All silent on the climategate front

Where is Whaleoil? Where is KiwiBlogh? Where is Not PC? No Minister? Cactus Kate and to a much, much, much lesser impact in terms of influence - Dr Ian over at Dr Mac. Where are all our climate deniers who have spent so much of this year screaming the climategate emails would show forever that global warming is a hoax and that man made pollution has nothing to do with climate change.

WHERE ARE THOSE WHO DESERVE NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT FOR MOUTHING BIG OIL SPONSORED BULLSHIT TO STOP ANY ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS?

They have gone oddly quiet haven't they? I just don't understand folks, surely they would have something to say about Professor Jones and CRU being exonerated by a parliamentary inquiry...

Jones and CRU exonerated by parliamentary inquiry
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change.

On the much cited phrases in the leaked e-mails—”trick” and “hiding the decline”—the Committee considers that they were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead.

Insofar as the Committee was able to consider accusations of dishonesty against CRU, the Committee considers that there is no case to answer.

Perhaps Whaleoil, Kiwiblogh, Cathy Odgers, No Minister, Un PC and to a much lesser degree in terms of influence, Mac Dr are waiting for the audit by the Scientific Appraisal Panel before they admit that they have been wrong, admit they have been mouthing big oil spin and admit that man made pollution is changing the climate and endangers us all.

Man made pollution is warming the planet dangerously towards a tipping point which could crash our collective civilization, of that there is zero doubt, yet a report put out by Greenpeace last week shows how one of the largest secret corporations in America, Koch Industries, is spending tens of millions on inaccurate and misleading information regarding climate change.

Koch Industries funded 20 organizations central to the global media echo chamber that was Climategate.

In 2007, Koch Industries funded an astrophysicist to write an article about polar bears which, masquerading as a piece of peer-reviewed literature, attempted to refute the threat to the species due to climate change.

Koch Industries also funded a Danish think tank which produced a “dubious study about the Danish wind industry”, rejected by the Danish environment minister, which was then used to challenge President Obama’s support of wind power while funding groups which supported a “widely debunked study” which claimed that Spain’s support of renewable energy had lost the country jobs.

Oh and Koch Industries have also paid out huge amounts to other hard right climate denial think tanks like the Mercatus Center, Americans For Prosperity, The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.

Let's add this to what we already know about big oil sponsored climate denial...

Frank Luntz Memorandum to the Bush White House, 2002, on how to shut down the global warming debate?

Winning the Global Warming Debate – An Overview

1: The scientific debate remains open: Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.

Right, so in the same way the Tobacco companies attacked consensus of a link between smoking and cancer, big oil and big polluters are using similar smear tactics to question the science behind the evidence that man made pollution is causing the climate to rapidly change.

And let’s not forget who is backing much of this smear campaign…

Climate Change Skeptics
The world’s largest-ever gathering of global warming skeptics will assemble Sunday in New York City to confront the issue, “Global warming: Was it ever really a crisis?” About 800 scientists, economists, legislators, policy activists, and media representatives are expected to register at the second International Conference on Climate Change, opening Sunday, March 8 and concluding Tuesday, March 10 at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel.

Hmmm, and I wonder who is organizing this climate change sKeptics picnic in wunderland? The Heartland Institute? Ummmm, aren’t they the very same Heartland Institute who until 2006 were receiving money from Exxon Mobile and who also is behind the Tobacco Industries ludicrous position that Tobacco isn’t scientifically proven to cause cancer and as such there shouldn’t be taxes on cigarettes?

Shouldn’t we at least be honest that much of the climate sKeptic agenda is actually funded by big oil?

Between 1998 and 2005: ExxonMobil Grants $16 Million to Global Warming Skeptic Organizations
ExxonMobil disperses roughly $16 million to organizations that are challenging the scientific consensus view that greenhouse gases are causing global warming. For many of the organizations, ExxonMobil is their single largest corporate donor, often providing more than 10 percent of their annual budgets. A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists will find that “[v]irtually all of them publish and publicize the work of a nearly identical group of spokespeople, including scientists who misrepresent peer-reviewed climate findings and confuse the public’s understanding of global warming. Most of these organizations also include these same individuals as board members or scientific advisers.” After the Bush administration withdraws from the Kyoto Protocol, the oil company steps up its support for these organizations. Some of the ExxonMobil-funded groups tell the New York Times that the increase is a response to the rising level of public interest in the issue. “Firefighters’ budgets go up when fires go up,” explains Fred L. Smith, head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Explaining ExxonMobil’s support for these organizations, company spokesman Tom Cirigliano says: “We want to support organizations that are trying to broaden the debate on an issue that is so important to all of us. There is this whole issue that no one should question the science of global climate change. That is ludicrous. That’s the kind of dark-ages thinking that gets you in a lot of trouble.”

