Thread: Calculate your contribution to destroying The Earth

Originally Posted by xman

See ... that little winky guy was supposed to indicate that I was making a joke. I'm trying to lighten the mood some.

Everytime you post, the earth dies a little.

[Edit]

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Everytime you post, the earth dies a little.

Your agenda is showing.
BTW, I have at no time told anyone how to behave here. I have only provided information and encourage critical thought. Any inference to the contrary is mistaken.

X

I really don't blame anyone for denying global warming.

I have read work by the people in the think tanks. Fred Singer's work, Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate is very well written. He is very eloquent and makes a very good presentation. If a person reads only that, they would probably become absolutely convinced of his arguments.

Any rational person who wants to understand a topic will go and learn about it. I applaud that kind of effort.

One thing that is hard to grasp is the extent to which that side intentionally misleads people. It is asked time and agian, how can such a credentialled scientist be so wrong? Are they not sacrificing their reputations? Why would someone go to such incredible efforts to dispute something if there was no truth to it?

It is just about unbelievable that those people would be so dishonest and be so wrong. So I don't fault anyone for believing them. I once believed it myself.

Scott

Originally Posted by beezaur

One thing that is hard to grasp is the extent to which that side intentionally misleads people. It is asked time and agian, how can such a credentialled scientist be so wrong? Are they not sacrificing their reputations? Why would someone go to such incredible efforts to dispute something if there was no truth to it?

It is just about unbelievable that those people would be so dishonest and be so wrong. So I don't fault anyone for believing them. I once believed it myself.

Scott

If I were you I would follow the money trail to have a better understanding as to who would gain from either exaggerated claims or just plain outright falsities!
Those who deny global warming, or are not prepared to accept it as presented, could be wrong, but they have nothing to gain by their stance!

Originally Posted by JMS

If I were you I would follow the money trail to have a better understanding as to who would gain from either exaggerated claims or just plain outright falsities!
Those who deny global warming, or are not prepared to accept it as presented, could be wrong, but they have nothing to gain by their stance!

I no more trust a scientist as I do a politician, but there is much to question in your statement. What money trail is there it follow if your own trail is to reduce and reuse instead of buying and exploiting? Shall we all sit on the fence and wait for the all the natural resources to disappear before we begin to evaluate our human impact and our own individual actions that account for the destruction of the earth and the death of so many of our mother’s species? Once we have killed enough, there is nobody left to kill but ourselves.

Originally Posted by DSailing

What money trail is there it follow if your own trail is to reduce and reuse instead of buying and exploiting?

Are the books, speeches, TV programs, etc what Mark is talking about?

Originally Posted by JMS

If I were you I would follow the money trail to have a better understanding as to who would gain from either exaggerated claims or just plain outright falsities!
Those who deny global warming, or are not prepared to accept it as presented, could be wrong, but they have nothing to gain by their stance!

I have to get back to work (can never resist a global warming discussion), but I have followed the money. It leads to the petroleum industry.

For example, you have Richard Lundzen, who has been making the rounds in popular press lately. He evidently receives no money from oil for research, but receives lots of oil money for what amount to endorsements. The Heartland Institute (Singer and Avery et al.) were paying $1k for a talk and $10k for a paper for a while. Lots of back-channel stuff.

A lot of the same people who are in the business of denying global warming are the same who were employed by the tobacco companies to deny smoking health effects (Heartland, Singer, Seitz, etc.). They are basically like professional witnesses for defense attorneys. They make their livings by injecting doubt.

In the end though, everyone who is doing this for a living has to be payed by someone. So there is a money trail leading somewhere from about every source. Kind of. Most scientists are not making very much money. You would think getting a Ph.D. would get you a big paycheck. Not so for most. Generally that is only a ticket to post-doc slave labor. It's the reason I aborted geology and went to engineering.

The nail in the denial coffin for me was just the scientific facts of global warming. The deniers promote arguments that look good, but fall apart on close inspection. The deeper you dig, the more overwhelming the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is.

Scott

P.S. About Fred Singer, from www.sourcewatch.org , a tobacco source checker:

Originally Posted by sourcewatch

In a September 24, 1993, sworn affidavit, Dr. Singer admitted to doing climate change research on behalf of oil companies, such as Exxon, Texaco, Arco, Shell and the American Gas Association. [10]

However, on February 12, 2001, Singer wrote a letter to The Washington Post "in which he denied receiving any oil company money in the previous 20 years when he had consulted for the oil industry. . . .

Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...try_Contractor

Just one tiny little example.

"...I have followed the money. It leads to the petroleum industry."

beezaur

So you are saying that the tens of millions algore has made from "Global Warming" came from the Oil Industry?

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

So you are saying that the tens of millions algore has made from "Global Warming" came from the Oil Industry?

I guess we could use this here too.
The Woolly-Thinkers Guide to Rhetoric

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

I'm outta here.

What made you change your mind?

X

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

"...I have followed the money. It leads to the petroleum industry."

beezaur

So you are saying that the tens of millions algore has made from "Global Warming" came from the Oil Industry?

I am saying that many of the denialist efforts lead to big oil. Even when guys from that side prove that their research is not being funded by oil, it turns out that they are receiving oil money through other channels, like giving talks or writing articles. In other words, the normal sources of funds for science do not fund denialist efforts; those efforts are generally funded by oil.

Often times (usually) the path is quite tortuous. You might have a highly successful scientist who has founded an institute. Oil companies don't usually contribute directly. They contribute to other institutes which then pass that money on to the scientist's institute. The scientist might then run around exclaiming, "I DO NOT GET MONEY FROM THE OIL INDUSTRY!!!!!" True, he might not personally recieve such monies. But his institute might be funded almost exclusively by money that came indirectly from the oil companies. The Heartland Institute is an example of that kind of thing, or at least was, before it stopped reporting its sources of funding a few years ago.

Actually it is surprising the number of times the tobacco industry comes into the picture. A lot of times you even have the same people involved now trying to debunk climate science who used to be involved in medical research stating that smoking was not harmful to your health. Fred Singer is one. There was a large "infrastructure" established in the smoking debate which now is being used for the climate debate.

Not all of the money comes from oil. Some of it comes from legitimately unconnected sources like individuals and political organizations. Or other industries. The cement industry is one who stands to suffer a lot under greenhouse gas regulation.

Of what significance is the fact that research gets funded? Nobody I know can afford to work for free. The scientists I know do it because they love their work, and find immense satisfaction finding out the truths of nature (it is quite addictive if you let it be). Generally governments will fund a lot of science for the sake of knowledge, but some of it is for practical reasons. A lot of environmental research is paid for because doing things cleanly is much cheaper than doing things uncleanly and then having to fix or deal with the results. Many oil companies (believe it or not) are extremely environmentally friendly about their drilling. The very last thing they want is a spill -- it could mean the death of the company.

To me then, the motives are more important than the fact that there is funding. Funding for the global warming side comes mostly because preventing disaster is cheaper than dealing with disaster. Denialist funding comes because emissions regulation could mean severe hardship for the industry or political organization.

I have never bothered to look at Gore's global warming-related income. Does anyone have any information?

Better yet, does anyone know how I can start raking in all that money that is allegedly available pushing climate science? I've been doing it for free to date

Scott