Global Warming: How Do Scientists Know They're Not Wrong?

[Chastity]

Global Warming: How Do Scientists Know They're Not Wrong?
By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 16 July 2007 09:34 am ET

From catastrophic sea level rise to jarring changes in local weather, humanity faces a potentially dangerous threat from the changes our own pollution has wrought on Earth’s climate. But since nothing in science can ever be proven with 100 percent certainty, how is it that scientists can be so sure that we are the cause of global warming?

For years, there has been clear scientific consensus that Earth’s climate is heating up and that humans are the culprits behind the trend, says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at the University of California, San Diego.

A few years ago, she evaluated 928 scientific papers that dealt with global climate change and found that none disagreed about human-generated global warming. The results of her analysis were published in a 2004 essay in the journal Science.

And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences and numerous other noted scientific organizations have issued statements that unequivocally endorse the idea of global warming and attribute it to human activities.

“We’re confident about what’s going on,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Science in New York.

But even if there is a consensus, how can scientists be so confident about a trend playing out over dozens of years in the grand scheme of the Earth's existence? How do they know they didn’t miss something, or that there is not some other explanation for the world’s warming? After all, there was once a scientific consensus that the Earth was flat. How can scientists prove their position?

Best predictor wins

Contrary to popular parlance, science can never truly “prove” a theory. Science simply arrives at the best explanation of how the world works. Global warming can no more be “proven” than the theory of continental drift, the theory of evolution or the concept that germs carry diseases.

“All science is fallible,” Oreskes told LiveScience. “Climate science shouldn’t be expected to stand up to some fantasy standard that no science can live up to.”

Instead, a variety of methods and standards are used to evaluate the viability of different scientific explanations and theories. One such standard is how well a theory predicts the outcome of an event, and climate change theory has proven to be a strong predictor.

The effects of putting massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the air were predicted as long ago as the early 20th century by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius.

Noted oceanographer Roger Revelle’s 1957 predictions that carbon dioxide would build up in the atmosphere and cause noticeable changes by the year 2000 have been borne out by numerous studies, as has Princeton climatologist Suki Manabe’s 1980 prediction that the Earth’s poles would be first to see the effects of global warming.

Also in the 1980s, NASA climatologist James Hansen predicted with high accuracy what the global average temperature would be in 30 years time (now the present day).
Hansen's model predictions are “a shining example of a successful prediction in climate science,” said climatologist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University.

Schmidt says that predictions by those who doubted global warming have failed to come true.
“Why don’t you trust a psychic? Because their predictions are wrong,” he told LiveScience. “The credibility goes to the side that gets these predictions right.”

Mounting evidence

Besides their successful predictions, climate scientists have been assembling a “body of evidence that has been growing significantly with each year,” Mann said.

Data from tree rings, ice cores and coral reefs taken with instrumental observations of air and ocean temperatures, sea ice melt and greenhouse gas concentrations have all emerged in support of climate change theory.

“There are 20 different lines of evidence that the planet is warming,” and the same goes for evidence that greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere, Schmidt said. “All of these things are very incontrovertible.”

But skeptics have often raised the question of whether these observations and effects attributed to global warming may in fact be explained by natural variation or changes in solar radiation hitting the Earth.

Hurricane expert William Gray, of Colorado State University, told Discover magazine in a 2005 interview, "I'm not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle '40s to the early '70s. And there has been warming since the middle '70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.”

Isaac Newton had something to say about all this: In his seminal “Principia Mathematica,” he noted that if separate data sets are best explained by one theory or idea, that explanation is most likely the true explanation.

And studies have overwhelmingly shown that climate change scenarios in which greenhouse gases emitted from human activities cause global warming best explain the observed changes in Earth’s climate, Mann said—models that use only natural variation can’t account for the significant warming that has occurred in the last few decades.

Mythic ice age

One argument commonly used to cast doubt on the idea of global warming is the supposed predictions of an impending ice age by scientists in the 1970s. One might say: First the Earth was supposed to be getting colder; now scientists say it’s getting hotter—how can we trust scientists if they’re predictions are so wishy-washy?

Because the first prediction was never actually made. Rather, it’s something of an urban climate myth.

Mann says that this myth started from a “tiny grain of truth around which so much distortion and misinformation has been placed.”

Scientists were well aware of the warming that could be caused by increasing greenhouse gases, both Mann and Schmidt explained, but in the decades preceding the 1970s, aerosols, or air pollution, had been steadily increasing. These tiny particles tended to have a cooling effect in the atmosphere, and at the time, scientists were unsure who would win the climate-changing battle, aerosols or greenhouse gases.

“It was unclear what direction the climate was going,” Mann said.

But several popular media, such as Newsweek, ran articles that exaggerated what scientists had said about the potential of aerosols to cool the Earth.

But the battle is now over, and greenhouse gases have won.
“Human society has made a clear decision as to which direction [the climate] is going to go,” Mann said.

Future predictions

One of the remaining skeptics, is MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen. While he acknowledges the trends of rising temperatures and greenhouse gases, Lindzen expressed his doubt on man’s culpability in the case and casts doubt on the dire predictions made by some climate models, in an April 2006 editorial for The Wall Street Journal.

“What the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred,” Lindzen wrote.

To be sure, there is a certain degree of uncertainty involved in modeling and predicting future changes in the climate, but “you don’t need to have a climate model to know that climate change is a problem,” Oreskes said.

Climate scientists have clearly met the burden of proof with the mounting evidence they’ve assembled and the strong predictive power of global warming theory, Oreskes said-- global warming is something to pay attention to.

