#1 Dunlap, Jacques - history of the climate science denial machine

I received a nice comment yesterday.

Dear Sir, I always read your posts and thank you for my continuing education on all matters climatic. My only gripe is that you give too much homework with your supporting links and I sometimes do not complete my assignments! ... Anyway, please keep up the great work.
Ian

I'm flattered, I do like putting a lot of links out there and I believe it's valuable information to help people gain a more complete understanding of our Earth for themselves.  I'm happy to know there are some who also think it worth investing the time to learn about it.  Thanks Ian.  

Speaking of homework.  I've had occasion to reread a summation of the history of our dysfunctional climate science education dialogue that was put together by a couple scholars.  It occurred to me here are facts about why out and out lying has been allowed to became the mainstay of the Republican climate science contrarian PR strategy   Given that the study has a CCA License I've decided to Repost the complete text in a few installments.  It will be a valuable addition to my collection of resources for the serious student of the attack on science.

Am Behav Sci. 2013 Jun; 57(6): 699–731.

doi:  10.1177/0002764213477096

Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks

Riley E. Dunlap and Peter J. Jacques

Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3787818/

Abstract

The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010. 

NC20 Burton a glimpse of reality sir.

I still have a number of drafts of responses to various Dave NC20 Burton arguments laying around unfinished.  But it's lost its interest and other things are going on.  He's likewise lost interest in our debate and stepped out the backdoor.  But, I do want to give him an official good-bye (barring interesting developments).  I'm even going to keep my opinions to myself and allow an oceanographer to explain what the real world looks like.

NC20 I challenge you to point out flaws or misinformation in the following from John Englander.   Bet you can't do it.  

Til the next time.   ;- )

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Deadly floods - Maryland to China - have surprising connection to rising sea level

By John Englander | August 4, 2016

Risks and Impacts of Rising Sea Level blog

http://johnenglander.net/Ellicott-City-Floods

Climate Change / Ocean Impacts Blog

Last Saturday night when many had planned a nice evening out for dinner in quaint Ellicott City, a devastating flood occurred, largely destroying the downtown. Six inches of rain in just two hours caused the record water mark in that historic Maryland community.

Flash floods, monsoon rains, and rivers overflowing their banks are becoming common headlines.  Ellicott City joins the rapidly growing list of deadly deluge that in the last month spans West Virginia, Texas, France, Germany and China. All of these inland floods resulted from extreme rainfall. 

On building stairs, integrity and malicious slander.

Recently over at Center For Inquiry's forum which I frequent regularly, I was confronted with another joker repeating Poptech's conjured description of me as a guilt-riddled strung-out druggie and lost soul.  Poptech's slander is his way of responding to my fact checking, critiquing and challenging his claims.  Others of his persuasion have been quick to embrace the bull-pucky.

It seems that every few weeks some new joker finds Poptech's article and gleefully grabs his ammunition and blasts aways at me in the middle of some other discussion.  That they are dealing with figments of their own imagination matters not one wit to them - it's character assassination they're interested in.

What else is there for someone who consistently misrepresents serious climate science?  They sure don't have solid evidence on their side.  Nor do they have the requisite intellectual curiosity to learn about the things they don't understand.  When something confuses them, assume the worst, with ignorant certitude.

Distraction is their game.  Marginalize the messenger and marginalize the message.  Spend all your time wrestling with ad hominems and there's no time to talk about our real world situation.  Go straight for the jugular of your opponent with anything you can conjure.  

There's a certain level of sick humor in reading how these minds can spin facts into tailor-made fictions - but of course, in the end all they want is to destroy any opponent in order to stifle fundamental climate science education - no commitment to honesty, or integrity, or respect for others.  Tragically absolutism and paranoia driven resentment seems all their hearts are capable of.

Admitting to and learning from mistakes is treated like blasphemy by the Republican contrarian crowd.  Nothing funny about that either.

It's irrational, irritating, stupefying and it certainly demands some sort of comeback.  But, I’m not into Poptech’s, or LandscapesandCycles' Jim Steele's or NC20 Burton’s style of childish messenger bashing. 

