Free Speech is no license for malicious fraud and slander!

I've been wanting to Repost this article since I first read it last week.  It's something that is long overdue.  The time has arrived to reaffirm our need to deal honestly with today's many challenges.  Free Speech is not a license to commit fraud through the agents of malicious slander nor by out-screaming and misrepresenting the science serious experts are trying to explain to our leaders and citizens.  

A publicity campaign ruthlessly bent on dumbing down our collective understanding of critically important issues deserves to be called criminal and prosecuted.  Why?  Because our leaders and citizens have the right, the need, to learn what serious competent scientists have been observing and learning about our planet and this climate system that we are absolutely depend on.

With a big thank you to Dana Nuccitelli, John Mashey, John Cook and the hard working volunteers at SkepticalScience.com I present:

Déjà vu: as with tobacco, the climate wars are going to court

Posted on 18 July 2016 by Dana Nuccitelli, John Mashey

http://www.skepticalscience.com/deja-vu-climate-wars-going-to-court-like-tobacco.html

Investigative journalism has uncovered a “web of denial” in which polluting industries pay “independent” groups to disseminate misinformation to the public and policymakers. The same groups and tactics were employed first by the tobacco industry, then fossil fuel companies. Big Tobacco has been to court and lost; now it’s Big Oil’s turn. Political leaders are choosing sides in this war.

Research by Inside Climate News revealed that Exxon did top notch climate science research in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which revealed the dangers its products posed via climate change. Soon thereafter, Exxon launched misinformation campaigns by funding “think tanks” and front groups to manufacture doubt about climate science and the expert consensus on human-caused global warming.

Exxon wasn’t alone. Koch Industries, Peabody Energy, and other fossil companies have similarly funneled vast sums of money to these groups. ...

Documenting Peabody Energy's failed courtroom deception - John Mashey

A month ago I posted: Judge rules: Drs. Spencer, Lindzen, Happer are not credible expert witnesses! about the rejection of the nonsensical claims of a number of expert climate science contrarians by a court of law.  It was a reminder that truth really does matter.  Today I saw that John Mashey has done a review of that court case and its highlights, including links to most the relevant documentation in this DeSmogBlog Repost.  It's a data gold mine for the serious student who wants to delve into the details of how contrarians try to deceive and I'm happy to add it to my collection:

Peabody's Outlier Gang Couldn't Shoot Straight In Minnesota Carbon Case, Judge Rebuffs Happer, Lindzen, Spencer, Mendelsohn, Bezdek

Overview On 04/13/15, Peabody Energy followed other major coal companies into bankruptcy, and days later lost a battle in a landmark legal war on Minnesota's Social Cost of Carbon (SCC). The "best" gang1 of climate denial outliers they could hire tried to confuse the court with absurd claims in both science and economics. The Judge was…

John Mashey looks behind Dr. Ivar Giaever's facade

Last month in my 'sock puppet' series I spent much time participating in and reporting on a debate within the comments of a YouTube video, "The PseudoScience of CO2 Based Climate" given by another self-deluded but oh so self-certain old character.  I know it's rude but the utter childishness of Giaever's arguments demand no less.  I'm amazed such transparent fraudsters aren't tossed out by their ears.  Nah, instead they get paraded around and applauded in a sick strategic effort to keep the public ill-informed.  Why do I think I can say such things about Ivar Giaever, well it's his own words and track record that speak for themselves.

I'll let John Mashey explain the details in this Repost of his recent DeSmogBlog article - after all he knows them much, much better than I do.
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Ivar Giaever: Nobel Icon For Climate Deniers, and Philip Morris

Sensible Nobel laureates study new topics before offering strong opinions on them. For example, at nearby Stanford, Burton Richter "retired" from high-energy physics, and kept contributing, as in talks, book and energy efficiency project. Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has no problem speaking on climate science. Of course, both have easy access to top…

1000frolly and how the science denying PR machine operates

Lately I've been marveling at the prodigious output of disingenuous climate science ridiculing videos by a certain 1000frolly at YouTube.  He went into over-drive around the Paris climate conference:

4 in the past 24 hours (+4)

11 in the past 2 days (+7)

19 in the past week (+8)

27 in the past 2 weeks (+8)

31 in the past 3 weeks (+4)

39 in the past month (+8)

Everything from "The rise of eco terrorism" - "our last year of freedom?" - to "human CO2 emission are wholly beneficial" - to claiming the scientific understanding of greenhouse gases is a big hoax, of course, ignoring all the modern marvels that demand and in their own way prove that thorough understanding!  

His videos exude such a contempt for Earth's physical being and processes - along with hostility and a contrived paranoid attitude towards their 'opponents' and the established scientific community at large, that I've been increasingly curious about who's behind this YouTube Channel.  

Today I came across an indication that this 1000frolly might be the infamous  Lord  Monckton himself.  This piqued my interest since I've had a few go-arounds with both 1000frolly and the Lord himself, whom I'll admit I studied closely for a while and am in awe of, as a political performer that is.  Unfortunately, the substance of his rhetoric is loaded with malicious fraud.  

Trying to solve the mystery I visited two of his YouTube vids and asked him straight out if he was Lord Monckton, so far no response. (1000frolly has responded with the highbrow: "Sorry; I only answer scientific questions.")  Later while trying to track down more information I came across this excellent exposition on one particular chapter in the War on Science which did such a good job of detailing the networks and connection at work, including Monckton and 1000frolly, that I thought it should be added to my collection.  Regarding the mystery of who's behind 1000frolly if anyone out there has any information please do share.

Now I will hand it over to John Mashey who has done some detailed research into the ways and means of the climate science contrarian PR campaign again people's right to learn about serious climate science and their one and only planet.

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/25/defamation-by-internet-part-1-murry-salbys-short-lived-blog-storm

Senator Inhofe's Medieval Warm Period deception - by John Mashey

Here's a slight digression.  While Jim and I are engaged in our little "climate science horror story" altercation, the big boys running our country are playing the same intellectually dishonest juvenile games as Mr. Steele does.  For instance, Oklahoma's Senator Inhofe, now Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, a force not to be dismissed.  This man has real power and yields it with brutal efficiency.

Tragically for our children this Senator Inhofe is an absolutist with open contempt for serious science (see here and here) and anyone who disagrees with him on anything.  

I mean this is the Senator who brought in a writer of pulp thrillers to testify on climate science!  Worse, Inhofe's fiction author was in the middle of a book-selling campaign for his most recent yarn.  But than, that was no coincidence, was it?  Farcical though it seems this paperback writer was put in front of a US Senate committee that was charged with learning about what professional climatologists were discovering - a fiction story peddler!  And Republican's are good with that.

Then Inhofe used this storyteller's words to justify ignoring what actual professional scientists, who have dedicated their lives to understanding these processes, were trying to convey.  What up with that? 

And now this powerful Senator has repackaged another fable, the infamous Medieval Warming Period's "Lamb Graph" - of no purpose but to waste yet more precious time - rather than getting down to business.

Donors Trust, Barre Seid, Heartland Institution, NIPCC, follow the money

In doing research for my NIPCC related posts today I came across this aside.  Though after reading it again and considering money is at the heart of Heartland Institution motivations, it may not be such an aside after all.  In particular that first PDF "Fake2" is quite the interesting document.

You decide:

Fakery 2: More Funny Finances, Free Of Tax (via Desmogblog)

Follow the money.  October 23, PBS Frontline's Climate of Doubt gave viewers an hour's coverage of the tactics of climate anti-science, its advocates and a quick look into the funding behind it. Read on to follow the money deeper into the funny finances, all free of tax. Last February, Fake Science…

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