Schmidt agrees. “All of these little things just reinforce the big picture,” he said. “And the big picture is very worrying

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070716_gw_notwrong.html

[andre]

For a contrast, it may be a good idea to take note of the Independent Summary for Policy makers (ISPM):

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/ispm.html

the text:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/ISPM.pdf

Note that the ISPM was written by a team of INDEPENDENT unsupported experts. The work was based on exactly the same fourth assessment report of the IPCC working group #1

The following concluding statement is not in the Fourth Assessment Report, but was agreed upon by the ISPM writing team based on their review of the current evidence.

The Earth's climate is an extremely complex system and we must not understate the difficulties involved in analyzing it. Despite the many data limitations and uncertainties, knowledge of the climate system continues to advance based on improved and expanding data sets and improved understanding of meteorological and oceanographic mechanisms.

The climate in most places has undergone minor changes over the past 200 years, and the land-based surface temperature record of the past 100 years exhibits warming trends in many places. Measurement problems, including uneven sampling, missing data and local land-use changes, make interpretation of these trends difficult. Other, more stable data sets, such as satellite, radiosonde and ocean temperatures yield smaller warming trends. The actual climate change in many locations has been relatively small and within the range of known natural variability.

There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway. The available data over the past century can be interpreted within the framework of a variety of hypotheses as to cause and mechanisms for the measured changes. The hypothesis that greenhouse gas emissions have produced or are capable of producing a significant warming of the Earth's climate since the start of the industrial era is credible, and merits continued attention. However, the hypothesis cannot be proven by formal theoretical arguments, and the available data allow the hypothesis to be credibly disputed.

Arguments for the hypothesis rely on computer simulations, which can never be decisive as supporting evidence. The computer models in use are not, by necessity, direct calculations of all basic physics but rely upon empirical approximations for many of the smaller scale processes of the oceans and atmosphere. They are tuned to produce a credible simulation of current global climate statistics, but this does not guarantee reliability in future climate regimes. And there are enough degrees of freedom in tunable models that simulations cannot serve as supporting evidence for any one tuning scheme, such as that associated with a strong effect from greenhouse gases.

There is no evidence provided by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report that the uncertainty can be formally resolved from first principles, statistical hypothesis testing or modeling exercises. Consequently, there will remain an unavoidable element of uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future climate change, and indeed whether or not such change is a good or bad thing.

Notice also that a panel of 55 other experts agree to strongely agree that this ISPM is an accurate reflection of the fourth assessment report.

[Jason]

Without knowing how independent the ISPM is (there are a lot of groups simply set up by the oil companies to spew the propaganda and confuse things), I would have to say that the passage you printed doesn't really contradict the IPCC's findings, only states that they can't be confirmed beyond doubt.  I don't think that computer simulations totally support any hypothesis altogether.  As I said, in order to shatter the idea that human beings are making the earth warmer with their industry, it simply isn't enough to find the typical errors in the research - there are errors in everything.  A credible alternate theory has to be created to explain why the earth began to warm up just as the Industrial Revolution has started up without taking into account the effects of industry and pollution.

[andre]

Without knowing how independent the ISPM is (there are a lot of groups simply set up by the oil companies to spew the propaganda and confuse things),

Suppose that when even the oil companies warn for excessive oil consumption:

http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=40

that the exxon funding myth is just mere propaganda. A witch hunt actually brought about by groupthink.

Anyone outside of the group or who has other ideas is dehumanized and seen as a threat; labeled in simplistic, demeaning term; and attacked with ad hominum arguments. Instead of reasoned arguments, members caught up groupthink talk in increasing rhetoric and slogans.

As I said, in order to shatter the idea that human beings are making the earth warmer with their industry,

But they do, Industries heat up but without using CO2. However there is little threat from that for the climate.

A credible alternate theory has to be created to explain why the earth began to warm up just as the Industrial Revolution has started up without taking into account the effects of industry and pollution.

That's not exactly how science works. A popular philosophy is that you cannot prove a hypothesis, but you can falsify it. Given that it's only required do demonstrate, proof, that CO2 has not and cannot cause excessive greenhouse effect as in 2-5 degrees warming per doubling or whatever. Also demonstrating that predictions following the hypothesis failed, would do the trick. Check out the "all-swans-are-white"-hypothesis. hence, it's not necesary to demonstrate that part of the warming has been caused by very poor weather station standards

The problem is that groupthink does not accept falsification of its cherished theory:

(from's Sandies Junkfood science link:)

Because anyone not part of the group is always seen as wrong, another part of the self censorship is that members won’t explore ideas outside the groupthink, nor will they bring up counter-arguments within the group to explore. There is no critical analysis of others’ ideas, from either inside or outside the group. Information used in the group’s decision-making is highly selective and outside experts are never included.

Another manifestation of this is that opposing ideas are not even allowed to be reported, hence, alternative media is suppressed. In fact, found Janis, some members assume the role of protecting the group from contrary information that might threaten the group’s complacency and everyone else goes out of their way to protect the group’s consensus.

[Jason]

that the exxon funding myth is just mere propaganda. A witch hunt actually brought about by groupthink.

Actually, that is wrong, and I could prove that in a whole bunch of ways. Patrick Michaels is one of the most outspoken global warming skeptics, and it's been proven that he gets his money from fossil fuel companies:

He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. Michaels is a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was an author of the 2003 climate science "Paper of the Year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers, for the demonstration that urban heat-related mortality declined significantly as cities became warmer. His writing has been published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science; and his articles have appeared also in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, and the Journal of Commerce. He has appeared on ABC, NPR's All Things Considered, PBS, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC and Voice of America.
He is the author of several books including: Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming, 1992, Satanic Gases, as coauthor 2002, Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media, published by the Cato Institute, 2004, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming as editor and coauthor, 2005.

