A New Scientific Study Came Out - And Deniers Immediately Lied About It

One of the more prevalent tactics of climate science deniers is to lie. They do this by cherry-picking, misrepresentation, straw men, and a number of other mechanisms of dishonesty. Sometimes they just outright lie. A case in point is how deniers reacted to a new scientific study by climate scientist Ben Santer and colleagues. 

A good review of the study and its meaning is presented in the Guardian by scientist and science writer Dana Nuccitelli. The Santer study can be see directly here. I recommend you read both, or if the science paper is too much, at least read the Nuccitelli article, which gives a great overview of how deniers have misrepresented the paper.

After discussing the false assertions of climate denier favorite John Christy, who has a habit of providing unsupported (and unsupportable) assertions in an attempt to discredit climate models (except, of course, his own), Nuccitelli notes that the Santer et al. study:

...effectively disproved Christy’s assertion that the discrepancy was due to models being too sensitive to the increased greenhouse effect. Instead, the main culprit seems to be incorrect inputs used in the climate model simulations.

Models, like any other tool used to study complex phenomena, provide a mechanism for learning. Actual climate scientists are constantly evaluating real world observations and assessing how well the models mimic those observations. Thus, models are constantly being improved. And here's one more critical point: models are used to assess projections based on known inputs. They don't "predict," and most certainly they don't predict on short-term variations. Models are designed to assess long-term trends. And evaluation of these models, as Nuccitelli notes, "are still quite accurate."

Deniers, on the other hand, take any short-term variation that seems to drift from the long-term trend and claim it means the models are worthless. That is akin to claiming we have no idea if summer is on average much colder than winter in the northern U.S. just because we get an unusually cold day in June. The deniers' claims are absolutely ridiculous, and it is incredibly dishonest to say so. While most deniers are ignorant of the science (reading Facebook and a denier blog does not make you a climate scientist), actual climate scientists like John Christy and Roy Spencer have no excuse for routinely saying things they most certainly should know not to be true.

Not surprisingly, lobbyists and their associated spokespeople like Christy and Spencer feed these misrepresentations of the Santer et al. paper into the blogosphere with the full knowledge that the falsehoods will grow into full-fledged lies. It fits the same pattern lobbyists have employed for many years - seed the paid blogs with falsehoods and misrepresentations, encourage ideological (and grossly ignorant) non-science bloggers to plagiarize and spread those falsehoods until they saturate the internet. Recent studies have also suggested that lobbyists and their cohorts (perhaps with Russian hacker help?) manipulate Google results to shift falsehoods to the top of the search display. 

All of this, of course, is dishonest. Lobbyists intentionally create misrepresentations (to put it mildly) and help spread those misrepresentations. There are lobbyist blog sites that do this directly, and there are thousands of willing ideologues who spread the lies further.

This is what they do.

Which is why scientists, science communicators, and the general public have to be aware of these tactics. Check the sources. Find the original articles. Learn the basics of climate science.

A Warning to Teachers About Heartland's Fake Climate Report Ruse

The infamous tobacco and fossil fuel lobbying firm, Heartland Institute, is again intentionally disinforming the public. This past week they sent 25,000 copies of a climate science denial propaganda report to teachers across the country. Heartland intends to send more each week until they eventually reach over 200,000 science teachers. The report is a scam.

The "report" was written by three paid lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry via Heartland. It intentionally ignores 100+ years of science and promotes falsehoods, misdirections, and fallacies that, combined, deny the overwhelming, unequivocal science.

Let's be clear. The summation of 100+ years of science is that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" (i.e., undeniable) and human activity is the "dominant cause" of the warming since the middle of the 20th century. This is the overwhelming consensus of virtually all of the world's climate scientists, every National Academy of Science, and every major scientific organization in the world. This consensus is supported by more than 100,000 peer-reviewed published scientific papers, millions of empirical data points, multiple lines of evidence, and well-understood basic physics. In short, climate change is real and humans are the reason.

So what is this "report?"

The Heartland Institute has long been a lobbying firm for the tobacco industry denying the unequivocal fact that smoking causes cancer. To this day they still take lobbying money from the tobacco industry to lobby for "smoker's rights" (i.e., smokers' right to harm others health via secondhand smoke). Heartland also has received money from the fossil fuel industry and private donors via a "smoke and mirrors" hidden money trust. They have been caught funding anti-science, climate science denial spokespeople, front groups, and propagandists.

With the anti-science Republican party in control of Congress and the White House, as well as the EPA Administrator, climate science deniers have been even more active than before, using their political leverage to disinform the populace and endanger the health and safety of all Americans.

In 2013-2014 the real IPCC came out with its latest comprehensive summary of the state-of-climate-science. Dissing the IPCC is one tactic denier organizations use to dismiss 100+ years of science. Another denier tactic is to create fraudulent "reports" to distract from the science.

The fake report was written by paid lobbyists Craig Idso, Bob Carter, and Fred Singer, all well-known paid propagandists for the climate denial industry and all paid by Heartland Institute to write the fake report. As can be seen from the deceit used in naming the group - they call themselves the NIPCC (the "N" stands for "Non" but also implies "Not" the IPCC) - lobbyists like Heartland routinely use deception to misinform, misdirect, and misrepresent the state-of-the-science. The fake report highlights minor uncertainties and lobbyist-created talking points in order to dismiss the certainty of man-made climate change.

None of this is new. Idso, Carter, and Singer have all been on the payroll for decades providing fossil fuel and political lobbyists with "deliverables" that can be used to misinform the public. Each and every one of the talking points, false equivalencies, misdirections, and outright lies they promote has been debunked thousands of times already. Nothing they say has ever stood up to scientific scrutiny. Ever.

This past election revealed to many the prevalence of "fake news" on social networks. Those of us who have combated science denial for years are familiar with the tactics used by propagandists - the talking points, paid and ideological trolls, seeding of fake news on the blogosphere, manipulation of the media, and multiple attempts of lobbyists to push non-science into the classroom. Heartland has done this sort of thing before; in 2012 they were caught paying a propagandist to create fake classroom materials to be sent to teachers across the country. It wasn't the first time.

So what can science and other teachers do? First of all, beware of anything that you receive for free and unsolicited in the mail. There is a reason these fake reports are sent directly to teachers and not vetted by the school boards and school systems. Second, make your students aware of how lobbyists employ deceptive practices and propaganda to misinform them. Third, teach your students critical thinking and how to recognize good science (and good information in any discipline). Fourth, keep abreast of the state of the science by being active in education organizations such as the National Center of Science Education and the Union of Concern Scientists.

The science denial lobbying industry has been misleading the public for decades, from denying smoking causes cancer to denying acid rain to denying CFCs and the ozone hole to denying human activity is causing the climate to warm. With the current political situation in the U.S. and elsewhere, these denial lobbyists feel they have the upper hand and are engaging more overtly in their propaganda campaigns. Make no mistake about it - these lobbyists are doing this to protect the profits of their donors, not to inform the public. Be wary, be informed, and be active in fighting against science denial.

