more water. I would think a meteorologist would know that too. But the models also predict that later on the melting will surpass this increase in snow, and the Arctic will begin to lose ice mass. This will probably happen earlier than the models predict, because they don’t take into account some of the things that are happening, such as the lubricating effect of the water traveling down the moulins to the bottom of the ice.
August 28th, 2009 at 10:58 am
There are three things that are very disurbing about these “alarmist” climate change discussion: 1) There is no such thing as “science by concensis” or “settled science”, 2) no one takes into account the effects of the Sun, which is the major driver of the heating of the earth and has known and unknown variation, and 3) the predictions are based on computer models that have not been able to verify known climate changes.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:35 am
You obviously have not read the literature thoroughly. Science through consensus is often times used with difficult issues. Hey, evolution, which has been shown to exist is denied by many but scientific consensus says it exists. Secondly, they do take into account the effects of the Sun in many models and your third comment is also misleading and not based on fact. Many of the models are verifing known climate change all the time. Instead of repeating Fox News try reading journals like Nature and Science.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I’ll give you the courtesy of addressing you as Dr., but you need to consider future use. How DARE you challenge anyone on the list of skeptics if their research comes from anywhere but an Al Gore sanctioned source.(AKA a putrid government grant!) If you are a scientist, you attack the research, it’s conclusions, it’s methodology, you don’t attack it because someone you don’t like paid for it. I will stack Dr Lintzen’s credentials against yours everyday of the year and twice on Sunday. Same with Timothy Ball. Stick to the issue and stop being a self righteous left wing nut job.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Yawn. Instead of arguing the evidence you deem it necessary to attack me personally. I can challenge skeptics if they put forth poor science. I can give a crap about Al Gore. If the other side puts forth people credentials who are no longer living and use their name, yes I can challenge that. I own books on both sides of the argument and the ones showing mans hand in the problem are overwhelmingly more convincing than the deniers.
I can challenge credential and points of view of whomever I choose. I don’t need to call them anysided nut jobs like you seem to need to.
Show evidence, stop accusing.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I didn’t argue the evidence because you didn’t. Read your own post above. You cited 4 people that recieved funding for research from Oil. Where is the evidence sir? What does the amount of money contributed mean? Did you cite any methodology? Conclusion? No, you merely harped on the fact that an oil company or group contributed money. You also ripped the petition project and made the statement of ‘few’ of the signatories are climatologists. When I went to the site I counted 10,580 scientists with backgrounds in Atmosphere, earth, and environmental science (3803) computers and math (935) and physics and aerospace (5810). Brian Fikes loves citing the temperature readings going back to 1880 as ‘proof’. Read the information at http://www.surfacestations.org/ and tell me that the data is reliable. If you think it is, I’ll sell you a bridge! I stand by my original comment: You do yourself a dis-service to your credentials when you stoop to Al Gores level and attack the funding and not the science.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Before you attempt to link the guys from Icecap.us to special interest groups you should take a really hard look at James Hansen and his money sources. Look in the mirror first before looking at others.
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Don: You are correct that predictions based on models have not been perfect. The models, when run backwards, predict the ups and downs of temperatures in the past, so in that sense they are very good. But they show temperatures rising more slowly than they did in the past, and not going as high. This indicates that their predictions are probably underestimating future climate changes. Therefore, your third point proves we should be more alarmed about global warming, not less. According to recent, more accurate measurements from paleoclimatoligists, the last time CO2 levels were this high for an extended period of time, the temperature was 10 to 15 degrees F higher than now. (See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008152242.htm.) This is another indication that we will probably get warmer than the IPCC predicted. The IPCC is not alarmist, they are actually too cautious, and many things have already gotten much worse than their predictions said it would (for example melting of Arctic sea ice, thawing of permafrost, melting of Greenland ice sheets, rise in ocean levels).
Dan: Hansen works for our government, so his money comes from all of us who pay taxes. Global warming deniers allege he is funded by Soros, but I have seen so many lies and distortions coming from the deniers that I don’t trust anything they say. If you have some proof, I’d like to see it, otherwise I consider this just another lie. According to http://www.researchcrossroads.org, the only funding he has received (besides his NASA salary) was $25,000 from the NSF in 2002. The NSF is a very reputable scientific organization, about as unbiased as they come.
Dean: If surface temperature data isn’t reliable, as you say, then why do global warming deniers refer to that same data when they say the world has been cooling for the last several years? I’ve read several denier claims that used the surface temperature data to try to prove a point, so if you are right, they are basing their conclusions on bad data too. Have you attacked their arguments too?
Well, before you start attacking deniers or anyone else who uses surface temperature data, you might want to think about it a little more carefully. The surfacestation.org site was interesting, and I think it is great that people are double-checking the temperature measuring equipment. I do have questions about their methods, things that I’d want to know before trusting their data. But even if their data is valid, trying to use this to put down NASA’s conclusion that the world is warming doesn’t fly. Why? If their data is valid, it calls into question the temperature measured, but not the change in temperature. NASA’s data is all about the change in temperature.
