Regular DeSmog readers know we are big fans of Guardian columist George Monbiot, and we're very proud to be co-sponsoring a big event next weekend in Toronto with Monbiot as our special event.
Here's the details, hope to see you all there!
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Join George Monbiot, Guardian columnist and author of “Heat: How To Save The Planet From Burning," in Toronto next weekend for a special event!
Countdown to Copenhagen: Who in Canada is Killing the International Climate Treaty?
With the international climate treaty summit less than a month away, leading experts on the science, policy and politics of climate change will lead a forum on the role Canada is (and isn't) playing on the international stage.
I'll admit, as someone who spends most days looking for leaked documents, the package of stolen emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University is pretty juicy. Anything that provides insight into the inner-workings of your opponents is pretty much manna from heaven in this line of work.
I have been going through all the files today and I hate to disappoint but it just ain't the scandal climate conspiracy theorists want it to be.
These emails are blissfully being spun by the climate contrarians as proof of some type of worldwide conspiracy by scientists to fake the climate change crisis. Michelle Malkin, who relishes Ann Coulter-esque statements, goes so far as to call it "the global warming scandal of the century.”
Right.
As Brad Johnson writes, it's more likely proof that climate deniers are the crazed conspiracy theorists we always thought they were.
At the center of the conspiracy claim is a quote in a casual conversation between colleagues talking about Mike's Nature "trick."
They are referring to the Michael Mann hockey stick study from ten years ago that has been the subject of attacks by climate skeptic bloggers for many years now. In fact, it got so bad that the US National Academy of Sciences was called in by the US Senate to look further into the validity of the Mann study.
Submitted by Kevin Grandia on Fri, 2009-11-20 12:33Climate skeptics are, not surprisingly, hitting the European speaking circuit in the weeks leading up to the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. But what is surprising is that notorious global warming denier S. Fred Singer was described at a skeptic conference today as a Nobel prize winner, a flat out lie.
According to a Belgian journalist who alerted DeSmog to Singer’s appearance today at a skeptic conference in the European Parliament building, Singer was described in event materials as:
The idea that Fred Singer shares any part in the IPCC/Gore Nobel prize is laughable, of course. Other than Mr. Gore, the Nobel committee recognized only the IPCC authors, and they all received framed Nobel certificates. If Singer can produce a framed Nobel, I’ll produce my Olympic gold medal (Singer must eat cereal too, I sure enjoy the prizes inside, although I've never seen a Nobel peace prize before).
It's been a few short weeks since the launch of Jim and Richard's book Climate Cover Up, and I just got word that it is already in its third print run and sold out on Amazon (don't worry, they're restocked now).
In other words, it's been a great start and it's all thanks to our loyal DeSmog friends and allies who've helped us get the book out there in a big way!
If you already have a copy of Climate Cover Up, then please pass it on to a friend when you're done. If you don't have a copy, then go to Amazon and pick one up (and maybe one for a denier friend).
And, as always, if you're a blogger or a journalist and you'd like to do a review, please email me at: desmogblog@gmail.com and I'll send along a review copy.
Submitted by Kevin Grandia on Wed, 2009-11-18 11:50The Wall Street Journal has stepped forward - to no one's particular surprise - and declared that the world is uncertain about climate change, basing this conclusion on the work of a sloppy denier who still has the integrity to say that is NOT the case.
The WSJ article, by an opinion writer named Anne Jolis, lauds the work of Stephen McIntyre, the retired mining stock promoter and the denial industry's favourite statistician. Entitled "Revenge of the Climate Layman," the piece argues that McIntyre's criticism of sundry "hockey stick graphs" are relevant and somehow indicative that the whole theory of climate change is on shakey ground.
"Yet," says the WSJ's Jolis, "Mr. McIntyre is first to admit his work is no bullet aimed at the heart of the theory of man-made climate change."
How could Jolis have become so confused? Well, because she never had any intention of listening to anyone who would offer a reasoned response to her delusional preferred vision of the world.