Exposing Climate Denialism - The Series

The Dake Page has published a series of posts over the years exposing climate denialism. This post brings many of those posts together for easy access. Feel free to save this post for reference and take a look at each of the individual linked articles.

Remember, there is a consensus on the scientific consensus. As noted in the most recent IPCC report, AR5, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and human activity is the "dominant cause" of that warming.

Of course, deniers deny this 100+ years of unequivocal science. They can't provide any scientific evidence for their denial, so they resort to employing a series of tactics fed to them by lobbyists. These are the same lobbyists and same tactics as used by the tobacco industry and every other denial of science example for the last half century. This is how lobbyists work.

Climate Denial on the Internet - Who are the Deniers?

The Well Disarmed Skeptic - How Climate Change Denialists Use Front Groups to Lie About the Science

Scientific Debate of Climate Change on Social Media Sites

Global Warming Denialists - The Art of Deception

Spotting Climate Deniers on the Internet 

How Climate Deniers Control the Message

How Climate Deniers Saturate Facebook With Fake News

Common Tactics of Climate Change Deniers on the Internet 

Collusion Among Climate Denial Lobbyists and Their Spokespeople

How Climate Deniers Create Fake "Experts"

Yes, Some Experts....and Politicians...Are Dishonest

Why Climate Denialists Argue Even When It's Clear They Are Wrong


Googling the Internet - How Climate Deniers Get Their "Science"

How the Media Keep Climate Denial Alive

Parsing the Arrogant Ignorance of Climate Denial

The Confidence of the Dumb

Climate Denial Tactic - Repeat a Falsehood Enough and Maybe it Will Become True

Dissing the IPCC and Other Scientific Organizations - How Climate Deniers Work

How the Media are Used to Intentionally Mislead the Public on Global Warming

There are more exposing climate denial posts on The Dake Page, so feel free to root around a bit. I'll add to the above list as new articles surface, so bookmark it and come back periodically to find out new tactics climate deniers use to lie about the science.

The Madhouse Effect by Michael Mann and Tom Toles

This is a book every American should read, and read now. The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy sports a "Global Warming Meets Edvard Munch" cover, but that shouldn't be taken as a lack of seriousness. The book's authors - award-winning climate scientist Michael Mann and Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Tom Toles - have attempted to bring both climate science and climate denial to the forefront. Using Toles's creative genius and Mann's scientific depth, and more than a smidgen of subtle humor, the two have succeeded masterfully.

This short book is a quick read and written in a style that is accessible to everyone. In short, it's the book I planned to write but never got around to. The eight chapters are easy to breeze through, but when you reach the end you realize you've learned a lot more than you anticipated.

It begins with a chapter on how science works, a topic that it appears most of the public hasn't yet grasped. It's also an introduction of sorts to how lobbyists and hired guns intentionally distort the science (but more on that later). Mann and Toles note that science is unique in that it is "self-correcting" by its very nature. Scientists publish their research, and other scientists challenge it. If someone got something wrong, the process is designed to find that out and correct the misconception. The chapter also clarifies the idea of skepticism. Scientists are inherently skeptical; it's what makes us tick. But most of the people who claim to be skeptical when they deny the science aren't skeptical at all.

The second chapter provides some of the basics of climate science. The first paragraph puts it all in context:

"The basics of climate science are actually very simple and always have been. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat, and we are adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. The rest is details."

They then go on to explain in general terms the "Physics and Chemistry 101" of climate change, plus some of the effects such as more extremes, rising sea levels, warmer atmosphere, ocean acidification, and melting ice. The chapter ends with a discussion of tipping points, an area of both great uncertainty and grave ramification.

Chapter 3 is perhaps the most important chapter: "Why Should I give a Damn?" In it they discuss the effects of climate change on national security, food production, water supplies, energy resources, land use, human health, and ecosystem disruptions. If none of that concerns you, how about the massive negative effect on the economy resulting from not doing anything? In short, you better give a damn because this is your life being impacted, and your children's and grandchildren's lives.

The next three chapters address the actions of climate deniers. Chapter 4 outlines the six stages of denial; Chapter 5 the war on climate science (here are those lobbyists and hired gun men mentioned earlier); Chapter 6 on the hypocrisy of climate denial. These are important chapters for anyone who believes Fox News and the conspiracy/white supremacy blog Breitbart are somehow "science" while NOAA, NASA, IPCC, and WMO are "in it for the money."

Chapter 7 hits on geoengineering, the idea that somehow we can find some technological fix. In short, it's akin to trying to find ways of keeping a bathtub from overflowing by throwing in toasters or blasting the rising water with a propane torch in an effort to evaporate it. These ideas are likely to 1) not work, and 2) have unintended consequences. Of course, the alternative is to turn off the tap and pull the plug. Duh.

The book ends on a more hopeful tone, as Chapter 8 delves into a path forward. What may come as a surprise to many folks is that we've already been working to reduce carbon emissions and shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. The world, through the leadership of the Obama administration, has taken significant steps toward righting the ship. More needs to occur.

Throughout the book are the cartoons of Tom Toles. Toles has an exceptional knack for taking the key points and boiling them down into an easily understood comic drawing. The cartoons heighten the value of the book tremendously. And don't miss the teeny toons in the bottom right corner of every cartoon; they too exquisitely capture the important moments.

This book is especially important given that the apparent incoming administration (this review was published on 12/15/16, a month or so after the 2016 election) has said it will make Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil and a long-time funder of climate denial front groups, as the next Secretary of State.

So read this book. It reads fast. It provides excellent information. And it is necessary for all Americans to understand what we are up against.

More book reviews (click and scroll down)

Common Tactics of Climate Change Deniers on the Internet

The fact that humans are warming the climate is unequivocal, undeniable, and built on more than 100 years of peer-reviewed research.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal." "Anthropogenic drivers...are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century." - IPCC, AR5, 2013-2014

But that doesn't stop internet trolls from denying the science. We've discussed here before how there are professional denialists (lobbyists, their front groups, and their spokespeople) and amateur denialists (mostly ideologically and willfully ignorant people). The professional deniers seed the internet with falsehoods and count on the amateur deniers to plagiarize ad nauseam, thus saturating the blogosphere with crap. Amateurs do this without employing any skepticism of their sources or veracity of what they plagiarize; they gladly accept whatever idea agrees with their predefined narratives no matter how obviously ludicrous the talking point.

Let's take a quick look at some of the tactics used by amateur deniers on social networking sites, in particular, Facebook.

1) Deny: Obviously. Just deny all the science. Deny 100+ years of well-understood basic physics. Deny 100,000+ peer-reviewed published papers. Deny millions of data points. Deny all the world's climate scientists know the science they study. Deny all of this has reached a burden of proof. Deny the consensus. Deny, well, you get the idea. Deny everything. Rinse, Repeat.

When someone simply denies all the evidence, they are a denier by definition.