Just think about it. Surfacestation.org is saying that some sites are recording higher temperatures than they should because they are located too close to heat sources. So let’s say a certain station recorded 16 degrees in 1960 when it should have recorded 14 degrees, and it recorded 17 degrees in 2006 when it should have recorded 15 degrees. If you use the recorded temperatures, there is a 1 degree rise in temperature. If you use the actual temperatures, there is a 1 degree rise in temperature. The change in temperature, the only thing in question here, is not affected at all by this.
If they had historical data that showed that artificial heat sources increased or decreased for particular measuring stations, then that would concern me. But they don’t have any historical data. It’s not their fault, they only started doing this work recently. But it does mean their data doesn’t prove anything about the reliability of global surface temperature changes.
Going forward, if they collect data through time, then scientists might be able to use this data to adjust their temperature data, so I hope they keep at it. But I am also worried about how they are determining the accuracy of the measuring systems. For example, did they just guess that having a station within 10 meters of an artificial heating source would raise the temperature 2 or more degrees? I couldn’t find any place where they said how they determined these numbers, and they may or may not be way off. Even if they had a good method for determining this, they treat all artificial heat sources exactly the same, and that is obviously not right. Some heat sources output much more heat than others. Why do they say having the measuring device above a parking lot would raise the temperature the same as above a sidewalk, when asphalt gets much hotter than concrete? What about the stations with a bias going in the other direction? For example, if the measuring device was in the shade for part or all of the time, that would reduce the readings, but they don’t even have a category for that. This seems like a built-in bias for their data. I would also suggest they make this a global project, because most of the world is outside of the United States, and we are talking about global temperature change.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
If the science is sound, how do you square all the cherry picked data and other chicanery at the CRU? And since when did computer modeling replace empirical data? You are so quick to condemn the scientists at icecap for their associations with industry, yet give a free pass to Hansen and company when they whore themselves out to the Gore side. You are no better than they are. Yes, I know, ad hominem. So sue me.
January 1st, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Average Joe – where can you get “empirical data” from the future? That’s what models are for, to predict what is most likely to happen in the future. But paleoclimatic data from the past also shows us that when CO2 is high, temperature is high, and climate changes. You deniers have nothing, no valid explanations for how the climate works, no valid criticisms of the work of climate scientists, no respectable scientists. Call names and twist facts all you want, it won’t make you right. What you are doing is the worst possible crime, whether it is done intentionally or out of stupidity.
January 2nd, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Brian Fikes – I am not a denier. I know full well the climate is changing. It has been since the dawn of time. It will continue to long after our species is gone. And what I am doing is definitely done intentionally and is most certainly not a crime.
You are mistaken or perhaps deluded in your assertion that high temps follow increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Like Mann’s ridiculous hockey stick graph, that notion has been debunked several times already, most recently thanks to a heroic insider at the CRU who finally found the courage or the guilt to show proof to the world that those now discredited “scientists” were cooking the data. (Pun intended)
The paleoclimatic data you refer to is now known to be corrupt and can no longer be cited with any credibility. You would know that if your mind weren’t already made up and if you cared enough to read beyond the litany of the Church of Environmentalism.
You are right about one thing. There are no valid explanations for how the climate works. Not among we AGW skeptics, and certainly not among you warmers. Honest climate scientists will tell you that very little is known about the complex system that is our climate. And no computer model exists (let alone a computer big enough to handle the calculations) that can explain it.
There is no comprehensive model of the earth’s atmosphere that would predict in any scientifically acceptable way the impact of trivial amounts of CO2 to weather or any atmospheric temperature related event. The notion that the anyone has working models that can predict minor changes in temperatures, in the range of 0.1 to a few degrees, as a result of some nation’s participation in CO2 restrictions is bullshit at best and criminal at worst.
It is definitely criminal when the fatally flawed CRU models are being used as a basis to shift hundreds of billions of dollars from developed nations to dictators in poor nations and into Al Gore’s pockets, all under the auspices of the cesspool that is the United Nations.
As for that hero at the CRU, I’d like to buy him a beer.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
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February 8th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Examination of the temperature data of the last and prior glaciations from NOAA as determined from Vostok ice cores reveals that temperature trends reversed direction irrespective of carbon dioxide level. This proves that there is no significant net positive feedback. Climatologists, who apparently don’t know how feedback works don’t realize this. Unaware of their ignorance, they impose net positive feedback in their GCMs which causes them to predict substantial warming from carbon dioxide increase. Without significant net positive feedback, the GCMs do not predict significant Global Warming.
February 15th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Funny the blogger seems to have it backwards. At best only a couple thousand (and even that number was questionable) “scientists” backed AGW fraud attempts – the 36,000 scientists were those who OPPOSED this nonsense. In light of even JONES of UEA in the U.K. finally admitting at least PART of the truth I can’t imagine why ANYONE would still be spouting this nonsense – I guess pride and a desire to avoid admitting one was so easily and completely fooled are powerful motivators!
February 27th, 2010 at 9:40 am
@Dennis;
Are you serious? You’re quoting that “petition” Most of the signatories are engineers or medical doctors, what the hell do they have to do with climate science?
Not only that but the petition runners keep next to no records to prove who is signing it AND there are many multiple duplicate signatories. It’s quote obviously the worst thing for anyone to quote to prove a scientific argument since fundamentalist Christians tried proving that creation science was real.