He has received financial support in research funding and consulting fees from the fossil-fuel energy industry.[9] He is a fellow of the Cato Institute and edits the World Climate Report, published and funded by the not-for-profit organization Greening Earth Society created by the Western Fuels Association.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Michaels#_note-8

I'll try and look for a list for you later, but they have spent millions trying to overcome the opinions of scientists, seemingly to save themselves the billions they would lose if the world became less dependent on fossil fuels.

But they do, Industries heat up but without using CO2. However there is little threat from that for the climate.

Fossil fuel companies certainly produce CO2, where CO2 is, heat usually follows, one way or another.

That's not exactly how science works. A popular philosophy is that you cannot prove a hypothesis, but you can falsify it. Given that it's only required do demonstrate, proof, that CO2 has not and cannot cause excessive greenhouse effect as in 2-5 degrees warming per doubling or whatever.

By falsify, I assume you mean "disprove."  However, your attempts to disprove something only gain steam if you gather up a credible alternate explanation as to why the world is warming up (and why it began to warm up with the start of the Industrial Revolution).  Science always feels a responsibility to explain things, even if it does so incorrectly.  We like to think it makes it's own corrections.

[andre]

that the exxon funding myth is just mere propaganda. A witch hunt actually brought about by groupthink.

Actually, that is wrong, and I could prove that in a whole bunch of ways. Patrick Michaels is one of the most outspoken global warming skeptics, and it's been proven that he gets his money from fossil fuel companies:

I make an offer, you get 100$ for each sceptic "expert" of which it can be proven without any doubt, papers, facts, not the plethora of false allegations, that he recieves dedicated oil company grants  in exchange for producing deceptive climate papers. We are talking dedicated deals of course, other than routine tax deduction funding of institutes of which go 13 to the dozen, Companies need to fund research, any research. that's how the system works. Certainly thinktanks get fundings of oil companies but also from food manufacturers, constructors, you name it. oil companies fund several good causes, including envronmental issues. And after all, you don't use ad honimem attacks to attack the institutes, which are  dedicated to save the tigers because they get a very royal Exxon funding, do you? But I get 100$ from you for each sceptic of which it can be proven that he did not recieve any grants other than regular university research fundings for expressing his doubts about anthropogenic global warming. My list would be about 150-200 persons, half of them already mentioned in the ISPM reviewer and writers listings. Want to try your luck?

Take it from me, the oil company myth is by far the most lamest product of groupthink ever this century.

But they do, Industries heat up but without using CO2. However there is little threat from that for the climate...
Fossil fuel companies certainly produce CO2, where CO2 is, heat usually follows, one way or another.

read the paper in the link. The hot spots cannot be related to CO2, only to locations of industry. The CO2 distribution is much more complex

By falsify, I assume you mean "disprove."  However, your attempts to disprove something only gain steam if you gather up a credible alternate explanation as to why the world is warming up

Still irrelevant. if something is proven that it can't work, then it can't work. Simple as that.

[Chastity]

Welcome to the forum, Andre.

that the exxon funding myth is just mere propaganda. A witch hunt actually brought about by

Sorry, you're wrong about that.  It is well known that Exxon has not only been funding the skeptic propaganda, they have spent 16 million dollars on it since 1998:

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science
Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion
ExxonMobil Report

Full Report (PDF)
Appendix C (hi-resolution PDFs)
Part 1 (hi-resolution PDF)
Part 2 (hi-resolution PDF)
Part 3 (hi-resolution PDF)WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change details how the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has

raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming
ExxonMobil-funded organizations consist of an overlapping collection of individuals serving as staff, board members, and scientific advisors that publish and re-publish the works of a small group of climate change contrarians. The George C. Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations funded by ExxonMobil. Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of several climate change contrarians, including Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist who is affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded groups.

Baliunas is best known for a 2003 paper alleging the climate had not changed significantly in the past millennia that was rebutted by 13 scientists who stated she had misrepresented their work in her paper. This renunciation did not stop ExxonMobil-funded groups from continuing to promote the paper. Through methods such as these, ExxonMobil has been able to amplify and prop up work that has been discredited by reputable climate scientists. 

"When one looks closely, ExxonMobil's underhanded strategy is as clear and indisputable as the scientific research it's meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, an investigative journalist who wrote the UCS report.  "The paper trail shows that, to serve its corporate interests, ExxonMobil has built a vast echo chamber of seemingly independent groups with the express purpose of spreading disinformation about global warming."

ExxonMobil has used the laudable goal of improving scientific understanding of global warming—under the guise of "sound science"—for the pernicious ends of delaying action to reduce heat-trapping emissions indefinitely. ExxonMobil also exerted unprecedented influence over U.S. policy on global warming, from successfully recommending the appointment of key personnel in the Bush administration to funding climate change deniers in Congress.

"As a scientist, I like to think that facts will prevail, and they do eventually," said Dr. James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on climate change impacts. "It's shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts for so long when the future of our planet depends on the steps we take now and in the coming years."

The burning of oil and other fossil fuels results in additional atmospheric carbon dioxide that blankets the Earth and traps heat. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased greatly over the last century and global temperatures are rising as a result. Though solutions are available now that will cut global warming emissions while creating jobs, saving consumers money, and protecting our national security, ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts of future climate change.

"ExxonMobil needs to be held accountable for its cynical disinformation campaign on global warming," said Meyer.  "Consumers, shareholders and Congress should let the company know loud and clear that its behavior on this issue is unacceptable and must change."

