Climate Money: The Climate Industry: $79 billion so far – trillions to come

OK, so how much of the government research on climate was funded on the condition that the research have a predetermined outcome?

Meanwhile Exxon offered cash to anyone with scientific credentials who would write a paper countering the IPCC report.

The government funds climate science. Exxon funds only what it wants to hear.

 

Well, we're not going to have any sort of reasoned debate on this, judging from the tone of the material that was posted.

But in the interest of just a tiny bit of rationality, I'd like to point out that the bulk of US spending for climate science is for satellites. Perhaps we'd be happier, in the short run, if we didn't know anything. But I, for one, am glad that we spend the money to figure out what's happening.

So, for example, when Spencer and Christy argued, loudly, and for years, that there was no global warming because their (incorrect, and later corrected) analysis of the satellite data didn't show any -- that's a chunk of that $2B/year the Feds spend in this area.

The fact that the satellite series show warming, and even Spencer and Christy agree with that now (and that the RSS analysis always did show warming) -- that's because that's true, not because the government paid for the satellites and associated support.

Last year, when Lindzen published his latest attempt to support his iris hypothesis, that was based on ... wait for it ... satellite data, paid for by the federal government. The fact that he clearly appears to be wrong (even Roy Spencer points out the flaws in what he did, there are already published, peer-reviewed analyses showing what he did that was questionable), that's not the fault of the people who paid for the satellites. That's just because he's wrong.

Hey, when Solomon came out this year with the very interesting study showing that variation in stratospheric water vapor was a significant contributor to short-term temperature trends, the Feds not only paid for the satellite data, hey, she works for NASA, they paid her salary to do that.

---

For the rest of it, what can you say, it's pure propaganda.

They point to the heroic McIntyre and his "proof" that the "hockey stick" is wrong.

• But they completely fail to mention the National Academy of Sciences report that compared McIntyre to Mann and found that the "hockey stick" was basically correct. McIntyre was asked to (and did) make his case before the National Academy of Sciences panel, and, based on all the evidence at hand, the NAS said that the Hockey Stick was basically right.
• They mention the Wegman report, but do not mention that the main criticism Wegman had to offer resulted in trivial changes to the estimated temperatures. That, based on a peer-reviewed and published analysis. The main thing Wegman found to criticize turned out to be a nit-pick -- so, in that perspective, the Wegman analysis actually strenthens the inference that Mann was correct.
• They fail to mention the dozen or so independent reconstructions that yield the hockey stick shape, as if Mann were the only person to get this finding.
• They fail to mention that global averages of bore hole temperature reconstructions tell the same tale, or that you get the finding with or without principal components analysis (the focus of McIntyre's original complaint), and so on.
• They fail to mention Mann's continued publications in the Nature and other scientific journals of record.

And what graph do they show, to make their point? A graph, based on proxy records from 18 sites (versus the roughly 1200 series in Mann's latest analysis). As the NAS report noted, there are many sites where modern temperatures are NOT the highest, it's just that, on average, modern temperatures are the highest (that's what you mean by a global mean or hemispheric mean temperature). So, sure, there's plenty of scope to pick the 18 you want. And that's what they show.

---

Their discussion of Watts and the sub-standard temperature stations is similarly incomplete. They fail to mention the peer-reviewed analysis done by NOAA staff that demonstrates, systematically, that this is not an issue. In fact, they have the gall to say this:

"If they were really interested in getting the data right, wouldn’t they just rule out all the stations that aren’t sited correctly until such time that they are fixed?"

I mean, is that hilarious, or what. That's precisely what the NOAA analysis did, and showed that it made essentially no difference to their estimated temperature trend. That kind of distortion takes real hutzpah.

Also notable by omission is any mention of the climate reference network, the new set of 120 or so stations in isolated areas with redundant sets of state-of-the-art equipment. The US mean temperature anomaly and trend, from that system, is essentially identical to the anomaly and trend that NOAA and others have obtained from the historical climate network stations.

In other words, this is an absolutely dead issue. Yet, there they are arguing something that might have been an issue five years ago, but has been shown to be irrelevant.

And, after doing all that, they have the hutzpah to call main stream science "propaganda", repeatedly.

---

So, how can anybody take this seriously? Their idea of evidence is to flog a dead horse: Take issues that, once upon a time might have been of interest, that were looked at in detail, and that were shown to be wrong. And they scrupulously omit the last part of the story -- the "shown to be wrong" part.

But I found the paper noteworthy for a few things.

First, they expect their average reader to know so little, and to be so paranoid, as to take their arguments at face value. So, there would appear to be a good market for propaganda out there.

Second, their scientific arguments hinge totally on ignoring the fact that science and understanding has moved on. Once upon a time, McKitrick raised some issues about the hockey stick that might have been significant. Turns out, they weren't. Once upon a time, Watts raised some issues about the historical climate network that might have been significant. Turns out, they weren't. And now, likely, ditto for the iris effect. Great concept, only problem is that it doesn't happen. That was the conclusion from the last round of papers (following the 1991 introduction of the idea), and that seems to be where this most recent round of analysis is ending up.


But let's be clear: These issues are now ignored by mainstream science not because people have somehow been bribed to ignore them, but because people took them seriously and they were shown to be wrong. That's how science works.

So, here's my view. They don't like the outcomes that the actual science is showing. They can't take on the science, as science, because they have nothing to stand on. Their best shots, in this paper, were issues that were taken seriously by mainstream US science (you don't get more serious than having the NAS devote a study to your topic), but have been discarded because they were wrong. That doesn't help, so they present the story that somehow mainstream science has ignored these issues, which is in fact simply a lie.

So, if you can't win on the facts, lie, and smear the opposition. Simple as that.

 

Are you guys seriously entertaining this troll? LMAO!

 

The government only funds those who write what it wants to hear.

You dont see the government funding denialists do you

 

I'm starting to wonder who funds all of the idiots who troll on a Prius forum when they don't even own the car.

 

Chicken feed. For decades biologists, physicists, astronomers and geologists have been getting rich off the *hundreds* of billions of taxpayer dollars spent by the US Federal Government on the evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics, Big Bang, and plate tectonics scams and hoaxes. The climatologists just wanted some of that free sugar. How can one poor oil company withstand the might of academia?

 

Who is this Poptech guy? Where did he come from? and why do we lend these moronic troll any legitimacy?

4 days a member, no connection to Priuschat, no connection to Prius's, his only interest is in stirring up the pot!

 

Icarus his intention is presenting the truth.

The truth that AGW is no more than a lib power grab

 

This paper confirms what I have been speculating.
Its so obvious that the money is distorting science.
Especially when skeptics lose their jobs and funding.
I wonder what the worldwide expenditure has been.The UK may spend as much as the US.
Goldman, Enron,the nuke industry money.
It could be double $79 billion.
Funny that in the 90s Enron funded Greenpeace.
And today Goldman Sachs is the worlds largest oil trader as well as the largest lobby for C&T.

 

this is all so interesting, and productive! has anyone come over to the dark side yet? "these are not the droids you're looking for."

 

$79 B? Hell, the fossil fuel industry gets ~$72B each year from the gov't in the form of subsidies.

 

:thumb:

 

So if the government is funding science research....AND helping big oil...AND cozy in the bed with Goldman Sachs...AND getting liberals rich...well...would you say it's "fair and balanced?"






...there is no conspiracy...

 

And they pay far more than that back in taxes annually as well

 

And with their meager profits they can hardly afford it...

 

Re: Climate Money: The Climate Industry: $79 billion so far – trillions to come

Kinda makes ya wonder why they need those subsidies in the first place.

 

Yes... yes it does.