Submitted by Richard Littlemore on Wed, 2009-11-18 11:25Spurred on by a speech that Jim Hoggan gave to the Canadian Empire Club in Toronto (talking about our new book, Climate Cover-up), Canada's national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, started asking questions today about who is paying for the big Friends of Science radio ad campaign that has been annoying Canadians from coast to coast for the last week or so.
The Globe's Martin Mittelstaedt had no success finding a live representative from the Friends of Science to deny their oily connections, but Marty Ball told Mittelstaedt this about her infamous husband, the truth-challenged Tim Ball: “He's not paid by the oil companies. He's never had anything from them and neither [have] the Friends of Science."
Alas for the Balls' self-delusion, Mittelstaedt's own paper has reported quite the opposite in the past, quoting a Friends official, Albert Jacobs, as saying that the oil and gas industry is exactly where they got their money.
Submitted by Richard Littlemore on Tue, 2009-11-17 19:11The sprawling stable of climate change deniers in the employ of the National Post must be choking on crow after their editorial board finally admitted earlier this month that climate change is real, dangerous and caused by humans.
According to the Post:
The Earth is warming, and human activity is likely to blame. Climates are changing across the world, including in Canada’s far north. In other parts of the world, some crops will fail, some species will be pressed to extinction and some low-lying territories will be flooded.
Imagine that. Only about two decades after the scientific community came to exactly the same conclusion, Canada’s most business-friendly newspaper has belatedly acknowledged that several of its most prominent and vociferous critics of climate science don’t apparently have a clue what they are talking about.
This terse editorial flip-flop is apparently meant to smooth over years of printing polemics to the contrary from the likes of Terence Corcoran and Lorne Gunter.
Submitted by Mitchell Anderson on Tue, 2009-11-17 15:04I just got word that Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is planning on protesting a presentation Al Gore is making tomorrow night in Portland, Oregon.
Under the guise of the "teabagger movement" AFP will do what it does best, which is protesting clean energy and green jobs.
It's hard to believe this is much of a grassroots "teabagger" movement when the organizers get so much money from the largest private energy company in the United States.
Below is everything you need to know about AFP and their president Tim Phillips that we've pulled from our research database.
All this will be passed on to the local Portland media to ensure that they include this important context in any reporting they do on this story. If you're from Portland or know anyone from the area, please pass this around to local bloggers and media.
Submitted by Kevin Grandia on Tue, 2009-11-17 14:18Much-loved actor and director Robert Redford launched the Sundance Channel fourteen years ago to broadcast independent and progressive films from around the world.
It is therefore surprising that the network chose to broadcast the notoriously inaccurate “Great Global Warming Swindle” this week.
When this pseudo-scientific “documentary” was first broadcast on British television to an audience of 2.5 million in 2007, real scientists were appalled. The British Antarctic Survey released a statement that “any scientist found to have falsified data in the manner of the [film] would be guilty of serious professional misconduct."
The film was so loopy that several of the individual scientists featured in the “documentary” released their own statements to show how their interviews were used out of context to support the flat-Earth view that climate change was not real.
Dr. Carl Wunsch, a professor of Oceanography at MIT released a statement that read in part:
“I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component… Many of us [in the scientific community] feel an obligation to talk to the media---it's part of our role as scientists, citizens, and educators… Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of "polemics". There is nothing in the communication we had …that suggested they were making a film that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face value---clearly a great error.”
Submitted by Mitchell Anderson on Tue, 2009-11-17 12:26
One of my favorite Air America shows is Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy and Mike Papantonio, so it was very cool when they had DeSmog co-founder Jim Hoggan on to talk about his new book Climate Cover-Up this weekend.
Enjoy:
Part 2:
Submitted by Kevin Grandia on Tue, 2009-11-17 09:17
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The good news is that solutions to global warming exist, check out Ross Gelbspan’s Green Sheet and his vision for a pathway to climate peace. Or, check out the latest below: