Global Warming Denyers Falsify Scientists’ Work

The following certainly deserves its own post.

A leading global warming denyer outfit, the Heartland Institute, has been called out by scientists whose work they misrepresented. What happened? Well, the Heartland Institute held a conference back in early March called the ‘Climate Skeptics’ Conference. Following the conference, the Institute made sure to distribute widely (the Vast portion of the Vast Right Wing Machine) an article entitled, “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares.” Wow, that sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

As it turns out, it’s not so impressive. Dennis T. Avery, a “Senior Fellow” at Heartland and director of the Hudson Institute, wrote the article. He should have done a better job. An activist looked at the 500 names and emailed 122 scientists Monday afternoon. At last count, 45 of them have responded, rightfully outraged, that their work in no way supports Avery’s conclusions and have demanded that their names be removed. If you’re familiar with the Oregon Petition, this event falls neatly in line with that bogus effort. Those 45 scientists issues responses only in the first 24 hours following emails being sent to them. I expect there will be others moving forward.

Is there a special interest that has a history of funding Heartland? Of course: ExxonMobil. Importantly, Exxon is not the only source of funds. However:

Heartland’s extreme anti-environmentalism no doubt spawns from its supporters. Between 1998 and 2005, oil giant ExxonMobil gave nearly $800,000 to Heartland. The group’s Board of Directors also explains the group’s climate change denials:

– Thomas Walton is the Director of Economic Policy at General Motors.

–James L. Johnston is a former senior economist for oil company Amoco Corporation.

–Walter F. Buchholtz is a former member of Heartland’s board of directors and worked as ExxonMobil’s Senior Issues Advisor.

See, here’s the thing: climate change is completely supported by peer-reviewed research articles that have been presented in scientific journals. As I’ve noted before, the only problem that research has is, as incomplete as it is, it has so far underestimated the effects of human-caused climate change. Understandably, the research and forecasts of future effects has also failed to incorporate unforseen feedbacks, such as millions of acres of trees that have been killed by mountain pine beetles releasing their stored carbon into the atmosphere.

In the larger scheme, however, this event, and others before it, clearly demonstrate a lack of integrity from the right-wing’s global warming denialists. If they can’t find 500 scientists willing to put their names up for Avery’s article, they shouldn’t trumpet their efforts to do so. This is a cheap gimmick designed to lend credence to their argument. Their lack of honesty has efficiently taken any such credence away.

This is how desperate the fringe right-wing is, folks. They have to cobble together names of supporters without first notifying them, despite the fact that those scientists’ work don’t advance their ideology’s argument. If their arguments and positions were solid, they wouldn’t have to lie and distract to attract attention and support. But instead we are forced to watch spectacles like this. If the facts worked in their favor, there wouldn’t be such a large machine spending millions of dollars per year to convince the public of them.