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
 

[Chastity]

If you guys are going to have an honest discussion, you might want to start with the truth. Allegedly, they are cutting their ties to the global warming skeptics these days, but that doesn't excuse all the money they spent to fund their propagandists originally - 16 million.

Also, of course, we all know they are, at the same time we are paying an average of $3.00 a gallon of gas in the U.S., fighting a war in Iraq apparently to get hold of more oil for them, having all envirnomental legislation stalled in Congress because they don't want anything to impinge on their profits, they are also in an era where they are making record setting profits.

[Chastity]

Here is another skeptic, bought and paid for by Exxon:

FACTSHEET: S. Fred Singer
DETAILS
President, The Science & Environmental Policy Project.

Editorial Advisory Board Member, Cato Institute. Advisory Board Member, American Council on Science and Health. Adjunct Scholar, National Center for Policy Analysis. Research Fellow, Independent Institute. Distinguished Research Professor, Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University. Former Adjunct Fellow, Frontiers of Freedom. Former Fellow, Hoover Institution. Former Fellow, Heritage Foundation. Former Fellow, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. Editor, Global Climate Change newsletter.

Singer, a leading climate change skeptic, is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other publications.

In a February 2001 letter to the Washington Post, Singer denied receiving funding from the oil industry, except for consulting work some 20 years prior. SEPP, however, received multiple grants from ExxonMobil, including 1998 and 2000. In addition, Singer's current CV on the SEPP website states that he served as a consultant to several oil companies. The organizations Singer has recently been affiliated with - Frontiers of Freedom, ACSH, NCPA, etc. - have recieved generous grants from Exxon on an annual basis. Singer Letter to the Editor -Washington Post February 12, 2001 It is ironic that the attempt by two environmental activists to misrepresent my credentials [letters, Feb. 6] coincides with a sustained cold spell in the United States that set a 100-year record. As for full disclosure: My resume clearly states that consulted for several oil companies on the subject of oil pricing, some 20 years ago, after publishing a monograph on the subject. My connection to oil during the past decade is as a Wesson Fellow at the Hoover Institution; the Wesson money derives from salad oil. S. FRED SINGER Singer is listed as a $500 plus contributer to the Center for Individual Rights. Singer's publications include "The Scientific Case Against the Global Climate Treaty" (SEPP, 1997), "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate" (The Independent Institute, 1997) Singer signed the Leipzig Delcaration.

PhD in Physics, Princeton. Former Director, US National Weather Satellite Center. Former Professor of Environmental Sciences, Univeristy of Virginia (1971-94). Former Deputy Administrator EPA (1970-71). See: http://www.sepp.org/about%20sepp/bios/singer/cvsfs.html

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1

[Chastity]

Here is a recent article on Exxon still funding skeptic organizations, I knew they were lying about it when they said they stopped:

Greenpeace: Exxon still funding climate skeptics

NEW YORK (Reuters) — ExxonMobil Corp. gave over $2 million in 2006 to groups Greenpeace called global warming skeptics even as the oil company campaigned to improve its climate-unfriendly image.
Nevertheless, Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded company, cut its donations to these groups by more than 40% from 2005.


FULL ANALYSIS FROM GREENPEACE: ExxonMobil's continued funding of global warming denial industry
REPORT: ExxonMobil paid to mislead public

The company still funds about 40 "skeptic groups," according to the report from Greenpeace, but Exxon disputed that many of the organizations were "global warming deniers."

The groups listed include the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the National Black Chamber of Commerce. Many of them concern themselves with a wide range of issues.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Exxonmobil | Exxon | ExxonMobil Corporation | American Enterprise Institute | Greenpeace | Thorning
Earlier this year, Exxon said it had stopped funding a handful of groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, that have downplayed the risks of carbon dioxide emissions.

Exxon has argued that its position on global warming has been widely misunderstood and has taken part in industry talks on greenhouse gas emission regulations.

"We believe that climate change is a serious issue and that action is warranted now," said ExxonMobil spokesman Dave Gardner.

Gardner said in a statement that the company supports numerous public policy organizations on a variety of topics that do not represent Exxon or speak on its behalf.

"The groups Greenpeace cites are a widely varied group and to classify them as 'climate deniers' is wrong," he said, adding most of the groups had taken no position on climate change.

Still, the Greenpeace report is already receiving scrutiny in Washington, where Rep. Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat, has joined the environmentalist group in calling for Exxon to release its plans for contributions during the current year.

"The support of climate skeptics, many of whom have no real grounding in climate science, appears to be an effort to distort public discussion about global warming," Miller said. "So long as popular discussion could be about whether warming was occurring or not, so long as doubt was widespread, consensus for action could be postponed."

Climate deniers?

Margo Thorning, chief economist of the American Council for Capital Formation said she took "strong exception" with Greenpeace's classification of the group.

"If Greenpeace would take the time to examine the testimony I've given over the years, we've always said that climate change is a problem," Thorning said of her group, which says on its website that it promotes economic and environmental policies that promote economic growth.

"We're not climate deniers, we're problem solvers," she said.

Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, said his group believes that there has been a change to the climate, but that the cause is still uncertain.

"Whether its cyclical — something that happens every few hundred years — or whatever, I don't know. I don't beleive anyone has the answer yet," said Alford, head of the group that says on its website it is dedicated to economically empowering African-American communities.

"I think where Greenpeace gets upset is that we don't agree with them. But so what? I think their position is pretty radical and one-sided," he said.

Greenpeace said it included groups that either tried to mischaracterized the science behind global warming or "obstruct the policy debate."