2) Lie: The repetition of falsehood is a primary tactic of climate deniers. Lie about the "hockey stick." Lie about the "pause." Lie about what scientists say. Lie about "climategate." Lie about even the dates of the reports. Lie about what other commenters say. A variant of this is to ignore all evidence presented by commenters; simply make believe it wasn't said. Then repeat the falsehood already debunked. Lying can also take the form of generally commenting dishonesty, for example, creating a strawman and harassing other commenters over and over to answer the strawman.

When someone chooses to comment with such dishonesty, you can understand their self-deceit.

3) Spam: Many commenters will simply spam the post with dozens of comments. Any reply gets not one response, but a series. Spammers leave multiple comments even when no one is talking to them. Their goal is to saturate the blog such that honest commenters choose not to participate. It's also a form of violence; spamming multiple comments is like beating someone with a stick over and over. Spammers are easily recognizable not just by their multiple comments in a row, but by the fact that they quickly come back to spam again if their target leaves a response even a day later.

Besides being a form of violence and harassment, it's a sign of mental insecurity, and in some cases, mental instability. It's also a trolling strategy taught by the Koch lobbying organizations to disrupt online discussions.

4) Non-Awareness of Ignorance: There is nothing more embarrassing to see than someone who repeatedly shows their shortcomings.

Most amateur deniers don't even understand how little they understand. Ironically, they believe they understand more than the scientists who study the science.

5) Reliance on Lobbyist Sources: Invariably, amateur deniers will cite lobbyist sources instead of scientific sources (assuming they bother to cite any source at all). Amateurs have convinced themselves (and lobbyists have trained them to believe) that all scientists are corrupt and part of a multigenerational global conspiracy and "Al Gore!" (Deniers usually find a way to insert Al Gore into the discussion; the name is like a bell to Pavlov's dogs). So to replace 100+ years of science, deniers rely on a series of blogs funded, supported, and seeded by lobbyists, their front groups, their spokespeople, and other conspiracy, scam, or ideologically motivated non-scientists.

If someone is citing WUWT, Climate Depot, Heartland, Laframboise, JoNova, and a slew of other non-science, lobbyist-supported, propaganda blogs, you know they haven't bothered to learn about the science. Each of these, and all their offshoots, have been shown to be wrong. Every single time. Every article or post is easily debunked, and most are simply recycling of older talking points that have been debunked many many times before. Often these blogs are so egregiously wrong it is hard to understand how any sentient being would put any weight in anything they say. But this is who deniers rely on.

Meanwhile, these same deniers dismiss NASA, NOAA, IPCC, NSIDC, and every other scientific organization as somehow incapable of understanding the science they've been researching and publishing for decades. And yet when they find it convenient, deniers will claim they are citing NASA (two breaths after calling NASA corrupt) - except they don't really cite NASA, they cite a lobbyist blog that has manipulated NASA data and/or fabricated a conclusion that isn't supported by the evidence and is often the opposite of what NASA actually said. [See #2 Lying]

Mostly these deniers are trolls. They choose not to learn, and never will. Interacting with them is mostly a waste of time, with the only exception being that when they go into spamming mode they tend to reinforce Facebook's positive feedback algorithms (think in terms of  climate science and you know what I mean).

So be aware of the tactics of climate deniers, both the professionals and the amateurs. But don't waste effort on them because they are there largely to convince themselves they aren't as inconsequential as they actually are. It's sad, but it's true.

The rest of us can focus on communicating the science to the public.

Parsing the Arrogant Ignorance of Climate Denial

Once in a while on this page we parse the comments of climate deniers. This instructional tool gives honest people insight into the mind of deniers. The biggest thing it tells us is that deniers can be incredibly arrogant in their ignorance.

Let's take a recent example. On December 10, 2015 The Dake Page carried an article called "Yes, Some Scientists...and Politicians...Are Dishonest." The focus of the piece was on a Senate hearing chaired by Republican candidate-for-president Ted Cruz. Billed as an "oversight hearing" and subtitled as "promoting open inquiry," the hearing had only two actual purposes: 1) a showboating scam for Cruz's campaign, and 2) a dog-and-pony show trotting out the usual denier misrepresentation. The article highlighted the bizarre choice of witnesses (a Canadian right wing shock jock, seriously!) and the unfortunate fact that there are a handful of scientists who have become spokespeople for denialist industry lobbyists. You can read the full article at the link above.

One climate denier offered a rather bizarre comment in which he arrogantly suggested he knew more than all the world's climate scientists while simultaneously admitting he had zero actual knowledge himself. He then proceeds to display that ignorance with an arrogance that becomes rather hilarious, but can also serve as an illustration to help honest people see bull for bull. I'll parse it into pieces below, but the entire comment is here, in order, in italics.

It begins:

So many specific points to address. The most obvious is the conflict in the first paragraph of so of the article, which begins by saying the different opinions are okay, and then proceeds to say that anyone who disagrees with us is obviously dishonest. Disagreement = dishonesty. Really.

By "the first paragraph" he is actually referring to the third paragraph, which begins: "First, let me define dishonesty for the purposes of this essay." Needless to say for anyone who reads the actual paragraph, it says absolutely nothing of the sort the commenter has suggested. The commenter lies. Blatantly. The actual paragraph clearly states that legitimate differences of opinion or interpretation are possible with the same data, but when all the data prove you wrong and no data support your position, you have a problem. Not surprisingly, those who argue they are right despite no legitimate data in support of their position are all associated with denial lobbyist organizations.

The key point of the opening paragraph is that the commenter is immediately and intentionally misrepresenting the article. He's creating a strawman that serves his purpose even though it is blatantly false and not at all what the original article is claiming. Creating strawmen and lying are key tactics in denial.

But what really prompts me to waste my time writing here is the graph. Since I don't see any mention of it in the article, I mean that it does not seem to be something provided by the dishonest people, is it something to demonstrate that the really good people are correct?

 So the commenter feels he is wasting his time, and yet chooses to waste everyone else's time by ignoring the entire article he is commenting on and addressing a header graphic that wasn't even the focus of the article.

Distraction and deflection are also common tactics of denialists. When you can't address the topic, simply switch topics. This happens a lot in a tactic called the "Gish Gallop," in which denialists hop from one debunked point to another debunked point. They can't support anything they say so they try to keep their positions moving in the hopes people might not notice (even when their positions contradict each other).

I have now looked at it three times. The scale on the left seems to be related to temperature, is that right? It indicates that the scale is in degrees C, right? So it shows that since roughly from 1910 to recently, that is about 100 years, that the global surface temperature has gone from -.4 to +.6 C, right. There has been a change of one degree in 100 years? (I love the cute little colors, with the recent ones being red hot, gosh that is fearful!!!)

Here is the graph he's refering to. See my further responses on the above piece of his comment after the graph. To see it bigger click on it or click here.

To begin with, this is probably one of the best known graphs in the climate field. The fact that it's clear he has never seen it before and can't read it tells us all we need to know about his level of ignorance. It simply shows the global mean temperature anomaly. It's the standard graph so I won't go into detail here about its meaning; if you don't know what it means you shouldn't be commenting on it.

The goal of the commenter with his paragraph is to demean and dismiss 100+ years of published science, even though he indicates he has no actual knowledge of that science. This is yet another tactic of climate deniers - demean what you don't understand. It saves them the trouble of actually having to be informed while allowing them to convince themselves they are smarter than all the scientists in the world. 

Is that really the foundation for the hysteria and claims of doom? All of the computer models that I have seen have each predicted several degree changes in only a decade or so. Many other claims that I have seen have suggested about .6 degrees a year. Every single one of all the predictions, everyone of which has failed to occur, all suggest that the globe is getting much hotter. I think that your graph, which might be accurate or not, isn't good news to the Sky is Falling hoard. 

By now it appears the commenter is frothing at the mouth as he sputters out complete fabrication and contradicting himself so fast it's amazing he doesn't even notice. He's simply lying, fast and furious. Given he admitted never seeing the standard graph above, it's highly unlikely that he's seen any, never mind "all the models" he claims to have seen. He clearly doesn't have any clue about models, otherwise he wouldn't have said anything so ridiculously false as "all the models...each predicted several degree changes in only a decade." Seriously? Not even close.

He also ignorantly claims that every model prediction has "failed to occur," which is the standard line fed to ignorant deniers by the fossil fuel lobbyists. Given that models don't predict (they project) and those projections are for long time periods (e.g., the end of the 21st century), and that there are many short-term phenomena that give much short-term variability (see here for the difference between variability and trend), there hasn't been any "prediction" that has reached a period where it could "fail" or "not fail." That said, empirical evidence (i.e, real life observations) suggest that the climate is warming up faster than we expected.

The graph, by the way, demonstrates exactly why there is a need for action.

As to the truth of the issue of the actual temperature of the earth and if man's activities are in any way a cause, I am not a scientist and have no foundation of knowledge or method to reach a conclusion. I am knowledgeable enough to know that the world has been hotter and that change of temperature happens.

Well, at least he admits he is ignorant. That, however, doesn't stop him from claiming all the world's climate scientists, all the world's National Academies of Science, all the world's major scientific organizations, all the 100,000+ peer-reviewed published scientific papers, and physics are all wrong. Because, after all, being ignorant shouldn't stop you from telling experts they don't know their own field of study.

What I do know, based upon years of study at the U of Md, is that what passes in the political sphere today, including the disgrace going on in Paris, is not science. We are seeing political, ideological battles for control of people's lives. That can not be good for any of us, regardless of what the climate is doing. It never has been. Government control has always led to disaster, a disaster far worse than the climate can do to us.

That "years of study at the U of Md" was in philosophy, hence the lack of any understanding of climate science.

His last paragraph does, however, provide the motive for all his earlier paragraphs. The commenter is a dyed in the wool Ayn Rand libertarian, whose fear of "government control" is noticeable in virtually every comment I've ever seen. Like the current snackless anti-government ranchers in Oregon, however, libertarians seem to overlook all the "government handouts" they've enjoyed over the years, not to mention all the government handouts given to corporations, ranchers, and the hugely wealthy in direct violation of "free-market" principles libertarians claim to believe.

In any case, this anti-government paranoia, faux laissez-faire attitude is often cited as the reason why deniers claim the science is somehow "a hoax." Of course, science is published for all to see and not dependent on whether you are paranoid about the government or not. 

The science is the science. It's published, it's been scrutinized, and it's unequivocal. Human activity is warming the climate system and that warming is already having significant impacts on sea level rise, ice melting, severe weather events, the economy, human and environmental health, and national security. Those impacts will continue to get worse due to our inaction.

Luckily for this particular commenter and all the rest of the arrogantly ignorant deniers, the Paris climate agreement commits all nations to reducing carbon emissions. This will help slow the increase in global temperatures (as shown on the graph the commenter had never seen before). It doesn't solve the problem - much more needs to be done - but it's a step in the right direction.

Yes, Some Scientists....and Politicians...Are Dishonest

But very few, and that is the biggest fact here to remember.

The "oversight hearing" held by Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday, December 8th, is a good example of dishonesty. More on that in a second.

First, let me define dishonesty for the purposes of this essay. While there may be legitimate differences of interpretation when evaluating any particular data set, what I'm talking about here is the intentional disregard of data that demonstrate your interpretation to be unsupportable. That is, when you continue to argue you are right and all the rest of the world is wrong despite overwhelming, unequivocal, and incontrovertible evidence of your wrongness. This is not to say that if your data shows something different you should just shut up and accept the consensus. Science is built on investigating results that were counter to expectations. But those data must be scientifically valid and presented through the peer-review process; and those data (and resulting interpretations) must stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Okay, now that we have a baseline, let's use the Cruz hearing as a microcosm of how the denial lobbying industry works.

First, the false premise. The title of the hearing is "Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth's Climate." This is right out of the denier lobbyist talking point memo. Deniers, who rarely if ever do actual scientific research (and rarely are climate scientists at all), like to claim that "alternative" science is somehow suppressed. The reality is that deniers don't attempt to publish much in peer-reviewed journals, preferring instead to publish opinion pieces in newspapers, online websites, and blogs. So here we have Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, who was elected predominantly because of support from the billionaire Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry, and who receives significant funding from fossil fuel lobbyists, abusing his position as Senator to harass scientists and science at the behest of those lobbyists.

Second, the stacked deck. As is common for Republican-chaired hearings in the House and Senate, the witnesses called tend to be from the small handful of "scientists for hire" and, well, non-scientists. This hearing was actually a significant departure from the norm in that the Republican majority actually did have actual scientists as witnesses. But the choice of scientists - and the non-scientist - is revealing.

The scientists were Judith Curry, John Christy, William Happer, and David Titley. 

Curry and Christy are actual climate scientists but clearly in the "contrarian" viewpoint. The irony is that the actual published scientific work by both Curry and Christy absolutely support the unequivocal fact that humans are significantly warming the climate system. The reason they were called as witnesses is because their blog posts and previous testimonies argues that all the world's climate scientists (and their own published work) is somehow wrong. When someone claims the opposite in their non-peer-reviewed blogs than what their actual peer-reviewed papers say, well, you can draw your own conclusions about whether their associations with denier lobbyist associations influence their positions.

Christy, by the way, is most famous as being the colleague of Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). It is the UAH satellite record that deniers solely rely on for the false graphics Senator Cruz displayed during his hearing. This is ironic given that other scientists had long ago documented the major Christy/Spencer satellite data errors that invalidated their most famous work). The UAH data set is the most uncertain and inappropriate of any data set (and hidden, since Christy/Spencer won't reveal their "adjustment" methods), but deniers use it because it tells them what they want to hear. Deniers have to deny the existence of all the other data sets and empirical data that overwhelmingly demonstrate the failure of the UAH data in order to make claims based on UAH. This is dishonesty. Spencer is a Board member of the George C. Marshall Institute, an infamous lobbyist group at the front of every science denial lobbying activity for decades and profiled in the book Merchants of Doubt. Spencer is also a creationist, which is only relevant because it demonstrates his ability to ignore scientific evidence he finds inconvenient. Again, it's easy to draw conclusions about the influence of those lobbyists when everything presented is so easily shown to be specious.

Which gets us to William Happer. Why was Happer invited by Republicans as a witness, as he has been invited before? Happer has zero climate expertise and has done no climate change research. His specialty is atomic physics and nuclear arms. He is on the Board, and former Chair, of the aforementioned George C. Marshall Institute lobbying organization. He is associated with a variety of anti-science lobbying groups who pay him considerable sums to misrepresent the science. His credibility on climate science is zero, which would convince any honest Senator not to have him highlight your climate hearing. In fact, just this week the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace revealed a sting operation it had conducted in which William Happer and another scientist-for-hire agreed to provide "reports" supporting the anti-science views of what they thought were fossil fuel lobbyists. This is, unfortunately, relatively routine practice for these lobbyist-associated "scientists."

The final scientist on the witness list was David Titley, a PhD in meteorological sciences and retired Admiral in the U.S. Navy. Titley was invited by the Democratic minority of the committee (the only witness the minority was allowed to invite). When he was in charge of the Navy's assessment of climate change, Titley found that man-made climate change was both a real scientific issue and a significant national security issue. As we move toward ice-free Arctic summers we are exposed to greater dangers from foreign forces. Unlike Curry and Christy, Titley's presentation was consistent with actual scientific data. Once again, he was the sole witness allowed to be called by the Democratic minority. [To put this in context, Democrats generally call scientists to climate hearings while Republicans have called fiction writer Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park); the fake Lord, politician, and right wing speaker-for-hire, Christopher Monckley; and a variety of other non-scientists and lobbyists.]

To put the emphasis on the charade of Senator Ted Cruz's hearing, the other witness was a guy by the name of Mark Steyn. Steyn is a Canadian shock jock, i.e., a right wing zealot akin to Rush Limbaugh. The fact that a bloviating right wing radio talk show host from Canada was a "witness" in a U.S. Senate hearing on climate change tells you all you need to know about the farce (and dishonesty) of Cruz's side show. A nice discussion of Steyn's involvement is given here by scientist Greg Laden.

To end, let's circle back around to the first sentence of this piece. Yes, there are some scientists and politicians who are dishonest. But this is a rarity. Virtually all scientists are honest and diligently work without fanfare trying to discover the truth about scientific issues. More than 100,000 scientific research papers have been published in thousands of peer-reviewed journals in the more than 100 years of scientific research related to climate change. When questions and conflicts in the data arise, scientists delve into them voraciously to determine what is what. That is how science works. Scientists are driven by the need to understand. Mostly you never hear about scientists because their work is published in scientific journals.

There are a very small number of scientists-for-hire. Most famous are people like Fred Singer, who has in turn been paid to be an "expert" in everything from smoking to acid rain to climate change, none of which he has any significant research expertise in. For decades Singer has carried the water for whatever lobbying organization was paying him, as the climate denial lobbying industry continues to do today. There are a few others who are paid to write reports that say what lobbyists want them to say (e.g., see the linked sting piece about William Happer above). And then there are a few who just like the notoriety (and financial gain) of being "contrarian." Again, this is a tiny number of scientists.

Hearings such as the one held by Ted Cruz this week are designed not to provide oversight or fact-finding; they are designed to showcase people like Cruz to keep his base energized with false indignation. Cruz is abusing the public trust and hurting his own constituents in Texas, all because he is running for president and wants his most zealous followers to vote for him. The fact that he knows he is being blatantly dishonest is immaterial to him, as is his violation of his oath of office. In this age of cynicism we've almost come to accept such dishonesty from certain politicians. That is a shame but a topic for another post.

The scientists who participate in the charade, on the other hand, must remind themselves they have an ethical obligation to seek the scientific truth. As mentioned before, there can be legitimate differences in interpretation of data. In fact, legitimate data that seem to contradict other data are always a source of excitement among scientists because it gives them something cool to study (which, by the way, completely invalidates the premise of Cruz's hearing). But knowingly ignoring 99% of the data and relying on the 1% of already debunked data to push a viewpoint you know to be specious is another matter altogether. Those rare scientists who do this need some soul searching.

Meanwhile, science moves on. Hundreds of new scientific papers are published each week that further our knowledge of man-made climate change. Those papers, and millions of empirical data points, overwhelmingly, unequivocally, and undeniably tell us that human activity is warming the climate and that substantive action is necessary to deal with that reality. And that is why every country in the world has been in Paris these two weeks - to find a solution.

Discussing Climate Change Over the Thanksgiving Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving, along with Christmas, are a time for families and good cheer. And football. But they can also be a time of stress, especially if members of your family arriving from out of town hold divergent beliefs on politics, or religion, or climate change.

Unlike politics and religion, where differing opinions can each have validity, one can't have different opinions on the science of climate change. The science is based on, well, scientific study, published research that must go through peer-review to ensure basic validity and long-term scrutiny and testing by other scientists. Only the sum total of all of the scientific study defines the science. In many cases there isn't a clear-cut conclusion that can be drawn, which is why scientists are always doing more research and trying to identify yet another piece of the puzzle.

So when scientists finally do reach a consensus such as they have on climate change, that means the scientific data so overwhelmingly demonstrate "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and humans are "the dominant cause of that warming" that the picture on the puzzle becomes undeniably clear, even if there are a still a few tiny pieces to put together.

There aren't two sides of this. There is the science, and there is the denial of the science.

Of course, people do choose to believe one thing or another, claiming that their lack of understanding, or something they read on a blog, is somehow equivalent to the entire body of science published by climate scientists. So how do you have that "science" conversation with a climate denier?

In short, I recommend you don't.

There is no value in a group of people who aren't scientists "discussing" science when understanding of the science is dwarfed by predefined conclusions and misinformation. It just isn't worth it.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every other family get-together, should be about family. The time should be focused on catching up on the distant lives of visiting relatives, playing with the niece or nephew or grandchild you haven't seen before (or since last Thanksgiving).

That is what Thanksgiving is for. Be there for your family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. For those who desperately feel the need to ignore this advice, check out this article.

[Reposted from 2014 so we can enjoy the holiday with our families.]

How Climate Deniers Take Advantage of Science to Lie About Science

It's a recurring practice. A new climate study comes out and suddenly the internet is saturated with "reinterpretations" by climate deniers of what the study says. This is how climate denier lobbyists misrepresent, aka lie, about the science. The most recent is how they have lied about a new study released by NASA regarding mass gains in Antarctica.

Keep in mind that science is incremental. One study generally isn't meaningful by itself. Science is the compendium of all related studies. For example, one study may suggest that (under the conditions of the study) Antarctica is gaining more ice than it is losing while other studies show that West Antarctica may have gone into a state of irreversible retreat. That doesn't make any one study right or wrong, merely additional data points in the total understanding of the science. It's how science works.

A summary of this particular study being misrepresented can be found in NASA's press release. You can download the full study as a PDF file from this journal site. I highly recommend anyone wanting to understand the study read the actual paper because press releases often do a lousy job of communicating the science. Yes, I know, communicating the science is what press releases are designed to do, but my experience tells me that they  introduce confusion as often as they inform, in part because they report single studies and not the total science. I'll tackle that topic in another post.

The inadequacy of press releases for studies and the very nature of how science works results in opportunities for climate denier lobbyists to exploit uncertainties. And that is exactly what they do.

In this case we have information that may (or may not) contradict other information and the lobbyists pounced on it. As is their standard tactic, deniers take one point from the paper, fabricate an entire story line that fits their narrative, and put the false story line out on their paid lobbyist blog and media outlets. These lobbyists know that their false story will be plagiarized and repeated on every conspiracy and political blog by ideologues until the blogosphere is saturated with the false interpretation. That's how climate denial lobbyists work.

Greg Laden, a scientist who writes on Science Blogs, explains how the NASA study has been "misunderstood." [I think Greg is giving the blogosphere too much benefit of the doubt by using the term "misunderstood;" as the recent revelations about Exxon's knowledge decades ago that fossil fuels were causing climate change show, climate denial lobbyists know they are misrepresenting (i.e., lying about) the science. It's intentional.] That said, Greg notes that to begin with, the study may not be correct. While touted as "recent data" the data set used actually ended in 2008 so would miss the rapid ice loss of the last seven years. As Greg notes:

The last decade of research on Antarctica have shown, in many studies using a variety of techniques, that Antarctica is contributing to sea level rise. They have also shown that the rate of melting in Antarctic is probably increasing. Even more importantly, they have indicated that certain areas of Antarctic are current in a state of instability, suggesting that the rate of contribution of the southern continent’s ice mass to sea level rise may increase abruptly in the near future.

So the study, like all studies, needs to be placed into context with the state of the science. Deniers never do that; they cherry pick what they like and make believe all the rest of the science doesn't exist. This tactic is so prevalent in climate denial that the lead scientist of the study even predicted that climate deniers would misrepresent his work, which is exactly what they did, as reported in the above linked article:

"I know some of the climate deniers will jump on this," but "it should not take away from the concern about climate warming."

The first lesson here is that it isn't appropriate to take one study and assume it represents the total state of the science. Science is the sum total of all the relevant studies. The second lesson is that the climate denial lobbyists knowingly and willfully misrepresent single studies and then draw global "state of the science" conclusions that are inconsistent with the sum total of all the science.

Republicans in US Try to Sabotage International Climate Action as World Moves Forward

It really is mind-boggling how the Republican Party in the United States can so blatantly engage in treasonous acts against the President, all while hurting their own constituents. They continue to do this with respect to man-made climate change despite the unequivocal consensus that human activity is causing the planet's climate system to warm. Republicans even work against the best interests of their own constituents, as most Americans agree that action is necessary to deal with climate change.

The latest treasonous act by Republicans in the U.S. is their plan to disrupt the international climate talks that this December in Paris expect to result in a substantive agreement for worldwide action. Critical nations all over the world have made carbon reduction commitments. President Obama has been leading the way, engaging in agreements with China, India, Europe, and other countries that will lead to eventual stabilization of atmospheric warming and a halt to oceanic acidification due to our history of excess carbon emissions.

Republicans in Congress have stood in the way of meaningful climate action ever since President Obama was elected. Former Republican Senator George Voinovich acknowledged that in 2008, before President-Elect Obama even took the oath of office, Republican leadership instructed all Republicans to oppose anything Obama proposed: "If Obama wanted it, Republicans had to be against it."

That includes policy actions that Republicans once promoted. As early as 2003, Senator and future Republican presidential nominee John McCain offered a bill called the "Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act." McCain offered more climate bills right up until his 2008 nomination, at which time the preview to the "tea party" forced him to renounce his own bills.

Republicans were also promoting the most recent cap-and-trade bill to deal with climate change as "a free-market solution." Yes, conservative and libertarian lobbyists, and the Republican party, preferred the cap-and-trade plan over the carbon tax plan originally offered by Democrats. But once the Democrats and President Obama agreed to support ca-and-trade, that same free market system once promoted by Republicans and conservatives was suddenly called cap-and-tax. Republicans turned against their own plan just because President Obama agreed with them to move it forward.

Now the Republican party is telling our allies around the world that they won't support an agreement that hasn't even been reached yet. Why? Because the President is moving forward along with the rest of the world. Republicans, rather than come up with their own plans (or even support the plans they previously offered) are trying "to undermine...hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement that would cement his environmental legacy."

Just as with the treasonous act by Republican Tom Cotton - sending a "mutinous" letter to Iran telling them they won't support a no-nukes agreement - Republicans are acting against the best interests of the United States in an effort to block action on climate change. Not only are Republicans acting against the US and the President, they are acting against the best interests of their own constituents.

In future posts I'll have more on how climate denier Republicans like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, James Inhofe, Joe Barton and all of the current Republican candidates for the presidential nomination are hurting their own constituents.

All Republican Candidates for President in 2016 Deny Basic Climate Science, Disqualifying Them for the Job

All 17 Republican candidates* for the 2016 presidential nomination deny the most basic climate science. Think about that. Every single Republican candidate for the highest political office in the United States has chosen to deny the very existence of unequivocal science. When they even bother to acknowledge the science at all they state that they have no intention of taking action on it, and in fact are likely to backtrack on action already taken.

Some of the more flagrantly dishonest and delusional candidates go so far as to claim that 100+ years of published science and all the world's climate scientists and organizations - and even physics - is part of a conspiracy to "tax us all into oblivion" or "make Al Gore rich" or "institute the U.N.'s Agenda 21" to "take over the world." [Cue Dr. Evil!]

Yes, these are the people who are running to be our next president. And these are the ones with the most support. It used to be this kind of dishonesty and looney tune conspiracy nonsense would be limited to the "crazies" in the far out wings of the party. Now they are the party. The Republican Party.

By choosing to lie to the American people so egregiously, they disqualify themselves for the job they are seeking. Every single one of them.

Their reasons for denying all of the science are varied. Some are simply indebted to the fossil fuel industry. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz have all been summoned to a dog-and-pony show put on by the billionaire Koch brothers. The Kochs are infamous for financing much of the climate denial lobbying and misinformation campaigns that create the falsehoods the Republican candidates so often pantomime to the public. These same Kochs, one the former Libertarian nominee for Vice President, also run a network of libertarian and right wing "think tanks" (i.e., lobbying shops) that largely overlap with their climate denial network.

Other Republican candidates almost seem like they want to acknowledge the science but are simply afraid to be honest with their constituents. Ironically, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio's home state of Florida is likely to lose more of its land surface to sea water rise than any other U.S. state in the current century (Bobby Jindal's Louisiana may be a close second.) Other candidates are just plain buffoonish, focusing instead on appealing to the most bigoted wing of the Republican party, a wing that has grown larger as the constituency of the party has grown smaller.

Even if a Republican candidate for president were to acknowledge the science and suggest policy options, a continuing Republican-controlled Congress would not let that candidate achieve any progress with respect to climate.

