A BIG THANKS! Climate Cover Up sells out on Amazon and in Third Reprint
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.
Excellent!
I picked up 2 extra copies and sent one to a poster on a forum who was confused about the science. He e-mailed me to thank me and passed his along to a friend.
My 94 year old father got the 2nd, he got really PO'ed by what he read and has also passed his copy off to a friend.
Hopefully this will help open some eyes out there!
Great work guys!
confused or perhaps misled? wow.
Sorry for the dbl post, almost forgot.....
DeSmog is getting a lot of free press on a couple of discussions over at the CBC site on a couple of headline threads.
Seems a certain skeptic there has written you folks off as "6 figure" types only in it for the buck!!
Thought that might put a smile on your face..... ;-)
people do write books for money don't they - Call me crazy but I think money might fit into the equation somewhere
Kevin, links are below.
Doubt you need much warning on the "mire" you'll have to wade through. ;-)
Commenter was "Western Separatist" if memory serves and it was fairly recent.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/11/14/apec-summit.html#socialcomments
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2009/11/17/greenhouse-gases-prentice.html
Hope those work. If not and you need more info I believe you have my e-mail on file. Feel free.
Common for the good of the planet this book should be distributed free of charge to every Canadian home. No one should profit off of Climate no one! I guess their is a little Fred Singer in Desmog after all.
How many books have been sold in total?
Speaking of accusations people are writing books for money - only. Apart from the fact that nobody wants to work for free, citizens of Calgary, in their letters to the editor of the Calgary Herald, heavily criticize Al Gore for making lots of money with his climate change work: climate change industry - climate change billionaire - Gorites etc. Al Gore, who is not a scientist but just a high profile guy, is some kind of a vampire to many. Some comments are really nasty as if good old Al just did it for the money - and for nothing else. E.g. today:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/letters/Carbon+credit/2234857/story.html
And hence he has no credibility with these people (hey, sounds familiar, dear Friends of ...errr... Science). Does big Al really reap off huge profits into his own pocket or does he donate some of the proceeds?
And why does everybody in Alberta hate David Suzuki?
I am at a loss here as both Gore and Suzuki appear to be reasonable chaps. And when I finally watched the inconvenient truth, I found it was rather mellow and non-provocative.
Of course money isn't the only motivation people like Al have, but it's in the mix.
And ...I'm sure we all agree , that exxon isn't about oil. It's just about money.
Isn't it reasonable to say that "money corrupts" is pretty much a central theme of desmogblog?
Isn't it reasonable to assume that it corrupts both sides of the aisle?
Say you are holding a yard sale - you put up advertisements, people come, you sell them goods, you get money in exchange.
Corruption involves fraud or dishonesty in such transactions, right? If you are selling stolen goods at your yard sale, or goods you know to be contaminated with toxic residues, then you are corrupt.
If Al Gore is investing in wind and solar energy and also lobbying the government to switch to wind and solar energy, all because fossil fuels are warming the planet, destabilizing the climate, and threatening severe consequences related to drought, flooding, agriculture, civilization, etc., is that corruption?
Is there anything in this transaction that is fraudulent or based on lies? No - the planet really is warming, that's been conclusively demonstrated, and fossil fuels are the main culprit.
To claim that this is not true because you want to continue selling your goods, even though they are causing harm to one's community - well, that is corrupt.
So, it's not really money that leads to corruption - it's the fear of losing money to competition from renewable energy that has lead to corruption in government, ever since the 1970s. The examples are legion - the close ties between various U.S. politicians London oil futures traders, and Saudi oil princes, for example, which lead to the unfunding and downsizing of all renewable energy projects in the U.S. from 1980 onwards - neither the Saudi oil producers or their Wall Street allies wanted to see oil prices collapse due to renewable competition.
Consider the most promising fossil hydrocarbon fuel replacement - algae-based fuels (which is where petroleum came from originally, marine sediments full of algal carbon). It was set to take off in the late 1970s, and then the Reagan team defunded it. It made a brief comeback in the 1990s, but then the DOE canceled all algal fuel research in 1997, as the Bechtel-Battelle team took over management of the National Renewable Energy Lab - and no federal funding for university research was ever made available.
Now, you are seeing a brief restarting of algal fuel approaches at the DOE - but it's still very underfunded relative to coal-to-gasoline schemes, because the fossil fuel dealers don't like competition from renewables.
Al Gore, on the other hand, seems to be saying that he welcomes open fair competition - and he's right, because in that case solar and wind and photosynthetic fuels really do have major economic and ecological benefits, and he doesn't need to lie or manipulate data or buy off politicians in order to get that point across. If he's being honest, open and transparent - and if he also makes a lot of money by being an early investor in "Big Sun" - is he corrupt?
Yes, the Sun is big, isn't it? Unlike with oil and coal, no one can turn off the tap to artificially drive up prices, either - which is also corrupt behavior on the part of fossil fuel interests.
