The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards

I would like to share the Pacific Institute's "2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards"

For more information please link to:

http://pacinst.org/press_center/press_releases/climate_bs_award_2011.html

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Pacific Institute's

2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards


[* B.S. means “Bad Science”]

Background


Even as unusually frequent and intense extreme weather events killed people and damaged property, and as the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate continued to strengthen, national leaders did little to ameliorate or plan adaptation strategies for climate change. Peter Gleick attributes this failure to act in part to the difficulty of the challenges of curbing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea-levels, loss of snowpack and glaciers, disappearance of Arctic sea ice, and more. But he also points to what he describes as “a concerted, well-funded, and aggressive anti-science campaign by climate change deniers and contrarians.”

“These are mostly groups focused on protecting narrow financial interests, ideologues fearful of any government regulation, or scientific contrarians who cling to outdated, long-refuted interpretations of science,” said Gleick. “While much of the opposition to addressing the issue of climate change is political, it often hides behind pseudo-scientific claims, with persistent efforts to intentionally mislead the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change.”

In response to these efforts, in 2010 the Pacific Institute launched the annual Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards. We are now pleased, and disturbed, to announce the winners of the 2011 (second annual) Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards:

THIS YEAR’S WINNERS OF THE
2011 CLIMATE B.S.* OF THE YEAR AWARDS:

Fifth Place: Anthony Watts for his BEST hypocrisy


Anti-climate-science blogger Anthony Watts said he would accept the results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature or “BEST” study, even if it proved him wrong. Unfortunately for him, the study showed that the Earth’s surface is warming and at just the rate that numerous previous studies had shown – but he reneged and attacked the paper and the science.

Fourth Place: The Koch Brothers for funding the promotion of bad climate science


Fourth place goes to fossil-fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, Inc., who provide substantial funding to groups and politicians who deny the science of climate change. The Koch brothers fund a veritable Who’s Who of groups that put out misleading science or tout bad science on climate change as an intentional strategy.

Third Place: Spencer, Braswell, and Christy


Third place goes to Roy Spencer and William (Danny) Braswell for a debunked research paper on climate sensitivity, and John Christy, for an astounding piece of misleading testimony at a Congressional climate change hearing.

Second Place: Disinformation from Fox News and Murdoch’s News Corporation


Fox News moves up from their fifth place finish last year, joined by the entire News Corporation empire of Rupert Murdoch because of its regular misrepresentation of climate science and anti-climate science reporting among the different Murdoch outlets in the UK, the U.S., and Australia.

AND IN FIRST PLACE
All of the Republican candidates for President 
being anti-science in general, and anti-climate science in particular, seems a requirement for nomination to lead the Republican Party. 

Not a single one of the Republican candidates for President has a position on climate change that is consistent with the actual science accepted by 97-98% of all climate scientists and every national academy of sciences on the planet. 

The choice among the current Republican candidates on the issue of climate change is scientific ignorance, disdain for science, blatant misrepresentation of facts, or naked political expediency, any one of which would make the individual candidates strong contenders for the 2011 Climate B.S. Award. Combined? 

The group wins the 2011 Award hands down.