I don’t like bullies – so I don’t like the environment establishment much anymore.
My first real experience of being at the wrong end of their big stick was when I worked for the Queensland sugar industry and WWF launched its “save the reef campaign”.
The newly launched campaign against Exxon Mobil in the US because of the company’s position on global warming shows a high level of intolerant to different perspectives and the environment movement’s propensity for intimidation and bullying.
According to the New York Times,
A coalition of environmental and liberal lobbying groups is planning a boycott of Exxon Mobil products to protest the company’s challenges to warnings about global warming.
And boycott a company because you think it should be a better environmental steward,
Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s executive director, said the goal was either to get Exxon Mobil to change or “to encourage other oil companies” to improve their environmental stewardship. The company was chosen, organizers said, because its record is worse than its competitors.
And boycott a company because you don’t like who they fund,
The company has also supported groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose work has challenged some generally accepted scientific models that predict the speed of climate change and the severity of its consequences.
This is the campaign site http://www.exxposeexxon.com.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Yeah right. Exxon Mobil is helping to stop action on a problem that could affect the lives of billions of people so that they and their shareholders can make more money.
We’ll see who is right in about 20 years and we will see who are the irresponsible bullies then.
Jennifer, put yourself in the shoes of a greenpeace person: if one were to accept that global warming is a problem, what do you think is a legitimate way to do something about it?
Do you think we need to stop environmentalists from sensibly and legally asking the free market to exercise choice and avoid exxon products? Would you prefer that instead of environmental groups using these peaceful, voluntary measures to tackle a global problem, that society should instead go with the command and control government regulation option, and tax/fine exxon into line….?
Are you aware that, kyoto aside, just about every govt in the world – including Australia and the US – publicly acknowledges that global warming is a problem? Where do you draw the line between bullying and working for a worthy cause?
And fer heavens sake, don’t you think its damned near impossible to “bully” a gargantuan multi-national like Exxon? Perspective, please!
Poor Exxon, a little battlers you-beaut mums and dads company just trying to make an honest living off the land, doing it tough but with ticker…. but now it is being intimidated and bullied by these vicious, dangerous environmental ==terrorists== who are telling people not to buy Exxon’s products.
Come on Jennifer … Exxon ….
I mean really – you are seriously defending Exxon. What a bunch of eco-vandals….
I reckon cigarette companies are well positioned to do toxicity studies too….
Exxon !!!!!!
You really believe in that tired old phrase people! “Hi I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you”. Money talks and it is still what is driving our world irrespective of whether you believe we are suffering global warming or not! We are but here a short time and those that have the money and therefore the power are making the most of it with their time. I applaude people like Bill Gates who is at least wanting to ease the suffering millions, but don’t think for a moment he will ever be broke……. John
What a pity we can’t boycott Greenpeace or other other greenie organisations. They offer nothing, produce nothing, but condemn anyone and anything contradicting their dogma. And have the status of taxfree organisations. Talk about vilifying parasites biting the hands that feed them……..
Well USA has more dollars than Australia – do they have a better standard of life?
And we also leave the results of our short time here to our children and grandchildren. This concerns some of us.
Money also talks in cigarette companies, and at Bhopal in India and at Minimata in Japan. We have seen the “due care” of big corporations.
Before we had an economy we had a society and before we had a society there was an ecology. The global atmosphere probably doesn’t formally recognise the economy – it will just do what it does from its inherent composition and physics…. whether you’re rich or poor.
I still don’t understand a few of the issues here.
1. What’s the problem with Exxon funding research if the papers from that research have to pass peer-review before publication? Are people claiming that the peer-review process is so weak (and the reviewers so incompetent) that Exxon will be able to influence what is finally published?
2. What exactly does Exxon stand to lose if the theories of Global Warming prove to be correct – or gain of the theories prove wrong? Either way they will still own vast oil fields and oil will still be consumed.
3. What’s the validity of this claim that Exxon are funding a lot of research projects that question global warming theory? Most sceptics that I know are just honest scientists who question the claims and look for evidence as scientists should. Most are retired or semi-retired and aren’t in the business of trying to build their reputations. (Maybe we should keep this balanced and ask how much research is being funded by governments to explore the impact of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and how much to investigate whether AGW is happening at all.)
Loius – “They offer nothing, produce nothing,” – perhaps this is why you cannot boycott them..
John – Exxon stand to lose if fossil fuel use is reduced. Also they their brand stands to lose if it identified with harm. This is what they are fighting for. The core skeptics are paid scientists that have abandoned scientific method and integrity. The scientific consensus from 99% of scientists in the climate science area is that AGW is happening and the scientific case is sound. The skeptics that you mention are running a FUD campaign to inject whatever doubt they can, whether or not is is real, into the debate so as to delay any action on AGW until their masters are ready.
On John McLean’s …
John – broad reputation of any organisation is important. We might suggest Exxon has passed in the “worry” category some time ago … I mean come on … are you really serious ?
If Exxon publish in serious journals and not news mags or industry mags and they pass ongoing review well fine.
On number 3 – rolling around the floor laughing – more like cranky close-minded old codgers who are past it – I mean most quoted on these blogs are about as bad as Bellamy ! go fishing guys …
OK John – stop just raving on and quote some serious alternative mechanisms – PUT UP !
Ender – You’ve made your defamatory comments now produce your clear evidence!
I want to send it to the scientists that you claim have “abandoned scientific method and integrity” and they can take whatever legal action they think is appropriate.
Scientific matters are NOT settled by informal voting. (“Hands up all those who think the Earth is the centre of the universe. Come on Copernicus. Everyone else thinks it is !” … and maybe for your benefit Ender I should add “Copernicus must be being paid to disagree!”)
