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Discussion > WUWT Propaganda

More evidence that Climate Science is corrupted with propaganda a billionaires. They don't need Taxpayer Funding at all.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/18/dark-green-money-reveals-vast-self-dealing-network-in-canadas-climate-change-leadership-like-green-new-deal-proposal-says-friends-of-science/

CALGARY, Alberta (PRWEB) January 17, 2019
“Dark Green Money” is a new report by Ottawa energy policy consultant, Robert Lyman, that takes the mask off the big green funding machine behind Canada’s Climate Change “Leadership”, issued by Friends of Science on Jan. 15, 2019. According to Friends of Science, what is in play in Canada sounds like the proposed US Green New Deal, as outlined by Vox, Jan. 7, 2019. Contrary to Al Gore’s claims of industry money funding climate dissenters, as reported Dec. 21, 2018 in National Geographic, “Dark Green Money” shows that billionaire foundations with vested interests in renewables and carbon trading, along with government policies are the big money pushing the climate narrative.

Jan 19, 2019 at 8:03 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Want to see some really dishonest and barking mad propaganda? Try this piece from the Observer in 2003, highlighted by this article at cliscep. Don't forget to read the comments too:

https://cliscep.com/2019/01/18/climate-catastrophe-due-next-year/

Jan 19, 2019 at 8:47 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

From the 'baseless and incorrect ad-hom and no actual evidence' department.

From the “don’t trust it, it’s from ‘Skeptical Science’ team operative John Abraham who’s a mechanical engineer” department comes this op-ed masquerading as a science paper at the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Let's just unpick that a little. First we have the 'guilt by association' fallacy, the fact that one of the authors contributes to Sceptical Science tells us nothing about the merits of the paper. Then we have the ad hominem fallacy, the claim that Professor Abraham is a mechanical engineer tells us nothing about the merits of the paper, then we have a simple fallacy, Professor Abraham has a background in engineering but is currently a Professor of thermal and fluid sciences, his research interests include thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, and numerical simulation. He has published over 200 papers including several on ocean heat transfer. Eminently qualified, in other words.

The frankly bizarre claim that this an 'op-ed' seems to be based solely on the fact that it is published in the 'News and Views' section of the journal, the closest the paper comes to opinion is 'The long-term trend of ocean heat is a major concern both in the scientific community and for the public at large', which it supports with copious evidence. The paper is a basically a routine presentation and discussion of the latest update of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) ocean analysis data. It takes no political position and makes no policy recommendations. The journal's guidance for authors states that
AAS also includes a News & Views section, featuring invited research highlights, project reports, and meeting summaries.
. It also says that An article constitutes an outstanding and solid advancement in our understanding on an aspect of atmospheric sciences

As this was just a report on the latest data, it doesn't qualify as an article and it was published in exactly the appropriate place.

Almost everything WUWT wrote about the paper, therefore, was wrong. More propaganda.

Have you read the paper GC? Can you explain what makes it an 'op-ed'?

Jan 19, 2019 at 1:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

"From the 'baseless and incorrect ad-hom and no actual evidence' department.
Jan 19, 2019 at 1:44 PM | Phil Clarke"

You are the baseless and incorrect ad-hom department. Lack of evidence is why Climate Science has failed.

Jan 19, 2019 at 2:55 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Why WUWT is more reliable than 97% of climate scientists

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/21/mikes-nature-trick-revisited-scottadamssays-edition/

Jan 21, 2019 at 11:01 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

More rubbish from 97% of Climate Scientists
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/21/climate-hysterics-skyrocket/

Jan 21, 2019 at 11:23 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Let's just unpick that a little. First we have the 'guilt by association' fallacy, the fact that one of the authors contributes to Sceptical Science tells us nothing about the merits of the paper. Then we have the ad hominem fallacy, the claim that Professor Abraham is a mechanical engineer tells us nothing about the merits of the paper, then we have a simple fallacy, Professor Abraham has a background in engineering but is currently a Professor of thermal and fluid sciences, his research interests include thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, and numerical simulation. He has published over 200 papers including several on ocean heat transfer. Eminently qualified, in other words.

Pot Kettle Climategate

Jan 22, 2019 at 2:57 AM | Unregistered Commenterclipe

Can you explain what makes it an 'op-ed'?

Jan 19, 2019 at 1:44 PM | Phil Clarke

It is opinionated propaganda, not backed up by science, dressed up to look like science. If you had read the WUWT article, you would have realised that.

Jan 22, 2019 at 7:56 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

"Brussels scrambles to deal with Poland’s Brexit curveball
EU diplomats condemn ‘dangerous’ proposal that threatens EU27 unity on Brexit."

https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-scrambles-to-deal-with-polands-brexit-curve-ball/

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

Sorry, that last post wasn't intended for this thread - mea culpa

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:37 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

I'll repeat my page 4 post since it was not addressed

The main claim here seems to be that WUWT can be dismissed as 'just propaganda'

Yet recently spotted the alarmist activist Steven Mosher, commenting all over a new WUWT thread without problem
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/08/global-warming-brings-deadly-snowfall-to-germany-and-austria

Jan 22, 2019 at 6:53 PM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

It is opinionated propaganda, not backed up by science, dressed up to look like science. If you had read the WUWT article, you would have realised that.