Still, since they want to get down and personal, I can respond with something personal.  

Consider it another character reference . . . . . . . 

It started as a note to a friend . . .

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Hey D, I never did tell you the end of the story regarding those stairs.  As you might remember last autumn I had me a hernia.  It took months longer to get repaired than it should have, towards the end of that run I was actually invalided, bed to recliner, no lifting.  Innards all funky.  Not fun.  Feeling every bit of my sixty years and reconciling myself to the end of my sweet vigorous years.  Among other dark thoughts was the realization that my carpentry days were totally behind me now.  Which they are, but to ponder that I’d never be able to climb walls again, or help set beams and rafters, or one of my favorites building stairs - that's a different thing from choosing not to do it.  A proud physical old man wrestles with those realities as the 'diminishing' advances with the years.  

JohnEnglander on communicating Sea Level Rise

On occasion I've pointed out examples of well meaning, but frankly, piss poor climate science communication.  Experts doing more to enable confusion peddlers than helping to educate and clarify our rather straightforward situation.  For example,

October 25, 2013

Colorado Floods - statistical certainty vs geophysical realities

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February 16, 2016

A study in miscommunication - increasing Antarctic ice extent (is no) mystery!

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February 24, 2016

Another study in miscommunication - Nature.com reporting on Karl et al. 2015

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Recently a visit to John Englander's risks and impacts of rising sea level educational blog reminded me of an article he posted earlier this year that I had wanted to highlight and add to my collection over here at WUWTW.  Never got to it then, but I am doing so now.  The rest I'll leave to John Englander whom I thank for giving me permission to repost and share his informative articles.

NASA - good science but terrible communication about Sea Level Rise 

http://johnenglander.net/sea-level-rise-blog/nasa-good-science-terrible-communication-about-sea-level-rise

John Englander on Friday, February 2, 2016

I really like NASA. As nearly everyone agrees, they do great science — both about the cosmos and about our home planet. Having gotten that well deserved compliment out in front, I am screaming mad at something they just published.

Headlines from the very reputable SCIENCE magazine, to the climate change denying tripe are carrying the headlines such as:

"Thirsty continents are slowing down expected sea level rise, scientists say"

There are dozens of variations. In SCIENCE magazine it was slightly more refined:

"A decade of sea level rise slowed by climate-driven hydrology”

Some of the climate-denier or "skeptic" media were much more aggressive, suggesting that NASA says that climate change would not cause rising sea level — but I will not even support those disinformation sites with a link.

Here is what the actual NASA story  says, and where it is INCREDIBLY misleading, to the point of being irresponsible.

• Essentially it says that global warming (a/k/a climate change) — warmer than in centuries — has dried the soils so that they are absorbing more water.

• That water would have gone to the ocean, raising sea levels.

• Overall the effect is about 20% of the average global sea level rise.

Those facts are fair and decent science. But the way it's all presented, leads most readers to believe that climate change could slow rising sea level which is just flat out WRONG! [sound the Buzzer.]

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This is what good journalism would have said:

Calling out Trump's Rev. Burns and GOP absolutism

       Occasionally I write a column for the Four Corners Free Press out of Cortez, Colorado.  For their August issue I decided to write about the Republican platform, but while doing research I wound up getting side-tracked by their absolutism.  The new GOP demonstrates a contrived sense of superiority, which seems based on a fanciful notion that they alone understand "God" - even worse a conviction that they are somehow God's Chosen People.  Cementing that impression was reverend Burns' off-the-wall GOP convention invocation.

Here I repost my August FCFP column though I've added a couple lines specifically calling out Rev. Burns and pointing out that the God he's praying to is merely a reflection of his own petty partisan bigotry.  It is something that has nothing to do with any ultimate God of Creation and Time, Life and Love! 

It's ludicrous to think the creator of this universe would be picking sides like some trumpeting politician, oh but how the self-certain certainly do. 