The following is a list of some of the organizations funded by ExxonMobil:
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - AEI receives $1,625,000 from ExxonMobil between and 1998 and 2005. During this period, it plays host to a number of climate contrarians.
American Legislative Exchange Council - In 2005, ExxonMobil grants $241,500 to this organization. Its website features a non-peer-reviewed paper by climate contrarian Patrick Michaels.
Center for Science and Public Policy - Started at the beginning of 2003, this one-man operation receives $232,000 from ExxonMobil. The organization helps bring scientists to Capitol Hill to testify on global warming and the health effects of mercury.
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow - Between 2004 and 2005, this organization receives $215,000 from ExxonMobil. Its advisory panel includes Sallie Baliunas, Robert Balling, Roger Bate, Sherwood Idso, Patrick Michaels, and Frederick Seitz, all of whom are affiliated with other ExxonMobil-funded organizations.
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) - Founded in 1984 to fight government regulation on business, CEI started receiving large grants from ExxonMobil after Myron Ebell moved there from Frontiers of Freedom in 1999. CEI, along with another ExxonMobil-supported enterprise, the Cooler Heads Coalition, runs the website GlobalWarming.Org, which is part of an effort to “dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis.” Between 2000 and 2003, the CEI receives $1,380,000, or 16 percent of the total funds donated by Exxon during that period.
Frontiers of Freedom - The organization receives $230,000 from Exxon in 2002 and $40,000 in 2001. It has an annual budge of about $700,000.
George C. Marshall Institute - The institute is known primarily for its work advocating a “Star Wars” missile defense program. Between 1998 and 2005, Exxon-Mobil grants $630,000 to the Marshall Institute primarily to underwrite the institute’s climate change effort. William O’Keefe, the organization’s CEO, once worked as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Petroleum Institute. He has also served on the board of directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another global warming skeptic organization, and is chairman emeritus of the Global Climate Coalition.
Heartland Institute - In 2005, this organization receives $119,000 from ExxonMobil. Its website offers articles by the same scientists promoted by other ExxonMobil-funded global warming skeptic organizations.
Tech Central Station - TCS is a web-based organization that provides news, commentary, and analysis focusing on the societal tensions and strains that are concomitant with historical change. TCS proclaims itself as a strong believer of the “material power of free markets, open societies, and individual human ingenuity to raise living standards and improve lives.” Until 2006, the website is operated by a public relations firm called the DCI Group, which is a registered ExxonMobil lobbying firm. In 2003 TCS receives $95,000 from ExxonMobil to be used for “climate change support.” TCS contributors on the global warming issue include the same group of people that is promoted by several of the other ExxonMobil-funded global warming skeptic organizations. In 2006, TCS will pay the public relations firm Medialink Worldwide to produce a video news release that challenges the view that global warming has increased the intensity of hurricanes. The piece is later shown on a Mississippi television station and presented as a regular news report.

I personally love the story about the Public Interest Watch from 2002 – this was a front group funded by Exxon-Mobile which attacked Greenpeace by suggesting that Greenpeace were avoiding tax – amazingly Greenpeace was audited because of this one claim by an Exxon-Mobil front group.

So when climate deniers attack the science linking climate change to man made pollution in the exact same way the tobacco industry attacked the science linking cancer to smoking, perhaps we should consider that the majority of this spin is funded by corporates who would suffer most from any anti pollution tax.

Sadly for thinking citizens, this big oil sponsored lie that man made pollution is not impacting the environment has already been seized upon by big business to resist change...

Heat increases on Govt to delay start of carbon trading
The Government is under increasing pressure from business, farmers and coalition partner Act to delay or at least soften the impact of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) ahead of its introduction in July this year. Yesterday Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly confirmed his organisation was one of a number of signatories to a letter from business groups to the Government in March asking it to delay or alter the entry onJuly 1 of key parts of the scheme. The Herald understands other signatories included the NZ Chambers of Commerce, the Road Transport Association, the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association, the Major Electricity Users Group and the Meat Industry Association.

With the planet choking on its own filth, perhaps someone could tell our Minister of Tourism that a clean green brand is more valuable than ever before.

Mining schedule 4 conservation land, lying about the impact of mining with a flawed Eden Park postcard analogy and continuing to lie about the mineral valuation with inflated mining lobbyist figures may in fact become the worst PR disaster since Telecom XT.

National are in a hole and they just keep digging.