Spokesman Kert Davies said these arguments "hinged on the fact that this (global warming) is not an urgent problem or has no basis. Ultimately, it always boils down to, 'There is no problem, so why would you destroy the economy to solve it."'

ExxonMobil's spending on the groups was less than a third of the company's $6.5 million in contributions for policy research.

The company and its foundations donated a total of $138.6 million to non-profit organizations and social projects worldwide in 2006.

According to the Greenpeace report, Exxon's spending was well below the nearly $3.6 million it spent on "denial groups" in 2005 and just over half the $3.9 million it shelled out in 2004.

So who do you believe — Greenpeace or ExxonMobil? Leave us a comment below.

Contributing: Additional reporting by Matt Daily and Timothy Gardner

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. Click for Restrictions.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-05-18-greenpeace-exxon_N.htm

[Chastity]

Wow, here is one where they are offering scientists 10 grand apiece to dispute global warming!  I imagine that is a drop in the bucket for them:

Exxon linked to climate change pay out
Think tank offers scientists $10,000 to criticize UN study confirming global warming and placing blame on humans.By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
February 5 2007: 2:02 PM EST


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A think tank partly funded by Exxon Mobil sent letters to scientists offering them up to $10,000 to critique findings in a major global warming study released Friday which found that global warming was real and likely caused by burning fossil fuels.

The American Enterprise Institute sent the letters to scientists offering them $10,000, plus travel and other expenses, to highlight the shortcomings in a report from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group widely considered to be the authority on climate change science.

"The purpose of this project is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process, especially as it bears on potential policy responses to climate change," said the memo, which was sent to a professor at Texas A&M University.

"We are hoping to sponsor a paper...that thoughtfully explores the limitations of climate model [forecasting] outputs as they pertain to the development of climate policy..."

The letter was obtained by CNNMoney.com through ExxposeExxon, a coalition of environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Exxon greens up its act

While there is nothing wrong with funding new research, activists said the intent of the letter seemed to be to criticize the UN report in the eyes of the public, outside the normal review process for scientific work.

"It is a major problem that scientists make arguments against climate change...that they can't back up [with] peer reviewed data," said Shawnee Hoover, campaign director for ExxposeExxon.

In a statement, AEI said Exxon's annual contribution to the group is small, amounting to less than 1 percent of AEI's annual budget.

It also said a $10,000 payment for scientific work was not unusual.

"A $10,000 fee for a research project involving the review of a large amount of dense scientific material, and the synthesis of that material into an original, footnoted and rigorous article is hardly exorbitant or unusual; many academics would call it modest," the statement read.

One academic disagreed with that claim.

"To me this is really amazing, you never get offered that kind of money," said Don Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois.

Wuebbles criticized the letter for attempting to influence the outcome of its authors.

"Even if groups ask you to write things, they don't try to give you the answer before hand," he said.

But David Karl, a climate professor at the University of Hawaii, said that the amount of money was typical for authoring such a report, although he did take issue with the tone of the letter.

"It sounds like they were looking for a particular outcome," he said.

Exxon has been criticized in the past for funding groups that promote what many experts believe to be junk science.

"This has become a strategy of Exxon's over the years," said Hoover. "The number one way to fight Kyoto was to insert doubt into people's mind."

A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists said Exxon spent $16 million between 1998 and 2005 funding 43 "organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science."

According to Exxon's Web site, the company contributed $240,000 to AEI in 2005 and a similar amount in 2004.

An Exxon (Charts) spokesman said the company continues to donate to AEI, but said it does not control what the group does.

The spokesman also noted that Exxon is one of many corporations that give to AEI, which is a well-known think tank.

But Exxon has recently acknowledged that global warming is happening. The oil giant conceded that humans are partly to blame for the phenomenon, and pledged to stop funding what many consider to be fringe groups that downplay human's role in global warming.

"There is increasing evidence that the earth's climate has warmed," reads Exxon's latest statement on global warming, issued Friday in response to the UN study. "CO2 emissions have increased...and emissions from fossil fuels and land use changes are one source of these emissions.

"Because the risks to society and ecosystems [posed by global warming] could prove to be significant, it is prudent now to develop and implement strategies that address the risks, keeping in mind the central importance of energy to the economies of the world. This includes putting policies in place that start us on a path to reduce emissions, while understanding the context of managing carbon emissions among other important world priorities, such as economic development, poverty eradication and public health."

But critics are calling Exxon's sincerity into question over their perceived attempts to cloud the public's perception of scientific opinion.

"What we want to see is that Exxon is making a policy change" before the company claims that it has reformed its old ways, said Hoover.

________________
http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/02/news/companies/exxon_science/index.htm

[Chastity]

HALL OF SHAME

Keeping track of the journalists and academics who promote their careers by denying climate change.

One would think that no one could continue to seriously deny our addiction to fossil fuels is damaging the world's climate systems. Who could be arrogant enough to ignore the consensus of 2,000 climate scientists and all the world's scientific institutions; blind enough to miss the melting permafrost, the shrinking glaciers, the regular freak weather?

Yet, as always, there is a small group of people happy to distort the truth to promote themselves and build their careers. Some are directly funded by the fossil fuel industries. Some are self promoting egotists seeking attention. Some just want to be controversial and fill a newspaper column.

Their arguments also differ. A declining number claim that there is no climate change at all. Some accept climate change but say that it will be beneficial. Most say that there may be some small change, but that it has been exagerated for political reasons. The claim that the causes are still unknown and that it is probably a natural cycle.

All of the deniers- we refuse to grace them with their chosen name, "skeptics"- are dangerous for they create a false debate around the existence of climate change and divert attention from the real debate: "What are we going to do about climate change?".

On this page Rising Tide keeps a regularly undated record of these deniers. We believe they must be made accountable for the damage they cause.

This page is work in progress. We welcome more information or clarifications. More information on the international climate deniers can be found on the site www.heatisonline.org

UK CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS

ACADEMICS

PHILIP STOTT.
Stott, a gifted self-publicist, is grooming himself to be Britains leading climate change denier. Trading on his academic credentials as a professor of geography at the University of London, Stott appears regularly on radio and television programmes citing carefully selected contradictory data and studies to undermine the IPCC consensus.

DAVID UNWIN.
Unwin is a Professor of Environmental Science at Birbeck College. He has been quoted in the media claiming that the uncertainties are too huge to draw firm conclusions and that the IPCC is obsessed with reducing CO2. He regards adaptation as a better strategy.

FRED HOYLE
Despite his credentials as past president of the Royal Astronomical Society, Sir Fred Hoyle is not above promoting himself with some pure conjecture. In April 2001 he co-authored a report in Astrophysics and Space Science Journal that claimed that human induced global warming is vital to counter another ice age. His co-author, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of the University of Cardiff, was quoted as saying: "Perhaps we should be stepping up rather than decreasing our greenhouse gas emissions".

PIERS CORBYN.
Corbyn is director of Weather Action, which claims to provide long term weather forecasts to British industry. He also claims to lectures at the South Bank University in London. Corbyn has been actively promoting himself and his organisation with claims that global warming is largely a product of "natural" changes in solar radiation and magnetic fields. Like many deniers, he claims that there is a vested interest by the IPCC scientists to play up the problem to obtain research grants.

JOURNALISTS

MELANIE PHILLIPS
A right wing controversialist, Phillips titled her 15th April 2001 "Comment" column in the Sunday Times "the myth of global warming endangers the planet". She claimed that "there is no conclusive evidence to support the global warming theory". Apparently "thousands of scientists are dismayed by the falsehoods of Kyoto", though she only names arch denier Richard Lindzen (see below). The report of the IPCC she says is "more akin to a religious icon than a piece of scientific reasoning". The "myth" of climate change has been created by "those who wanted a stick to beat western capitalism, America and globalisation". The article was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune.

PETER HITCHENS
Peter Hitchens, like Melanie Phillips a provocative right wing journalist, is keen to promote denial arguments. In his column in the Mail on Sunday he clained that there is still "no evidence" to support global warming. In a reply to a complaint about this article he reiterated that all the existing scientific data are "suppositions, allegations, predictions. Numbers prove nothing"

JULIAN CHAMPKIN
Champkin wrote an article of December 6th 2000, in the Daily Mail titled "Whatever Happened to Global Warming". The double page article showed photos of floods claiming them as proof that the scientists who, it said, had predicted hot dry weather, had been wrong all along. No scientific opinion was sought in the article.

THINK TANKS

MARK ADAMS-SCIENTIFIC ALLIANCE
Mark Adams is a former Private Secretary to John Major and Tony Blair who left to set up a career as a lobbyist, public relations consultant and denier of climate change. In 2000 Adams set up a web site (http://www,scientific-alliance.com) to "use scientific fact to counter scare-mongering by the so-called green lobby". The site quotes the usual tiny handful of deniers and links to the US right-wing anti-environmental think tanks (Cato Institute, George C Marshall Institute described as having a "rigorous unbiased analysis"). The organisation purporting to be behind the website, the SCIENTIFIC ALLIANCE, does not involve any scientists or indeed exist in any formal sense. It is a public relations vehicle modeled on the US think tanks based out of Adam's Westminster office and created by Robert Durward, the director of the anti-environmentalist lobby group, the British Aggregates Association.

EUROPEAN DENIERS

BJORN LOMBERG
Lomberg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" has received endless coverage in the right-wing media, and Lomberg has built a lucrative career as a public speaker. Like most deniers, Lomberg plays on his academic credentials, as an Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and makes constant reference to his former membership of Greenpeace. Lomberg's usual strategy is to claim that he takes a reasonable middle ground- yes, there is a problem but it is nothing like as bad as is claimed. So he accepts that there is climate change, but claims, with no evidence, that it "will not decrease food production; nor is it likely to increase storminess, the frequency of hurricanes, the impact of malaria, or cause more deaths". He says that we should do nothing directly about CO2 emissions- that it will cost $1 trillion (a figure with no justification) to implement the Kyoto protocol and that it is cheaper to maintain business as usual and invest in renewable energy. There is a web site dedicated to dismantling Lomberg's arguments at www.anti-lomborg.com

EUROPEAN SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORUM.
The Forum is a talkshop for climate deniers created by the George C Marshall Institute to undermine the IPCC in Europe. The Forum consists of the usual small band of deniers and right wing zealots among them JOHN SCHLESINGER, former head of the CIA, RICHARD LINDZEN, RICHARD COURTNEY and PHILIP STOTT. A report published February 2002, "Climate Science and Policy: Making the Connection" contains many of the Institute's main arguments- that the science is too uncertain, that the IPCC findings "have become politicized" and do "not demonstrate any genuine human influence on global climate."

AUSTRALIAN DENIERS

LAVOISIER GROUP. The group was created by Hugh Morgan, managing director of a mining company WMC. Morgan believes that environmentalists "threaten our survival" and has supported several other influential Australian right-wing groups. The group argues that there is no evidence of global warming, and that the Kyoto protocol will undermine Australian sovereignty which it compares to the planned invasion of Australia by Japan. It uses similar language to oppose even carbon trading, calling federal government discussion papers proposing carbon trading Nazi propaganda, "Mein Kampf Declarations".

LARRY MOUNSER, lecturer in Mass Media at the University of New South Wales, wrote a typical denial article for the Canberra Times in December 2000, claiming that global warming was a "creed" not science, that extreme weather events are natural, but manipulated to look like climate change by the media in search of a scare story.

AMERICAN DENIERS

US ACADEMICS

RICHARD LINDZEN. As a Professor of Meteorology at the credible Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lindzen is the most reputable academic among the US climate deniers. Lindzen trades on his qualifications constantly to gain access to top level discussion in the US government or scientific institutions. His arguments, though, are identical to the other deniers. In an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 11 2001) he claims that "there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends or what casues them" and "we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future". Lindzen works closely with other deniers, such as Fred Singer and the George C Marshall Institute.

FRED SINGER. Like Richard Lindzen, Singer is a leading denier who trades on his academic credentials as a Professor in the University of Virginia and a former director of the US Weather Satellite Service. Despite this he has not had a single article accepted for any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 15 years. Singer's main line of argument is that satellite temperature measurements show no increase in global temperatures. He shows no interest in accepting recent explanations for this discrepancy. He admits to having received direct funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. Exxon is also among the funders ($10,000 in 1998 alone) of his academic sounding front organisation the "The Science and Environment Policy Project". Singer also has close links with the Rev Moon (leader of the Moonie cult) and his rabid right wing newspaper the Washington Times in which his articles regularly appear. He also writes for the far-right climate denying Hoover Institute, and the New American, journal for the extremist John Birch Society.

PATRICK MICHAELS
Dr. Michaels is a Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute's Environment and Natural Resources Program. His research has received direct funding from, among others, Western Fuels ($63,000) German Coal Mining Association ($49,000), Edison Electric Institute ($15,000), and Cyprus Minerals (440,000), a major funder of anti-environmental campaigns. Tom Wigley, one of the leading IPCC scientists, describes Michaels work as "a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation". Michaels produces a newsletter "World Climate Report" sent free to every member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

ROBERT BALLING. Dr. Balling published an influential denial book "The Heated Debate" in 1992 which was translated into Arabic and distributed to the heads of OPEC. Between 1991 and 1995 he (and his accomplice Dr Sherwood Idso, see below) received $300,000 in funding from coal and oil organisations, amongst them the British Coal Corporation ($75,000), the German Coal Mining Association ($80,000) and the Kuwaiti Foundation for the Advancement of Science ($48,000)

ROBERT MENDELSOHN. Dr Mendelsohn is an economist at Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies who has built a public profile from arguing that in the US and globally the costs of climate change will be outweighed by the benefits. In his book "Global Warming and the American Economy" he argues that global warming will be good thing for the US economy. Agricultural yields will increase from longer growing seasons and increased CO2. He admits there will be costs, especially for poor people in the tropics, but, like Bjorn Lomberg, he argues that the best strategy is business as usual and using economic growth to pay for any costs.

US MEDIA

WASHINGTON TIMES- although happy to be confused with the venerable Washington Post newspaper, the Washington Times is an aggressively right wing tabloid and soap box for the most rabid anti-environmentalists. The editorial line of the Times is that climate change does not exist and is the invention of people who want to subvert capitalism and the American way of life. The Times is funded by "Reverend Moon" founder of the Moonie cult.

US INDUSTRY GROUPS

GLOBAL CLIMATE COALITION
The GCC was founded by fossil fuel producers and car manufacturers to lobby against any international initiatives that would impact its members profits. By March 2000, though, its refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the scientific consensus (and a feisty campaign in the US) forced the resignation of British Petroleum, Shell, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, and General Motors. In February 2002 the GCC was formally disbanded having achieved its primary goal of pulling the US out off the Kyoto Protocol. http://www.globalclimate.org

WESTERN FUELS ASSOCIATION
The WFA is an association of $400 million of US coal producing interests. The WFA is one of the most powerful forces in the US actively denying the basic science of climate change. One of its greenwash offshoots is the Greening Earth Society- on the board of which is Dr Patrick Michaels.

AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE
The API, whose members include all the major oil companies (including BP), has consistently tried to prevent the US ratifying the Kyoto Protoocol. The API works closely with Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz, both of whom worked with the API 1998 for a $5 million advertising campaign denying the climate science.

EXXON MOBILIn addition to its involvement in many of the lobby groups and think tanks mentioned above, Exxon Mobil has frequently gone it alone in its crusade to deny climate change. In 2000 it funded an ad undermining the IPCC's consensus titled "Unsettled Science" which appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The ad's key evidence was taken, without permission, from the work into ocean currents by Lloyd Keigwin, a legitimate scientist. Keigwin publicly said he was annoyed with the advert, and distanced himself from its findings.

US THINK TANKS AND CONSULTANTS
GEORGE C MARSHALL INSTITUTE
The Institute, led by Frederick Seitz, is a very well funded far right think tank which maintains that climate change is a liberal plot to undermine the US economy. The Institute specialises in creating a veneer of scientific credibility for its views, constantly pointing out that Seitz was once president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In March 1998 the Institute went one step further with a typical report attacking the international climate negotiations as intellectually and scientifically flawed. The format of the report was nearly identical to that used for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy issued a statement discrediting the report and distancing itself from its conclusions.

CATO INSTITUTE- another far right think tank- similar in its views to the George C Marshall Insititute.

FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM INSTITUTE
Another far right think tank, funded, by Exxon Mobil amonst others. Fred Singer is on the staff.