( I include a copy of Burns' prayer at the end, along with a collection of quotes and links to interesting articles that look at reverend Burns.)

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Considering the GOP platform and Trump's Rev. Burns

The GOP Convention gave me a reason to read the 2016 Republican Platform which is the distillation of their rank and file’s world outlook along with their wish list, so it’s worth paying attention to. I had intended to report on it’s sketchy content.  Instead, I found myself overwhelmed by their attitude, which needs to be considered before the content can make sense.

For someone like me, a liberty loving rationalist who’s into the scientific enlightenment, the one that rescued humanity from religious superstition, someone who believes in evidence-based constructive learning about each other and this Earth from which we were born and which we shall all die back into, it’s a horrific document.

What made it especially frightening is its absolute self-certainty, along with a disregard, if not hatred, for all who are outside of their religious/philosophical tribe. It reads like there’s no more room for reason with this new Republican crowd, it’s their way or else, consequences be damned.

Here’s how they start: “We believe in American exceptionalism. We believe the United States of America is unlike any other nation on earth.”

Examining roots of our collective failure. George Monbiot

Finally, someone telling it like it is.  George Monbiot wrote an article that ought to appear on every single politician, business person and especially every limp journalist's plate tomorrow morning.  

Monbiot's article is copyrighted by the Guardian.  Thanks to their generous open license policy I have selected 486 words worth of quotes that I hope will make an impression, or at least interest you enough to read his full article.

The climate crisis is already here - but no one’s telling us.

by George Monbiot | August 3, 2016 | The Guardian

What is salient is not important. What is important is not salient. The media turns us away from the issues that will determine the course of our lives, and towards topics of brain-melting irrelevance.

This, on current trends, will be the hottest year ever measured. The previous record was set in 2015; the one before in 2014. Fifteen of the 16 warmest years have occurred in the 21st century. Each of the past 14 months has beaten the global monthly temperature record. But you can still hear people repeating the old claim, first proposed by fossil fuel lobbyists, that global warming stopped in 1998. … 

The Wind Beneath Dr. Spencer's Wings

Dr. Spencer is a guy who puts his personal faith before rigorous science and who’s higher-calling is that of taxpayer watchdog dedicated to minimizing the role of government.  He has a day job over at the University of Alabama Huntsville.  Team Leader even, for the Advanced Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite where he’s racked up an epic string of, not just errors, but also deliberately misinforming leaders and citizens.  Almost as though keeping people ill-informed is his goal.

My previous post contains a long collection itemizing the details which compels the above assessment.  (Attacking me the messenger won’t change those hard facts!)

In this post I want to consider the mechanism that has encouraged and enabled this man to continue broadcasting his deception to the masses despite all the down to Earth evidence demonstrating that humanity's gluttonous burning of fossil fuels is already altering the living conditions on our planet.

It all started with a few small minds, but deep pockets.  Minds obsessed with ensuring ever increasing power and profits for their chosen.  Not surprisingly, such an attitude lead to a ruthless desire to crush all opposition, be it evidence or messengers, and damn the consequences.

These people have managed to create a fantastical alternate-universe consisting of a hermetically sealed echo-chamber peddling faux-science.  In their world personal faith, desire and power are more important than honesty, rationality and objective learning.  Nah, their product is disconnect and the delusion that it’s okay to ignore our impacts upon this Earth’s life supporting biosphere.

So who is part of this conspiracy against rationality and learning about our Earth that enables someone like Roy Spencer to get all that mileage on basically nothing but hot air?  In the remainder of this post I share a report compiled by the The Union of Concerned Scientists, USA.  It’s a brief review of some of the biggest players in this malicious campaign of deception. 

American Enterprise Institute

Americans for Prosperity

American Legislative Exchange Council

Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University

Cato Institute

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Heartland Institute

Heritage Foundation

Institute for Energy Research

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

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Union of Concerned Scientist 

GLOBAL WARMING > FIGHT MISINFORMATION

Global Warming Skeptic Organizations

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/global-warming-skeptic.html#.V57DuleTnzI