So, Ender, please put up or shut up!
Gee, if you can’t do that then maybe you will have to look at the evidence, temperatures, and see how the irregularities contradict the claims of AGW. You wouldn’t want to be forced to have to look at data would you?
OK John How about this http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html
“Mother Jones has tallied some 40 ExxonMobil-funded organizations that either have sought to undermine mainstream scientific findings on global climate change or have maintained affiliations with a small group of “skeptic” scientists who continue to do so.”
and
“The rise to prominence of most of these greenhouse skeptics is spelled out in several reports of the Western Fuels Association, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit consortium of coal utilities and suppliers. In its 1994 annual report, Western Fuels declared that “there has been a close to universal impulse in the [fossil fuel] trade association community here in Washington to concede the scientific premise of global warming… We have disagreed, and do disagree, with this strategy.”
To counter it, the group said it would support the work of those who challenged the findings of the world’s leading scientists. Among them: Dr. Pat Michaels, associate professor of climatology at the University of Virginia; Dr. S. Fred Singer, also of UVA; and Dr. Robert Balling, director of the climatology program at Arizona State University.”
The consensus that you dismiss as “informal voting’ is to do it a great disservice. It is not informal voting at all but a rigourous round of reading and checking of published scientific papers in the field of climate science by experts in the field. Very few skeptics have the credentials to take part in this discovery process. One exception is von Storch who said this in a paper – http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/von_Storch/perspective.pdf
“we are not claiming that the present concept of global warming is flawed. We are convinced that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the air, and strongly believe that near-surface temperatures are rising in response”
So perhaps it is you that should put up or shut up! You can show that Singer etal are all motivated by scientific truth and beauty by writing to them and asking them to decline all fossil fuel funding. Look at the Marshall Institute that M&M are sponsored by and who funds them.
Corporations and ‘big’ business are automatically labelled ‘evil’, particularly if they make a profit! Somehow the less efficient more wasteful resource manager is to be applauded – organisations like Greenpeace support inefficient practices whilst living off the profits of others.
Ender,
I asked you to support your claims that scientists have “abandoned scientific method and integrity”.
All you have done is produce some organisations claims that are similar to yours.
Are you attentpting to claim that some kind of consensus on innuendo and ad hominem attacks constititues proof?
My goodness, that is about as weak as claiming that consensus among 99% of scientists means that anthropogenic global warming is a a proven fact despite what the data might say!
Even if it was 99% that is no proof that it is correct.
It doesn’t seem to be 99% at all but somewhere closer to 75% – in other words 1 in 4 scientists disagrees with this claimed “consensus”.
Why do I say that? It’s based on a recent survey of 500 international climate scientists, conducted by Professors Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch of the German Institute for Coastal Research.
(see http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/bray.html/BrayGKSSsite/BrayGKSS/WedPDFs/Science2.pdf)
Just to make it clear – You said “The core skeptics are paid scientists that have abandoned scientific method and integrity.” Now I want the names of the scientists which you claim have “abandoned scientific method and integrity”.
John McLean – unlike Louis I follow up on any links posted with counter-arguments – unfortunately your link doesn’t work – I tried their suggestion and another that link also didn’t work.
Pls repost if you find it.
BTW I am prepared to think that many scientists don’t believe in AGW. However – few people have read sufficiently widely and precisely on the topic to make an informed comment. Do we reject the science effort from the IPCC on the basis that “we don’t like it” or it’s a massive conspiracy.
What alternative mechanisms might we employ getting to the bottom of this issue?? Peer review unlike politics doesn’t involve democracy – it’s about serious argument and debate on the facts. Publication by itself is not enough either.
On the take ! Well he could have worked for Phillip Morris I suppose….
See also sophistry and spin….
Research Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute. Visiting Scientist, Marshall Institute.
Dr. Patrick Michaels is possibly the most prolific and widely-quoted climate change skeptic scientist. He has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources. His latest book, published in September 2004 by the Cato Institute, is titled: Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.
Michaels publishes the “World Climate Review,” a newsletter on global warming funded by the Western Fuels Association. Dr. Michaels has acknowledged that 20% of his funding comes from fossil fuel sources: (http://www.mtn.org/~nescncl/complaints/determinations/det_118.html) Known funding includes $49,000 from German Coal Mining Association, $15,000 from Edison Electric Institute and $40,000 from Cyprus Minerals Company, an early supporter of People for the West, a “wise use” group. He recieved $63,000 for research on global climate change from Western Fuels Association, above and beyond the undisclosed amount he is paid for the World Climate Report/Review. According to Harper’s magazine, Michaels has recieved over $115,000 over the past four years from coal and oil interests. Michaels wrote “Sound and Fury” and “The Satanic Gases” which were published by Cato Institute. Dr. Michaels signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration.
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3645&method=full
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to spurious funding ?
Just who are the bullies Jen ?? really now ….
I posted an article that did name them – perhaps you should read it a bit more closely. Taking money from the fossil fuel industry, in my opinion, is abandoning scientific method and integrity as any results that you obtain will be tainted by the vested interest of the sponsors. To say otherwise is naive in the extreme. Also the named scientists to my knowledge do not really do research but only pick apart the work of others.
What you say next is true that just because 99% of the worlds climate scientists think that AGW is happening does not make it proven. However there is observable proof of both rising atmospheric CO2 levels and rising temperature. This and other observable data would make most people pretty sure that those scientists had at least had a good look at the evidence and decided that AGW while not a proven fact is at least can be considered a working hypothesis. There is certainly enough evidence despite skeptics denying it for action on CO2 levels. Some of the skeptics have progressed to the ‘well it is happening but it won’t cause any harm” position. Which group are you in Mr Mclean?
BTW the link did not work for me either.