If your love of money leads you to lie and deceive others, then money is a corrupting influence on you. However, the purpose of money is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services - and if you are creating goods like solar panels, and are ensuring that the product is high-quality and long-lasting, and are not running a full-scale propaganda program to deceive the public about global warming and environmental pollution, then you've avoided the corruption trap.
The same cannot be said for the fossil fuel industry and their partners in the federal government - the Minerals Management Service, for example, and their penchant for cocaine, prostitution and shady corporate deals for Chukchi sea oil leases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html
"Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department."
"In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes. "A culture of ethical failure" pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo."
Now, that's what corruption looks like, RickJames. It's become endemic in the fossil fuel industry, as the need to lie, cheat and steal in order to protect profits becomes ever greater...
Excellent comment.
Good comment.
I think everyone would like to see renewables take over from fossil fuels.
However the demonizing of that industry seems strange to me. Fossil fuels have been easy energy and paved the way for the modern farming that has saved billions from the sure starvation foretold in "The Population Bomb"
It's also created the prosperous life most of us enjoy today. We have time to sit around and write blog comments if we want. We have soft chairs and nice cars and exotic vacations and it all relates to cheap energy found in the ground.
So now science says we're putting out too much CO2 - we're burning too much cheap energy and we need a new plan. Okay - but don't forget that even the project of turning to renewables is being run entirely on the riches of fossil fuel energy.
Windmill factories, solar panel factories, renewable component shipping, flights to climate conferences and everything else runs on the cheap energy from the ground.
I'd like to see a practical demo of a windmill factory where all the energy inputs are from renewables - from the copper mining to the truck that delivers the finished product. It doesn't work like that. Not now. When you look at a windmill or a solar panel - you are looking at the results of cheap energy from the ground.
So I hope we continue to enjoy this cushy life on the way to renewables of the future - but please don't forget how we got here.
Interesting - are the major book chains stocking it? Barnes & Nobles and Borders? I've noticed that those chains are prominently displaying "Superfreakanomics..."
For your next book, a good title might be "Energy Cover-Up: The Crusade to Stop Renewable Energy and Save Big Coal & Oil" :)
Rather than denial, this latter strategy is built around deception - for example, claiming that coal can be burned for energy without leading to atmospheric CO2 increases, or that the same can be done with Alberta tar sands syncrude, or that cap-and-trade will somehow solve the problem.
I could accept your comment at face value if the book was about scientific studies involving climate change. Desmog is comprised of PR men and lawyers funded by big enviro. The purpose is to throw mud at anyone who releases new information regarding the validity of climate change by questioning their motives visa vie where they get their funding.
Desmog has just shown itself to be no better than and in fact worse than many of the Skeptics they criticise. I guarantee you that these book sales will far outweigh any financial gain the vast majority of scientists who accepted a grant from so called "Big Oil".
What kind of vested interest does Desog have in keeping Global warming going? Huge, their getting rich off of books sales. How can they objectively criticise others for receiving money for research when they are paid specifically to cast doubt on someone else's character.
Mr. Hansen from nasa could come out tommorow and announce that new research indicates global warming is not occuring and is not linked at all to man. You can bet that Desmog would be on him the next day argueing collusion with "Big Oil" and attacking the very credibility they spent years building up. The message is clear, we are not interested in the truth and promoting good science, we're in it for the bucks and we come at things with a clear vested interest other than the truth.
Unless the book sales are being donated to some charitable cause to stop climate change whatever credibility their was in desmog is gone. You can't be the pot calling the kettle black and expect the public to take you seriously.
LOL, good luck fighting the PR battle over money now.
What a dishonest tirade. Shame on you.
wow
vis a vis?
What you are saying: everybody is part of some self-interest group and hence does not have to be - and will not be - honest. Aha!
Hey, all you smearing free radicals, heres what the National Post once again has to say (while my copy of the book arrived in the mail today):
The full weight of the radical environmental movement and its media arm, the CBC, is being brought down upon a small Calgary-based organization called Friends of Science, which has suggested that climate change should be the subject of debate. So it must be a front for "Big Oil."
Friends has dared to produce a couple of radio ads that note that there has been no warming for 10 years, suggesting that the main cause of climate change is the sun, and recommending that it's "time to get the facts and start thinking."
Leading the charge against Friends is James Hoggan, a PR man who is also chairman of the David Suzuki Foundation. Mr. Hoggan has just co-authored a book called Climate Cover-Up, which suggests a massive industry-based programme of climate disinformation.
Mr. Hoggan, who is also responsible for a website that specializes in smearing climate skeptics, drew a bead on Friends during an interview yesterday morning with Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC's The Current (there was also to be a segment on the Friends' ad campaign on As It Happens last night). The Globe and Mail also took a drive-by swipe at Friends this week.
Mr. Hoggan's broad claim is that there are hardly any credentialled skeptics, and those that do exist speak only as industry shills or right-wing mouthpieces. He notes that there isn't much skepticism in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature.
However, the debate is lopsided -- or non-existent -- not because of the state of knowledge but because
governments have poured billions into making the anthropogenic case and squashing opposition to "official" science, while skepticism has been effectively barred from peer-reviewed journals, which have taken an anti-corporate, quasi-religious stance.
An editorial in Nature in 2001 attacked "certain industrial groups," who "worked to establish a bogus scientific debate..." But the editorial confirmed massive bias and sent the signal that skeptical scientists need not submit papers for publication. Thereupon the dearth of published skepticism was interpreted as meaning that the case was closed.
Friends of Science was formed by a group of mainly retired geologists and atmospheric scientists who were highly suspicious of the claims made by Al Gore and the UN that man-made climate change was a catastrophic threat. They put together a volunteer scientific advisor board and set up a website to promote research and ask questions about the distinctly non-scientific claim that "the science is settled."
That would be a laudable objective even if funded by Shell and BP.
Unfortunately, however, Shell and BP are busy funding alarmists rather than skeptics.
Friends was indeed given money several years ago by Jim Buckee, when he ran Talisman Energy, to produce a video. However, according to Doug Leahey, Friends' president and a Ph. D atmospheric scientist, it has had no corporate money for several years. Indeed, Mr. Leahey points out that the organization was almost forced to "fold its tent" at the end of last year. Much of its funding comes from Rotarians, some of whom have oil industry connections -- after all, it's based in Calgary. But the organization's operating budget is about $40,000, most of which goes to pay a part-time administrative assistant. That wouldn't cover the Suzuki Foundation's annual Starbucks' bill. So suggestions that Friends is a "front" for Big Oil is patently ridiculous. "We'd love Big Oil to give us some money," said Mr. Leahey.
Mr. Hoggan is part of a movement with infinitely more funding, but which assiduously avoids debate, preferring to rely on ad hominem slurs and emotionally-charged messages.
Ironically, on the CBC yesterday morning, Mr. Hoggan spoke of "astroturfing," that is, the creation of phony grass roots organizations. Maybe the U.S. coal industry does such things. But there could be no more glaring current example of a phony grass roots operation than something called "Moms Against Climate Change," a name that suggests a spontaneous outpouring of maternal concern by mothers about the global warming threat. In fact, it is an organization set up by two leading -- and well-funded -- environmental alarmist organizations, Environmental Defence and ForestEthics.
These groups have produced a video, available on YouTube, which features little kids holding handmade anti-climate change signs while facing off against -- and then fleeing from -- a phalanx of police clad in riot gear.
You can also find a making-of-the-video video which features Environmental Defence's chief alarmist, Rick Smith, with a prop/child on his shoulders, and various advertising types and filmmakers displaying their moral conviction and scientific cluelessness. One waxes earnestly that climate change is one of those "get to yes" issues. But science isn't about getting to "yes," it's about getting to the truth. One unfortunate truth is that corporations have been frightened away from even suggesting, let alone funding, scientific debate.
Three years ago, in the midst of shaking down catalogue companies for the eco-crime of using paper, ForestEthics executive director Todd Paglia told The Washington Post: "We are going to provide these companies with an option of doing it the easy way... If they want to do it the hard way, we can see a tremendous amount of negative press and damage to their brand."
The same thuggish principle has worked in spades when it comes to closing down corporate participation in the climate change debate. But the public is growing increasingly skeptical, and the shrill desperation of the warmists is obvious in their bully-boy tactics against anybody who dares to stand up for free speech.
"...while skepticism has been effectively barred from peer-reviewed journals, which have taken an anti-corporate, quasi-religious stance."
Amazing, how facts can be twisted when viewed through the eyes of religious, corporate people.
schorschi, you should not cut and paste a complete article from any newspaper; it is a violation of their copyright. Just use a link and quote a few sentences if you want.
VJ, you are probably right, but - who cares in this case.
We want to have higher standards than the denialists display; or the National Post, for that matter.
double post
higher standard then the denialists? you posted this (with proper sentence structure I might add) today? Maybe you didn't get the memo Veej. I'll work on my grammar if you work on your ability to deal with reality. peace, rich
I am surprised that anybody takes the National Post seriously - but maybe no one actually does. This article, like related others, is full of emotions of the most primitive kind. If you are not a climate "sceptic", you are automatically classified as "alarmist" "radical environmentalist" etc. Hmmmm, I cannot see anything radical about this blog and its stands.
But what really shoots down the National Post is their unwarranted critique on the CBC, essentially labelling them as radical. I sometimes wished the CBC would be a bit more radical - and Rex Murphy would stop talking about climate change.
In summary, for a national Canadian newspaper, the National Post appears rather provincial. Soon, so I hope, it will have disappeared.
"climate cover-up" is a fantastic title. i hadn't realized jim had access to the CRU e-mails....IF THIS NEWS IS TRUE, the ramifications for this are endless.