And progress is necessary. Action is necessary. Last year (2014) had the hottest global warming on record, and 2015 is already poised to surpass it. President Obama has been working hard during the last few years to lead the world into a meaningful global climate change agreement to be signed in December 2015. Other large contributors to climate change like China, India, Brazil, and Europe have, along with the United States, committed to carbon reduction goals. The United States and many other countries in the world have been advancing into renewable technologies that will be, and already are, driving economic development. Even the Vatican has acknowledged the science, as have every other religious, scientific, cultural, political, and community organizations.

To deny a problem, and turn back economic progress - American leadership, innovation, and jobs - based on a political fear of being honest with their own constituents, patently disqualifies any Republican candidate from the presidency.

An Open Letter to the 2016 Presidential Hopefuls re: Climate Change



* Or whatever the number there are at the time you read this since another one seems to announce every few days. Technically, one Republican candidate, Lindsay Graham, does acknowledge climate science. He has been polling last of all the candidates, with less than 1% of the likely Republican voters supporting him. That in itself demonstrates how little regard for science the Republican party exhibits. More information on Republican positions can be found here.

Climate Denier Tactic - Lying About Actual Scientific Studies

We've talked about several of the tactics used by climate deniers to intentionally mislead the public. This past week provided a prime example of one tactic - intentionally lying about what a study says. Let's take a closer look at how this works.

Recall that the climate denial industry, in their role as lobbyists, are well-experienced in manipulating public opinion. Going back to the days of tobacco companies denying smoking causes cancer, they learned to develop a network of "manufacturers" (i.e., to manufacture doubt), "spreaders" (to get the doubt out there), and "repeaters" (to saturate the blogosphere with misinformation). This process was described earlier.

The misinformation process is often employed to spread their own non-science opinions, other non-peer-reviewed and unsupported blog posts, and the occasional paper they get through the peer-review process. But it works also when they want to spin (i.e., misrepresent) the findings of actual real scientific papers by actual real climate scientists. Such is the case this past week when the blogosphere became saturated with a false conclusion drawn from a presentation made at the Royal Astronomical Society meeting held in Wales.

One paper - not yet published or peer-reviewed, merely presented at a scientific meeting for discussion - noted that the study authors used a model that concluded solar activity conditions by the 2030s could be similar to the solar activity conditions experienced during the Maunder Minimum. That was the extent of their conclusions.

The Maunder Minimum was a period of time popularly linked with the "Little Ice Age," a perhaps overzealous term given to a period of excess cooling in some parts of the world (mainly the UK) from around 1550 to 1850.

But here's the thing. The authors of the study didn't say temperatures would be the same; they said solar activity conditions could be the same. In actual fact, the processes warming our climate system are so extreme these days that even the same solar activity conditions couldn't possibly drop our temperatures to that of the Maunder Minimum. We've actually already been in a period of low solar activity for a while now, and temperatures continue to get hotter.

So here is the tactic: Denier lobbyists and their media partners take the study findings and then wildly extrapolate far beyond anything the study authors said or the study shows. Suddenly the "similar solar activity conditions" are transmogrified into the falsehood "predictions of another Little Ice Age." There is absolutely no basis for this extrapolation, and is contradicted both by the evidence of the study they claim said it (it didn't) and the evidence of multiple other studies that show continued - and even expanded - warming for the foreseeable future.

Let's reiterate to make the tactic clear to all:

1) Grossly misrepresent the study being cited, often ignoring the actual conclusions and other evidence, to create an unsupported and inaccurate misrepresentation (i.e., fairy tale) of the study.

2) Get an accommodating media reporter to present the gross misrepresentation.

3) Ensure the gross misrepresentation is spread wide and far on the lobbyist-fed media and ideologically plagiarized blogosphere.

The key to this strategy is to saturate the internet and media with the false story line and to keep people from reading the actual study and actual results and actual conclusions. Since most people don't have access to the original study (especially since it hasn't even been published yet), it isn't hard to spread the fairy tale version in its place. Climate denier lobbyists know this, and they exploit it.

So now everyone is getting the false information rather than the real information. Eventually the deception of the deniers is revealed but the denier lobbyists don't care because they've already achieved their goals. They know none of their ideological followers will care that the falsehood has been debunked. In fact, they know that their followers will claim any debunking to be part of the "global conspiracy" by all the world's climate scientists for the last 100 years. Yes, the lobbyists relish the fact that they can manipulate their followers so easily.

For the rest of us, however, it's important to keep debunking the falsehoods and to keep exposing the tactics used by lobbyists and their partners in collusion to mislead the public and influence policy-making. Such is the goal of this series on exposing climate denialism.

The Pope's Climate Encyclical and Why Climate Deniers are Their Own Worst Enemy

It should go without saying that when you deny reality long enough, eventually reality makes you look foolish. Climate deniers have been denying the science behind man-made climate change for so long that they have lost even the illusion of credibility. They have become their own worst enemy, and as such have put themselves on a path of complete irrelevancy.

Deniers have chosen this path, of course. By blatantly denying even the most basic science and by egregiously promoting the most obvious and ludicrous falsehoods, deniers have marginalized themselves to the point of inconsequentiality. Deniers now find themselves being taken as seriously as Donald Trump's presidential run. Yes, they have become that buffoonish.

And alone.

Deniers used to hide behind ideological blinders, seeking protection for their anti-science beliefs in the arms of "conservatives," the "religious," and "Republican" comfort groups. Now deniers find themselves in a category among themselves. In contrast, intellectually honest and informed people who identify within these traditional labels no longer provide cover for denial.

Religions do not condone denial of the science

This point is brought home as Pope Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, issues the Vatican's papal encyclical on climate change and the environment. [Here is a summary of the main points; and here is the full letter, in English] In it the Pope acknowledges the unequivocal science demonstrating human activity is causing our climate to warm, and that the changes observed and coming present a significant risk to humanity.

Let me stop here and reinforce this to make it clear, because this is a point that climate deniers have intentionally tried to confuse as they attack the Pope. What the encyclical does is acknowledge the 100+ years of peer-reviewed climate science, which unequivocally demonstrates humans are warming the climate system. Climate deniers have falsely stated that the Pope shouldn't be "doing science" because he isn't a scientist. But the Pope isn't "doing science," he's simply acknowledging the science done by climate scientists and documented in tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers. So where the Pope (and the scientists of the encyclical that reviewed all the evidence) acknowledge the science, those attacking him are denying the science.

The point is that the Vatican is actually paying attention to the science, something they have been rightly criticized for not doing in the past and on other issues. Acknowledging the science is happening also in other religions and religious leaders. There are strongly Christian climate scientists, for example, who recognize that religious beliefs and the scientific reality of man-made climate change do not conflict. All religions have come to understand that the science is the science, and that their religious beliefs include stewardship of the environment. Denial of the science is shirking the moral responsibility to shepherd God's creation. Thus, deniers cannot pretend to be following religious principles. In fact, religions are leaving deniers behind.

Conservative principles do not condone denial of the science

Climate deniers have also shrouded their denial under the mantle of "conservatism." But that's false. Conservatism actually would acknowledge the science and protect - conserve - our resources and our planet. Deniers who hide behind their "conservatism" are actually false conservatives. Honest conservatives recognize that real conservatism includes stewardship. It also means looking at the evidence and acknowledging realities, then taking steps to honest dealing with those realities. Real conservatives don't let their blind ideology stand in the way of action. Real conservatives support "meaningful solutions," they don't deny reality in an effort to avoid having to take responsibility for offering those solutions.

Republican beliefs do not condone denial of the science

Many deniers seem to think they can hide their denial behind the "Republican" party mantra. That again is false. In fact, deniers are not listening to their own Republican scientists. Despite the usual blather from deniers that climate science is a "liberal hoax," climate scientists come in all flavors of political identity. Kerry Emanuel, Barry Bickmore, and others are Republicans despite and yet are also highly respected scientists doing climate research. Even looking beyond that, Republicans in the past have often been in the forefront of protection our environment. It was Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, a constant target of modern "Republicans." Just recently it was John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee for president, who was leading the Republican efforts to pass sweeping legislation to encourage renewable energy development and deal with climate change.

All of these demonstrate that climate deniers, while they still claim to be under the umbrellas of conservatism, Republican, or religious principles, are in actual fact separate from all of those.

Deniers, through their increasingly obvious dishonesty and denial of even the most basic scientific fact and physics, have ostracized themselves from the realms of credibility. Religious principles dictate the opposite of what deniers claim. Conservative principles also dictate the opposite of what deniers claim. And whereas Republican principles dictate taking responsible action to conserve our environment, Republican deniers have made denial of the science a parlor game in which they are so stridently buffoonish that it is clear to everyone that they are being blatantly dishonest for their own personal ambitions and the benefit of the fossil fuel and extremist right wing lobbyists who finance them.

Which gets us to the future. Climate deniers have become their own worst enemy by so intentionally and demonstrably given up all illusions to honesty. Will they eventually realize this and stop being so dishonest and buffoonish? The answer is no. If they stop, they will by definition cease to exist. But more importantly, they have invested so much into their fantasy world where they think dishonest denial is acceptable within religious, ideological, or party frameworks, they (i.e., deniers) will simply slink away into oblivion, eventually resurfacing to deny they even denied in the first place.

Because that is what deniers do.

Debunking the Rare Published Climate Denier Paper - Monckton edition

Climate deniers rarely publish papers in scientific journals for the simple reason that they rarely do actual research. Instead, deniers prefer to write Op-Eds in business magazines and newspapers, or offer themselves as pundits on cable media, or just write on blogs. None of these is peer-reviewed, so they can say pretty much anything they want. In rare cases, however, deniers will publish in a peer-reviewed journal. When they do, the published work never stands up to scrutiny. Never.

One recent denier paper caused an uproar because it claimed to overturn decades of actual climate science research, specifically arguing that climate models "run hot," that is, that models show greater future warming than warranted. To no one's surprise, the paper has now been soundly debunked. While once again deniers' claims are found to be false, the episode provides a good illustration for people who want to assess the veracity of denier claims.

First, assess the scientific backgrounds of the authors of the study. The denier study is authored by Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, David Legates, and William Briggs.

Monckton is not a scientist, and worse, has been repeatedly found to have lied about what scientists and their studies say. He also has been told by the British House of Lords to stop referring to himself as a member (he isn't one).

Soon is an aerospace engineer with a long history of providing denier "deliverables," i.e., publications that meet the needs of his fossil fuel funders. He has co-authored at least three papers that have misrepresented the science.

Legates is a geography professor who often co-authors papers with Willie Soon and other climate deniers.

Briggs somewhat ridiculously calls himself as "statistician to the stars." [Or perhaps, "numerologist to the stars."]

All of these authors are also affiliated with various climate denial lobbying organizations such as the Heartland Institute. None of them does original climate science research.

Second, assess the quality of the journal. As noted in an earlier post, quality standards in journals can vary. In every field there are journals that are considered to be preeminent, and other journals that are considered second tier. The better journals tend to be more stringent in their peer-review process since they normally receive many more submissions than they have room to publish. The journal for the Monckton et al. paper is a new Chinese journal called Science Bulletin, which most climate scientists had never heard of prior to the right wing promotion of the Monckton et al. paper. That doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad journal, but it does suggest that Monckton and his co-authors (and their corporate promoters) had to search around for a journal whose standards were low enough to allow publication. Deniers, again on the rare occasions that they publish in a journal at all, generally find that only obscure or lower tier journals with limited or no peer-review standards will allow them to pass the first step in the review process. This is why so many denier papers are published in the British policy journal E&E, which is specifically focused on publishing denier papers that can't pass basic peer-review.

Third, assess the quality of the paper. Aye, there's the rub (to paraphrase Hamlet). Whereas it's difficult enough for the public to adequately assess the authors and the journals, it's even more improbable that the public can assess the veracity of the science supposedly being presented.

This last point is worthy of elaboration. Deniers count on the public not being able to evaluate the science. After all, climate scientists, like other professionals, spend many years in specialized education and work experience learning how to do research and evaluate the research of others. That is why deniers so rabidly use their lobbying organizations and paid bloggers to seed the internet with their talking points, knowing that the ideologues will plagiarize and saturate the blogosphere before the paper can be debunked, which it is every single time.

Fourth, assess whether the paper has withstood scientific scrutiny. Whenever a single paper claims to overturn the state-of-the-science based on 100+ years and 100,000+ papers, it's a good bet that the single paper is wrong. Sure, single papers can sometimes catch things others missed, but to overturn that much science it will take thousands of other studies confirming that single paper before we can be assured of its veracity. So if a paper makes what appear to be outrageous claims, search to find out if scientists have debunked it already. While the rebuttal paper described in Nuccitelli's article will invariably take some time to come out, there usually is some discussion of papers on various blogs. Which gets us to the last point.

Fifth, assess the trends of the authors and organizations involved. In other words, know who can - and cannot - be trusted to provide honest information. The public needs to make an effort to be informed about who are the paid deniers and the lobbying organizations that support them. Given that these deniers have long histories of misrepresenting the science, the public can safely assume that anything and everything these people and groups produce will be false. In this case, all four denier authors are from the usual small cast of deniers who constantly offer up unsupportable opinions. All four are associated with denier lobbyists. And the methods of the paper clearly show that they concocted model inputs that are contradicted by actual data and evidence. No wonder their results are unsupportable - they ignored real data and just make stuff up.

It's critical that the public knows who are scientists and who are lobbyist spokespeople. All four authors of this particular paper more close resemble spokespeople than scientists. If they want to be scientists then they have to do actual research and produce actual scientific papers that stand up to scrutiny, just like all legitimate scientists have to do. Alas, they don't. Nothing they have produced ever stands up to even the slightest scrutiny. And it isn't just a case of being wrong, it's a case of consistently misrepresenting the science and intentionally cherry picking the information to reach a desired conclusion. Every single time.

Since the public isn't likely to start reading highly technical scientific journal articles directly, it's important to learn which sources are reliable and which are not. 

I'll have more on the methods of real scientists vs deniers in future Exposing Climate Denialism posts.