TECHCENTRALSTATION.COM
This website is an offshoot of American Enterprise Institute, It is hosted by JAMES GLASSMAN, a professional climate denier who is frequently published in the US, and KEN HOLME. Holme was Director of Arms Control in the Reagan administration In an article in May 2001, Holme claims that unnamed "top scientists" believe that the evidence of climate change is insufficient to take any action. He compares the "liberal" Kyoto Protocol with the lack of science in the "liberal" campaign for breast feeding- which he voted against whilst in the UN. See http://www.techcentralstation.com

CHRISTOPHER C HORNER attorney for the COOLER HEADS COALITION- yet another right wing think tank. A regular contributor to the Washington Times. In an aggressive and facile article in April 2001 he debunks the science, demanding to know "did my Land Rover chase the dinosaurs to oblivion?"

SHERWOOD, CRAIG AND KEITH IDSO
The Idsos all work through their front organisation, the academic sounding Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. In their publications, such as "Carbon Dioxide: Friend or Foe" they argue that increased atmospheric CO2 will produce net benefits and improve agricultural output. Their video, "the Greening of Planet Earth", which claims that global warming is a net benefit for the world, received $250,000 in funds from the Western Fuels Association and was used intensively to lobby congress.

HENRY LAMB Lamb edits World Concerns, a magazine for SOVEREIGNTY INTERNATIONAL, an anti-United Nations think tank. He claims that freedom is a "gift from the Creator". Cheap and plentiful energy is a "friend of freedom" which is threatened by the Kyoto Protocol. The answer, he says, is to remove all legally binding requirements from the protocol. www.freedom21.org.

BILL HAMMOND is President of the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce. Hammond has been mobilising Texan businesses to lobby the government, claiming that implementation of Kyoto would shutdown 25% of US power plants leading to "a crisis of energy shortages and skyrocketing prices".


http://risingtide.org.uk/pages/voices/hall_shame.htm

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html

[Chastity]

After January 31, 2003: Scientist Who Wrote Article Skeptical of Global Warming Recruited by ExxonMobil-Funded Organizations

After publishing their heavily criticized article on global warming, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas quickly cultivate relationships with at least nine organizations whose climate change work is underwritten by ExxonMobil. Among her other affiliations, Baliunas becomes a board member and senior scientist at the Marshall Institute, a scientific adviser to the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, an advisory board member of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and a contributing scientist to the online forum Tech Central Station. Soon will be the chief scientific researcher for the Center for Science and Public Policy, a senior scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute, as well as a contributor to the Heartland Institute. [Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, pp. 15, 34-35 ]
Entity Tags: George C. Marshall Institute, Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Heartland Institute, Tech Central Station, Center for Science and Public Policy, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon
Timeline Tags: Global Warming

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=BaliunasHooksUpWExxonFundedOrgs

[Chastity]

Yes, Exxon certainly has an exaggerated role in the current climate change debate alright:


4 January 2007
Scientists Slam ExxonMobil's Global Warming "Disinformation"

 The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a nonprofit independent scientific organization formed in 1969, has slammed what it calls ExxonMobil's disinformation tactics in regard to climate change. The UCS has just released a report that details how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics (as well as some of the same organizations and personnel), to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. The report claims that in the last seven years, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the UCS' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."

The UCS report, entitled "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Change," details how the oil company has:

raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming
The report details how the intricate web of ExxonMobil-funded organizations publish and re-publish the works of a small group of climate change contrarians. The George C. Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations funded by ExxonMobil. Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of several climate change contrarians.

"When one looks closely, ExxonMobil's underhanded strategy is as clear and indisputable as the scientific research it's meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, author of the UCS report. "The paper trail shows that, to serve its corporate interests, ExxonMobil has built a vast echo chamber of seemingly independent groups with the express purpose of spreading disinformation about global warming."

The report also claims that ExxonMobil exerted unprecedented influence over U.S. policy on global warming, from successfully recommending the appointment of key personnel in the Bush administration to funding climate change deniers in Congress. "As a scientist, I like to think that facts will prevail, and they do eventually," said Harvard University's Dr. James McCarthy, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on climate change impacts. "It's shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts for so long when the future of our planet depends on the steps we take now and in the coming years."

The report concludes that ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts of future climate change. "ExxonMobil needs to be held accountable for its cynical disinformation campaign on global warming," said Meyer. "Consumers, shareholders and Congress should let the company know loud and clear that its behavior on this issue is unacceptable and must change."

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070003212319data_trunc_sys.shtml

Simply, a bunch of hypocrites, they say one thing, then do another, and all to protect their profits.

[andre]

That's indeed the enemy image building, the character murder campaign. suggesting that there are evil scientists who know deep in their heart that catastrophic antropogenic global warming is true, but given enough money are more than happy to produce deceiving papers which suggest that there is no catastrophic antropogenic global warming.

And sure enough the uninformed honest citizen who is very worried about the future of the environment and wants to help solving it, beliefs that instantly. No doubt about it. These are evil villains willing to destroy the future for a bag of money.

Well it's not true. I know most climate sceptics and all of them are INFORMED honest cizitens who are very worried about the future of the environment and want to help solving that, but they also know that climate is NOT a part of that problem. Their publications are just as peer reviewed as others and if it is baloney then there are armies of alarmists that could debunk it.

The biggest problem is that hatred campaign poisening common sense and preventing some clear thinking.

As for which side is the more likely to be sensitive to fraud, perhaps recall the hockeystick disgrace. Or check here to see how hard data is being doctored as we speak:

http://www.climateaudit.org/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2077