I did read the WUWT piece; it presented no evidence, as indeed nor have you. If the paper is opinionated, what opinion is it expressing, and where?

In other news, WUWT presents a cartoon on the Hockey Stick, so wrong that even Steve McIntyre feels he has to point out that it is simply wrong:

The illustration here is very specific to the WMO 1999 diagram and email – which, as has been pointed out by other side in controversy – had relatively limited circulation. Readers will also be confused into thinking that this brute splicing is the origin of Mann’s hockey stick, when it isnt.
.

Jan 22, 2019 at 7:07 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Just to repeat, since Phil has passed by without comment:

Want to see some really dishonest and barking mad propaganda? Try this piece from the Observer in 2003, highlighted by this article at cliscep. Don't forget to read the comments too:

https://cliscep.com/2019/01/18/climate-catastrophe-due-next-year/

Is propaganda regarding climate catastrophe bullsh!t OK, then? And don't most websites on this subject, whichever side of the debate they are on, contain a mix of some reasonable stuff and some rubbish? Why single out WUWT? It couldn't be because of its popularity, could it? (By the way, I rarely visit it, so don't have strong views regarding it).

Jan 22, 2019 at 7:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

Just to repeat, since Phil has passed by without comment

Not really worthy of comment: In brief, sixteen years ago the Pentagon published a briefing paper on military preparedness for climate change, the document envisioned an extreme scenario, assuming that an abrupt event from 8,200 years ago occurred again, something not mentioned as a possibility in any published study or IPCC report. In the scenario, the 'abrupt change' is in the distribution of heat around the planet, the thermohaline conveyor is assumed to slow and North Africa and Europe cool while America warms, rather than a net energy gain. Frankly it’s a bit nuts, and was never meant as an actual prediction, as they state clearly in the preamble:-

The purpose of this report is to imagine the unthinkable – to push the boundaries of current research on climate change so we may better understand the potential implications on United States national security

I would concede that in this case the Observer's coverage of the report was p*sspoor, but I would always caution against getting your information from secondary sources without checking. If you want a 'thinkable' and more up-to-date representation of Pentagon thinking on the issue try this. 


Among the future trends that will impact our national security is climate change. Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.
 
In our defense strategy, we refer to climate change as a “threat multiplier” because it has the potential to exacerbate many of the challenges we are dealing with today – from infectious disease to terrorism. We are already beginning to see some of these impacts. A changing climate will have real impacts on our military and the way it executes its missions. The military could be called upon more often to support civil authorities, and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the face of more frequent and more intense natural disasters.
 
Our coastal installations are vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased flooding, while droughts, wildfires, and more extreme temperatures could threaten many of our training activities. Our supply chains could be impacted, and we will need to ensure our critical equipment works under more extreme weather conditions. Weather has always affected military operations, and as the climate changes, the way we execute operations may be altered or constrained.
 
While scientists are converging toward consensus on future climate projections, uncertainty remains. But this cannot be an excuse for delaying action. Every day, our military deals with global uncertainty. Our planners know that, as military strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote, “all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight.” It is in this context that DoD is releasing a Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap. Climate change is a long-term trend, but with wise planning and risk mitigation now, we can reduce adverse impacts downrange.

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Phil, thanks for conceding the poor coverage in the Observer (which made no reference to it being an extreme scenario, but went into full-blown catastrophe mode). The point is that there is propaganda everywhere you look, and not just on the sceptic side - far from it!

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

The main claim here seems to be that WUWT can be dismissed as 'just propaganda'

The claim is that WUWT (as in the blog posts) frequently posts propaganda, a demonstrably true claim, (latest example, a cartoon claimed to represent the hockey stick 'trick', a claim so false that even Steve McIntyre could not stomach it).

Watts does let through a few sensible comments, for the derision of the faithful. So what? He also thought this was worthy of sharing.

Big mistake giving women the right to vote…they are driven by emotions and not reason. That is why humanity is on a death march toward Marxism…

Not to be taken seriously (one hopes).

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

The point is that there is propaganda everywhere you look, and not just on the sceptic side - far from it!

Interesting that you use the present tense, given that your example dates from a few years after the start of the century ;-)

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:38 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Oh yes, very much the present tense!

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

Why WUWT is more reliable than 97% of climate scientists

Steve McIntyre points out that the Josh cartoon is, basically, a lie

Readers will also be confused into thinking that this brute splicing is the origin of Mann’s hockey stick, when it isnt.

Do you side with Watts or McIntyre on this one ?

LOL!

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:46 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Jan 22, 2019 at 8:46 PM | Phil Clarke

Are you going to elaborate and explain what the splicing did conceal, and why the IPCC used his deception?

Jan 23, 2019 at 12:09 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Be glad to, just tell me where what and when did the IPCC 'splice'?

