Posted on 07/28/2006 4:57:57 AM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
WASHINGTON (AP) - Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.
Pat Michaels - Virginia's state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute - told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges.
The Intermountain Rural Electric Association of Sedalia, Colo., gave Michaels $100,000 and started the fund-raising drive, said Stanley Lewandowski, IREA's general manager. He said one company planned to give $50,000 and a third plans to give Michaels money next year.
"We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists," Lewandowski wrote in a July 17 letter to 50 other utilities. He also called on other electric cooperatives to launch a counterattack on "alarmist" scientists and specifically Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth."
Michaels and Lewandowski are open about the money and see no problem with it. Some top scientists and environmental advocates call it a clear conflict of interest. Others view it as the type of lobbying that goes along with many divisive issues.
"These people are just spitting into the wind," said John Holdren, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The fact is that the drumbeat of science and people's perspectives are in line that the climate is changing."
Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington advocacy group, said: "This is a classic case of industry buying science to back up its anti-environmental agenda."
Donald Kennedy, an environmental scientist who is former president of Stanford University and current editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Science, said skeptics such as Michaels are lobbyists more than researchers.
"I don't think it's unethical any more than most lobbying is unethical," he said. He said donations to skeptics amounts to "trying to get a political message across."
Michaels is best known for his newspaper opinion columns and books, including "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media." However, he also writes research articles published in scientific journals.
In 1998, Michaels blasted NASA scientist James Hansen, accusing the godfather of global warming science of being way off on his key 1988 prediction of warming over the next 10 years. But Hansen and other scientists said Michaels misrepresented the facts by cherry-picking the worst (and least likely) of three possible outcomes Hansen presented to Congress. The temperature rise that Hansen said was most likely to happen back then was actually slightly lower than what has occurred.
Michaels has been quoted by major newspapers more than 150 times in the past two years, according to a Lexis-Nexis database search. He and Lewandowski told The Associated Press that their side of global warming isn't getting out and that the donations resulted from a speech Michaels gave to the Western Business Roundtable last fall. Michaels said the money will help pay his staff.
Holdren, a Harvard environmental science and technology professor, said skeptics such as Michaels "have had attention all out of proportion to the merits of their arguments."
"Last I heard, anybody can ask a scientific question," said Michaels, who holds a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "It is a very spirited discussion that requires technical response and expertise."
Other scientific fields, such as medicine, are more careful about potential conflicts of interests than the energy, environmental and chemical fields, where it doesn't raise much of an eyebrow, said Penn State University bioethicist Arthur Caplan.
Earlier this month, the Journal of the American Medical Association announced a crackdown on researchers who do not disclose drug company ties related to their research. Yet days later, the journal's editor said she had been misled because the authors of a new study had not revealed industry money they got that posed a conflict.
Three top climate scientists said they don't accept money from private groups. The same goes for the Web site realclimate.org, which has long criticized Michaels. "We don't get any money; we do this in our free time," said Realclimate.org contributor Stefan Rahmstorf, an ocean physics scientist at Potsdam University in Germany.
Lewandowski, who said he believes global warming is real just not as big a problem as scientists claim, acknowledged this is a special interest issue. He said the bigger concern is his 130,000 customers, who want to keep rates low, so coal-dependent utilities need to prevent any taxes or programs that penalize fossil fuel use. He said his effort is more aimed at stopping carbon dioxide emission taxes and limits from Congress, something he believes won't happen during the Bush administration.
I wonder what Mr. Caplan means by "more careful about conflicts of interests"...
Oh my gosh. You mean those who have the most to gain by mainting some "doubt" in the scientific community are fnding those who will support the hopeless positions?
I certainly haven't been writing this ow for quite a while. /sarcasm
One ping deserves another ping.
Lemme get this straight....
If you are a supporter of world socialism, and therefore find the theory of HUMAN CAUSED global warming useful for stunting the growth of wealthy nations in order to equalize the economies of smaller nations (from those who have to those who have not)... its OK to receive funding on global warming research.
On the other hand, if you believe that the science of HUMAN CAUSED global warming is flawed, and that global warming has existed due to periodic changes in global variables that are outside human capacity to effect, you may NOT accept funding for global warming research.
Did I get this right?
I wonder how many of the pro- global warming scientists are getting grants and from whom?
Well that's not slanted at all. /sarc
How about some fair reporting.
Does the media doubt claims from groups funded by Planned Parenthood and their "Gutmacher Institute"?
Does the media question statistics from groups funded by AARP, NOW or gay scientists who link homosexuality to genetics?
There would be a countless list of organizations and governments who are supporting research on climate change including the US government.
A great number of neutral parties have been doing research for over 25 years. The conclusion is essentially unanimous among the serious.
The point that it is a conclusion that a lot of people don't want to hear is the only reason nothing has been done.
The fact that the only organizations that obstrepriously object and are specifically funding those few individuals willing to say night is day or find overwhelming evidence "inconclusive" happen to be those who have the most to lose is not surprising. Remove those funders and there is no "uncertainty." The scientists in their pockets are akin to the O.J. jury who will simply find evidence within the most expansive defintion of "reasonable doubt" imaginable.
Oh. I noticed on your moniker that you are a chemist.
Thus, I will relay the story to you that changed my stance of the climate change issue. I used to be sceptical until I had dinner with Sherwold Rowland who I am sure you know as the 1995 winner of the Nobel Prize.
He was in no ones pocket. He was instrumental in establishing the science that led to the Montreal Protocol and he was convinced that man was playing a role in climate change.
How do we solve the 'problem' without seriously curtailing our lifestyle? No one seems to be addressing that.
Yep, very good summary.
Critics of global warming theories attack the science, so proponents of global warming attack the critics based with unsubstianted allegations of corruption.
It shouldn't be surprising, it's the same kind of logic with which most global warming advocates support their views on global warming.
Solid logic isn't exactly a strong point of theirs.
There is no question that New York City, and all major cities, is at least 10 degrees hotter on average than it was 150 years ago. Truly.
But that is never mentioned by the global warming crowd because there is nothing anyone can do about it. In fact, their challenge is to try an subtract out that heat gain from average temperature figures in an effort to show warming from causes other than urbanization.
The subtraction figure is very controversial and subject to great debate because it will either prove or disprove the rate of warming. [It does not relate to whether the rate is caused by man.]
So what about it?? Isn't it time to tear down the big cities??
Honestly there are quite a few people places and organizations doing exactly this. Posting anything about it would be asking for a flaming and to do a flaming it takes some time which I haven't had of late.
In short, the real answer to the question has to be found in market mechanisms. Carbon needs to be priced into everything that releases it and by doing so, it will make those technologies and activities that reduce carbon release more competitive.
In a very simple way, if you think about the price of an SUV, rather than spending $20-50k on a huge engine and lots of steel, why couldn't that money be put to use for purposes of efficiency? Naturally assuming the appropraite incentives are in place.
Wind energy is, without the price of carbon nearly competitive with coal. Add carbon costs and you have a very clean and cheap (and getting cheaper) energy source. Biofuels like ethanol and other plant oils are carbon neutral and have huge potential.
Very minor adjustments toward efficiency could make a very large difference and not truly affect lifestyle other than marginally.
The goal needs to be to stabilize the CO2 concentration at 500ppm That is still very, very high but is possible, manageable and would allow the developing countries to attain a respetable standard of living given current technologies.
Technology will allow our standard of living to continue to increase. However, energy will have to become something slightly more dear and the super-cooled and overheated homes may be something of the past.
One more solution - think of the new energy grid more like the internet. It will be a linked network of provider/consumers. When you are at work, your solar panels will produce energy for your office and factories. When at home, the reverse will happen.
It is all perfectly conceivable and probably quite profitable. Just not for coal producers, oil companies and those who own the infrastructure to process and burn those things.
This statement is utterly false.
It is either intentionally false, which makes you a liar, or it is casually, ignorantly false, which makes you a fool.
Either way, you are no longer credible on this subject.
Way to back it up. There ya go. Call someone a liar and provide no links, no proof etc. You really wracked up some huge credibility around here.
I guess some of the old timers are better than others.
What about green roofs? That helps a lot. Very popular in Germany. Drastically reduces the heat island affect.
There is a technolgical solution to the problem. Those invested in the old infrastructure have too much to lose to go gently and they are willing to risk everyone's future for it.
The article starts with a lie and then goes on to question the integrity of scientists who accept funds from the "wrong" source.
This is akin to the Second Hand Smoke study funded for 38 years by The American Cancer Society and others of their ilk. When the study showed that SHS was virtually harmless, they pulled the funding and evil tobacco companies stepped in to fund the last two years of the 40 year study. The ACS denounced the study and the scientists as tools of Big Tobacco.
Horse puckey!
When a tree dies and eventually falls over, it rots. The dying and rotting emits lots of carbon.
If that same tree were cut in the prime of life and turned into furnature or a house, the emission of carbon is greatly reduced. If the tree is cut and burned as firewood, the emission of carbon is reduced over the emission by rotting.
I don't recall ever hearing the global warming crowd calling for more cutting of trees before they die and rot.
What gives?
Method #173,402 that liberals use to try to silence any and all opposition.
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