Jan 23, 2019 at 1:10 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

I will help you out as I fear you are as confused as Mr Watts. The 'splicing' McIntyre is referring to was done by Phil Jones

'Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement

[...] I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) '

It was not for any IPCC report or indeed any scientific journal, rather, as the subject line states, it was for the cover art of a short brochure on the climate of 1999 released by the World Meteorological Organisation.

The caption for the graph - displayed on the inside cover - clearly stated how the graph was made

Front cover: Northern Hemisphere temperatures were reconstructed for the past 1000 years (up to 1999) using palaeoclimatic records (tree rings, corals, ice cores, lake sediments, etc.), along with historical and long instrumental records. The data are shown as 50-year smoothed differences from the 1961–1990 normal. Uncertainties are greater in the early part of the millennium (see page 4 for further information). For more details, readers are referred to the PAGES newsletter (Vol. 7, No. 1: March 1999, also available at http://www.pages.unibe.ch) and the National Geophysical Data Center (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov). (Sources of data: P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa and T.J. Osborn, University of East Anglia, UK; M.E. Mann, University of Virginia, USA; R.S. Bradley, University of Massachusetts, USA; M.K. Hughes, University of Arizona, USA; and the Hadley Centre, The Met. Office)."

If you follow the PAGES link it takes you to a discussion of the 'divergence problem', which would be an odd tactic if their aim was to 'hide the decline'. Arguably Jones could have shown the instrumental data in a different colour, as Mann did, but hey -this was just a figure for the cover of a brochure, not a peer-reviewed paper and presentation choices are hardly deception if they are clearly labelled.

McIntyre says at WUWT that this spliced figure ' had relatively limited circulation'. He's not kidding! Prior to achieving fame in a leaked email, this obscure diagram was not mentioned online by anyone ever. It is impossible to claim with a straight face that anyone was materially misled by the graph.

Thin tea indeed.

Jan 23, 2019 at 2:05 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Jan 23, 2019 at 2:05 AM | Phil Clarke

The IPCC used Mann's Hockey Stick as its poster child. Then dropped it.

Steve McIntyre has consistently pointed out the inconsistencies and deceits in Mann's Hockey Stick, as covered at Climate Audit, wattsupwiththat, Bishop Hill etc, and covered in "The Hockey Stick Illusion" by Andrew Montford.

Does PAGES still include input from Mann, Gergis et al, if so why?

Just because Climate Science remains incapable of identfying and correcting its own mistakes and propaganda, is no reason why Taxpayers should keep paying for them.

Jan 23, 2019 at 10:06 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

The IPCC used Mann's Hockey Stick as its poster child. Then dropped it.

A myth. The IPCC included the hockey stick reconstructions in AR3 (2001). It was also present, prominent, referenced 7 times and discussed in AR4 (2007) - e.g. see Figure 6.10.

Steve McIntyre has consistently pointed out the inconsistencies and deceits in Mann's Hockey Stick

Flaws, some. Deceits not so much. Most of the claims turn out to be false, and subsequent work, notably by Wahl and Ammann, has shown that correcting the few genuine flaws identified by McIntyre (and McKitrick) has a negligible impact on the conclusions of the papers. You'd know this if you read IPCC AR4

McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) reported that they were unable to replicate the results of Mann et al. (1998). Wahl and Ammann (2007) showed that this was a consequence of differences in the way McIntyre and McKitrick (2003) had implemented the method of Mann et al. (1998) and that the original reconstruction could be closely duplicated using the original proxy data. McIntyre and McKitrick (2005a,b) raised further concerns about the details of the Mann et al. (1998) method, principally relating to the independent verification of the reconstruction against 19th-century instrumental temperature data and to the extraction of the dominant modes of variability present in a network of western North American tree ring chronologies, using Principal Components Analysis. The latter may have some theoretical foundation, but Wahl and Amman (2006) also show that the impact on the amplitude of the final reconstruction is very small (~0.05°C; for further discussion of these issues see also Huybers, 2005; McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005c,d; von Storch and Zorita, 2005).”

As Gavin Schmidt dryly notes:

That this inconvenient fact has driven hundreds of blog posts, dozens of fevered accusations, a basket load of FOI requests, and stoked multiple fires of manufactured outrage is far more a testimony to personal obsession, rather than to its intrinsic importance. The science of paleo-reconstructions has moved well beyond this issue, as has the interest of the general public in such minutiae. We can however expect the usual suspects to continue banging this drum, long after everyone else has gone home.

Wahl to Wahl Coverage

False Claims by McIntyre and McKitrick

On Yet Another False Claim by McIntyre and McKitrick

Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures: Examination of criticisms based on the nature and processing of proxy climate evidence

The importance of the geophysical context in statistical evaluations of climate reconstruction procedures

Jan 23, 2019 at 10:53 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

Jan 23, 2019 at 10:53 AM | Phil Clarke
You are quoting unreliable sources from the Hockey Team again. Peer Review pre-publication is bad enough in Climate Science is part of the problem.

Fortunately, WUWT have a timely post that illustrates the extent of the problem:

More on faked up Climate Science

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/24/a-history-of-dr-ben-santer-and-his-ipcc-trick/

Jan 25, 2019 at 12:55 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie