Oil Companies Funding Friends of Science, Tim Ball takes the brunt
Tags: barry cooper, calgary foundation, Friends of Science, General, jim hoggan, Skeptic Generated News, Smogger, tim ball
A Globe and Mail feature article by Charles Montgomery today has delivered what should be a death blow for the climate change denial and anti-Kyoto attack group, the Friends of Science.
The G&M says that FOS has taken undisclosed sums from Alberta oil and gas interests. The money was funneled through the Calgary Foundation, to the University of Calgary and on to the FOS though something called the “Science Education Fund.”
All this appears to be orchestrated by Stephen Harper’s long-time political confidante and fishing buddy, U. Calgary Prof Dr. Barry Cooper. It seems the FOS has taken a page right out of the US climate change attack group’s playbook: funnel money through foundations and third party groups to “wipe the oil” off the dollars they receive.
This comes as no surprise considering the FOS has been linked to some of the most notorious oil money-backed scientists in the US, including Drs. S. Fred Singer, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood Idso, Willie Soon, Robert C. Balling and Pat Michaels.
The G&M says that FOS has taken undisclosed sums from Alberta oil and gas interests. The money was funneled through the Calgary Foundation, to the University of Calgary and on to the FOS though something called the “Science Education Fund.”
All this appears to be orchestrated by Stephen Harper’s long-time political confidante and fishing buddy, U. Calgary Prof Dr. Barry Cooper. It seems the FOS has taken a page right out of the US climate change attack group’s playbook: funnel money through foundations and third party groups to “wipe the oil” off the dollars they receive.
This comes as no surprise considering the FOS has been linked to some of the most notorious oil money-backed scientists in the US, including Drs. S. Fred Singer, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood Idso, Willie Soon, Robert C. Balling and Pat Michaels.
will this get out??
Was just wondering whether this article is old or recent news? It seems to me that this information needs to get to the public and I have yet to see anything about it anywhere. Its quite shocking, controversial, and demonstrates the amount of corruption that is going with the oil industry. It frustrating, especially living in Calgary, that this information is virtually unknown to others. All I can do is forward the website to people I know and promote it on other sites I blog and others to which I contribute editorials. I can only imagine the frustration you guys are going through. Let me know if there's anything I can do.
Cheers. Kelly Zak
Get the word out.
Kelly, this is old news in that it has been going on for a long time now, but I agree it will be news to a lot of people. Here at DeSmog we will just keep spreading the word every which way we can. By keeping on top of these "skeptics" we are confident that we will win the day.
As far as help, please keep reading our blog and sending the information out to anyone and everyone and if you have any tips or leads on these guys, please send them to us and we will track them down.
- Kevin
Smeer Campaign
Kevin Rouge Pierre, your smeer campaign may (will) be cut short by the science facts running over your weak man-made global warming propoganda.. and then your smeer campaign will be shown as monkey-business - as you're clearly too dumb to work that out before!!
Hoggan - Suzuki - Oil - Truth
Mr Hoggan,
You're on the David Suzuki Foundation. In a recent interview Suzuki insinuates as you do that scientists who disagree climate change theory are are "shilling" for big corporations.
The interviewer then asked him where he got his funding. Suzuki replied that his Foundation, which you're on, takes no money from governments and he complained that “corporations have not been interested in funding us."
The David Suzuki Foundation’s annual report for 2005-06 lists at least 52 corporate donors including: Bell Canada, Toyota, IBM, Microsoft, Warner Brothers, RBC, Canon and Bank of Montreal.
The David Suzuki Foundation also received donations from EnCana Corporation, a leading natural gas producer and oil sands development, ATCO Gas, Alberta’s principle distributor of natural gas, and a number of pension funds including the OPG (Ontario Power Generation) Employees’ and Pensioners’ Charity Trust. OPG is one of the largest suppliers of electricity in the world operating 5 fossil fuel-burning generation plants and 3 nuclear plants.
It begs the question is Suzuki a lying when he says he can't get corporate funding?
And it begs the question is he a bit two-faced about scientists corporate funding when he gets so much from energy/oil companies?
And another for you Mr Hoggan. Are you oil smeered?
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The G&M story
The G&M story can be found on the author's website:
http://www.charlesmontgomery.ca/mrcool.html
Thanks....
Good find, thanks Stephen.
Globe & Mail article
Wow, what an article. I always knew that this thing ran deep, but until today, I had no idea. The sky's the limit now how far this goes. Right to the top I bet. Accountable government my ass.
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um......... link to article?
Gotta link to the article?
I opened up the html source of this page and cntrl-f'd "globeandmail".
No hits.
Article not on the G&M's online edition
For some reason (maybe FOS are threatening to sue) the article is not on or has been removed from, the Gobe and Mail's online edition.
Ian Forrester
We can't find it either ...
... but we'll try to get to Montgomery or the Globe and post a version as soon as possible.
A nice article.Thanks you for
Friends of Science Funding
Ooooo. Ahhhhhh. The dreaded "undisclosed sums" strikes again. Hmmm. I'm going to assume these "undisclosed sums" are about....oh........$5. Therefore, insignificant. And besides that, why is the biggest, perhaps ONLY rebuttal the AGW alarmists can throw at scientists who don't "drink their KoolAid" is that they've gotten money from oil and gas??? This is really, really tiresome. I got interested in this subject mostly because of the facist manner in which skeptics are being treated. In my lifetime (52 years) I've never seen science treated this way. So, I concluded, there must be pretty powerful politics behind the need for AGW alarmists to quiet their skeptics. Sure enough. Their "science" is based on incomplete simulation models carrying 300-400% error. Paper thin.
This must be stopped.
What about Desmogblog funder?
Yes, you accuse scientists of of being paid by the oil industry. You see the straw in other people's eye but can't see the beam in your eye.
Go here: http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article.cfm?contentID=163594 and see what your patron and alma mater John D. Lefevbre has been doing these years:
"SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, ss.:
Maryann Goldman, being duly sworn, deposes and says that she is a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and charges as follows:
COUNT ONE
Mann's hockey stick
Position
Your site found in Google: http://google.com/search?q=vqz
The average amount of net
The average amount of net wealth has been dropping since the economy took a downturn, but at the same turn less people are turning to personal loans. The idea now is to save, which is not exactly a bad idea. The savings rate is up, and building up a stockpile of cash is a good way to boost your assets. Cash after all, is cash, or in finance terms, “liquid assets,” though it hardly resembles a liquid.(Anthropologists have often pointed out that money functions similarly to magic in other cultures.) Whatever you do to boost your net wealth, don’t give it to Bernard Madoff.
The David Suzuki Foundation
The David Suzuki Foundation also received donations from EnCana Corporation, a world leader in natural gas production and oil sands development, ATCO Gas, Alberta's principle distributor of natural gas, and a number of pension funds including the OPG (Ontario Power Generation) Employees' and Pensioners ' Charity Trust. OPG is one of the largest suppliers of electricity in the world operating 5 fossil fuel-burning generation plants and 3 nuclear plants.
Mr. Hoggan serves as chair of the David Suzuki Foundation.
If it is wrong for FOS it should be wrong for the DSF.
So What?
With all the attacks on oil companies;
If you were in charge of an oil company, would you not donate some money to help guys that are proving with their genuine scientific work that climate changes are not man-made?
Would that mean that from then on they would be working for you?
The World National Oil Companies Congress
The World National Oil Companies Congress is like no other oil event. The Congress puts you personally in touch with these decision makers – you’ll understand their business needs first hand, and be able to demonstrate the value of your solutions. Packed with peer-to-peer interaction, this is a highly effective environment to generate new business from the opportunities and challenges of the oil market. payday loan
wow thats great....The G&M
wow thats great....The G&M says that FOS has taken undisclosed sums from Alberta oil and gas interests. The money was funneled through the Calgary Foundation, to the University of Calgary and on to the FOS though something called the “Science Education Fund.” quick weight lose
Pension Funds
Suzuki Foundation received pension funds?
No wonder what's left after the Champagne Charlies take their commission and what's left gets cot up to greeny extremists like Suzuki there's sod all left to give people a decent pension. It's a scandal!
What 'purpose' did OPG (Ontario Power Generation) Employees' and Pensioners ' Charity Trustcare give peoples retirement monies to Suzuki for?
Five public pension funds are
Five public pension funds are seeking lead status in a class-action suit against Bank of America Corp., alleging that the nation's largest bank by assets made "untrue statements" in the run-up to its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. and did not disclose material information to shareholders. cash advance loans payday loan online loans
Mann's Hockey Stick
Mann's Hockey Stick graph is a farce. It's not just Tim Ball that has been critical of cruddy science behind this famous IPCC temperature graph. In fact the IPCC have now removed it from their 2007 Report too as it's been shown to be so flawed.
Sure the hockey stick may be
Sure the hockey stick may be flawed.
In addition to the the Mountain Pine Beetle computer models being too conservative, IPCC computer models released last year are too conservative with regards to soot: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jObvKCK9ZDHzMqfZ9wnE73NBwq5g
Yet the scientific community isn't loudly denouncing naysayers about how these flawed computer models discredit oil/coal lobbyist and neoconservative arguments. This is because the science has already done so. The only problem is, leaders of Canada and the USA adhere to flawed rhetoric and are taking actions to make the world of the future a more dangerous (uncontrolled migration flows unmatched in human history) and much poorer place.
It seems clear the world's scientific, foreign aid, environment, etc., communities should spent the next few months focussing upon distributing clean burning stoves to the developing world. Soot is recycled from the atmosphere within weeks, whereas CO2 takes centuries to dissipate. 60% of soot comes from dung and wood stoves. Clean burning stoves would also have the ancillary benefit of increasing longevity in the developing world. This is easy enough to accomplish and would have immediate effect: manufacture and ship clean burning stoves to Africa and Asia.
CO2 cycle
Phillip, I also believe the assumption "CO2 takes centuries to dissipate" is not accurate. I think the Glassman analysis I provide a link to states CO2 does not accumulate in the atmosphere as the IPCC also assumes but cycles, in approx 4 years or no longer than in the atmosphere.
The Carbon Cycle is a complex
The Carbon Cycle is a complex series of processes through which all of the carbon atoms in existence rotate. The same carbon atoms in your body today have been used in countless other molecules since time began. The wood burned just a few decades ago could have produced carbon dioxide which through photosynthesis became part of a plant. When you eat that plant, the same carbon from the wood which was burnt can become part of you. The carbon cycle is the great natural recycler of carbon atoms. Unfortunately, the extent of its importance is rarely stressed enough. Without the proper functioning of the carbon cycle, every aspect of life could be changed dramatically. faxless loan payday loans online payday cash advance
PLz provide the link. I'd
PLz provide the link. I'd like to read this for my own amusement. Usually these arguments aren't eloborate enough to include chemistry. I'll be disappointed if the un-peer-reviewed paper uses the argument that Earth is only 4000 years old.
Links, models and assumptions
The AGW argument depends upon computer modelling. The important thing in any modelling is to be clear about the assumptions and hence limitations one needs to place on claims derived from the model. Glassman, who knows a thing or two about modelling, documents "eight major modelling faults" here. I'd be interested to read either here or on Glassman's site a rebuttal to any/all of these.
There is no symmetry in the
There is no symmetry in the funding sources of desmogblog (I assume) and Fiends of Science. This is because the science of global warming is on the side of desmog and not the Orwellianly named Friends of Science.
Global Warming isn't a science based upon computer models. The models are used to estimate timelines of various effects of global warming for the purposes of future CO2e emission scenario planning, and for guessing needed infrastructure investments.
Global warming is based upon some relatively simple chemistry, known for over 100 years (ie. before computer models): Energy from the Sun (light) passes through a GHG molecule more easily on the way to Earth than on the way from earth (as infrared). It was sometime in the late 70's or early 80's that scientists became aware of just how strong this effect is in the upper atmosphere; became aware of a multiplier effect.
Jb, whatever you've been studying for 52 years, it isn't science. Strangely, you claim global warming proponents have dissed science more than the asbestos and smoking proponents have? Are you aware S.Harper's oil industry buddies use the exact same marketing and legal actors as you beloved global warming deniers?! Big oil has teamed with neocons (proponents of flat tax rates) to implement the first parts of civilization detroying strategy that is far more effective than anything Al-Qaeda has accomplished (tricking the US into recession and causing military overspending) to date. If I were the Republicans, I would nationalize Exxon and the whole coal industry, and give it to Al Qaeda.
Ali Tree Huggan
Phillip Huggan, you overstate and overestimate the ability of IPCC computer game scenarios. Most experts outside of the IPCC think they're computers are fatally flawed and couldn't estimate the weather next weekend let alone to 2050!
Dr Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics estimated to generate a full model of the climate system covering all spatial scales, and then use it to run a 50 year projection into the future, would take more than 10 to the power of 34 years of supercomputer time. This timescale is 10 to the power 24 times longer than the current age of the universe, which itself is about 10 billion years.
So one can only imagine the short-cuts and approximations, not to mention complete omissions, needed to get a 100 year 'storyline' out in time for an IPCC report deadline. Back we go to Hartwig Volz, geophysicist with the RWE Research Lab in Germany, and his remark that the IPCC's output might be more aptly termed 'fairytales'.
Remember, Harvard climatologist Dr Sallie Baliunas has advised that current computer models of the climate are not reliable as tools for explaining past climate or making projections for future trends. IPCC reports don't speak of predictions and have moved from words like 'projection' to 'storyline' simply because they could be in trouble otherwise.
I wish I knew more about
I wish I knew more about computer climate simulations; specifically, the timeline to when better ones will be achieived. I wouldn't suspect many physical phenomena could be modelled to Planck Scales of physical detail. But for instance, IPCC 2006 (or is it Stern Report 2007?) says the newest models are successfully predicting events like El Nino. I suspect a more critical line of attack to discredit computer simulations is to recognize garbage in = garbage out. Data points from the permafrost and deep ocean are lacking as are many others.
This doesn't discredit the economic aspects of global warming, just the risk coupon. For instance, suppose your doctor tells you your life expectancy will be reduced if you keep smoking cigarettes? He then mentions your DNA sequence predisposes you to die of emphysema in around 12 years, but it is more likely you'll die of lung cancer in 8 years. He then mentions there is a very small chance the higher blood pressure will actually prevent a heart attack and cause you to live 20 more years to your natural non-smoking life expectancy.
In this analogy, the coal/oil lobbyists and Neoconservatives are suggesting since we don't know if it is cancer or emphysema, and there is a small chance smaoking helps, we should keep smoking away. In reality, the computer model deficiencies only suggest we should discount at least the effects of emphysema.
Er, for this analogy to hold, it is assumed we can't stop smoking and the alternative is a greener product.
The science of global warming is founded on some basic chemistry (the principle of a one way mirror), and some not so basic atmospheric physics/chemistry (whatever causes the mirror effect to multiply in the atmosphere) I'm sure many scientists understand quite well. The models would probably have to get the spatial resolutions down to the scale of small clouds and ocean whirlpools to be really accurate (not Planck lengths).
Multi-century High-resolution Climate Simulations Created Using
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Computer Models
Phillip Huggan,
I don't know if Dr Willie Soon of Harvard-Smithsonian has calculated in Moores Law on computers doubling incapacity every 18 months but without a shadow of doubt his calculations demonstrate the severe short comings with trusting computer models currently.
Factor in further uncertainties over precisely which of the many forcings are driving temperature and by how much (as climate science is still unresolved) and it would actually be safer to not even attempt to try computer modelling. If one does attempt modelling climate it should be a University Project, not part of the UN's IPCC reports which brings the body into highly speculative ground and very justifiable criticism from scientists around the world.
Finally modelling CO2 as a temperature driver which appears to be the only 'thing' the IPCC have on CO2 actually driving temperature is just as speculative as fuller climate models. I've read various studies that show the IPCC CO2 forcings are too high. That CO2 as a forcing may have an upper limit to how much heat it can trap/retain. And further studies that CO2 may not be a warmer but actually a cooler outside of the laboratory in the big wide world of Earths atmosphere.
Further the full CO2 cycle and understanding of sinks and solubility are not properly modelled by the IPCC. Take all these variables together and you have a CO2 computer model that has as much chance of predicting the winner of 47 horses at the Grand National than what's happening with CO2 in Earths atmosphere.
You say 'the science of global warming is founded on some basic chemistry'. I would agree. But we don't know for sure yet what creates warming or cooling periods!
And nobody at the IPCC can predict the weather next month so predicting warming to 2050 is just bringing science into disrepute as such attempts to predict 40 years ahead is considerably more suited to the realm of science fiction and Isaac Asimov. It's a thankless task, an impossible task to undertake quite frankly!
There's no credability in this until far more of the science of climate is understood.
JB, IPCC says increasing
JB, IPCC says increasing concentrations of CO2 exacerbate the warming effect, please provide links to the papers that suggest CO2's forcing potential decreases as CO2 atmospheric levels rise. Please provide links to the papers (even one) that suggests CO2 outside of the laboratory (whatever that means) doesn't have the same effect it does inside the laboratory; not sure what the reference is here.
The models are imperfect. It wouldn't make sense to make computer modelling a University project. For instance, about one tenth of the world's best supercomputers are devoted to climate modelling. Even MIT would need assistance from an IBM as the University computer sciences research departments are not that well capitalized.
Modelling imperfections affect the timeline of certain events. The IPCC isn't attempting to measure chaotic weather in 2050. It is attempting to measure whether the world of 2050 will be 1.5C or 5C warmer. These imperfections in modelling (as I've said, the main problem is incomplete data points; glad the Soot Satellite Glory wasn't turfed by Bush given new soot findings) affect whether the world of 2050 will require new crop genetic engineering, investment in dykes for 60% of the world's large cities, massive refugee flows, massive investments in desalinations, etc., for a 1.5C rise; or we will rise 5C and see capitalism, global trade, post-WWII stability and longevity gains, all cease.
Whether you like it or not, the models and especially the science is known well enough to know that if industrial actors: pay the price of their carbon emissions, fund green LEED building retrofits and new construction projects so insulation and geothermal heating are present, promote electric cars, set up low-soot stove ($15 each) manufacturing centres in the 3rd world, phase out coal, phase out the incadescent light bulb, impose aluminum can levies, etc.; it is far more likely warming will only peak at 1.5C than 5C. The model imperfections you describe are factored and known variables discounted by the modellers themselves and transparently laid out in IPCC reports. The shrinking winter ice cap of the arctic and the inevitable way in which Greenland's glacier is sliding into the North Atlantic are two novel effects that weren't previously included in IPCC 2006 and both suggest the models were two timid.
"(JohnnyB wrote:) Finally modelling CO2 as a temperature driver which appears to be the only 'thing' the IPCC have on CO2 actually driving temperature is just as speculative as fuller climate models"
What does this statement even mean? The sad thing is, is that in Canada and the USA, federal government officials including S.Harper, GWB, and Jim Flaherty all subscribe to JohnnyB's position. All offer oil tax breaks. All plan public carbon sequestration (a science that won't be achieved in time to halt warming at 2C and if succesful, will likely only work for certain geologies) funding that their recordly profitable big oil brethren could afford themselves. Neither plan cap-and-trade or a carbon tax. J.Flaherty is attacking Dalton McGuinty about his tax rates. I wonder what Dalton thinks about Flaherty's corporate tax breaks (though they are in the Liberal platform too) to big oil? How does not meeting Kyoto affect the long-term competitiveness of Canadian companies? Why did the Conservatives lie about the cost to the Canadian economy of meeting Kyoto?
JohnnyB, how do computer modelling uncertainties have any bearing whatsoever on the science of climate change? If you accept the climate will warm 1.5C to 5C (ie. the IPCC is already factoring in physical environment uncertainties, and their modelled ilk) if current CO2e emission trends continue (do you challenge this), it is a question of ecoonmics. Future famines and freshwater shortages alone suggest meeting Kyoto is about 100X cheaper in the long-run (and I do believe even Neoconservatives have children).
This argument boils down to two different worldviews on this continent: Conservatives and Republicans believe it is okay to be rich at every cost, all other parties on this issue believe you must make the world a better place to be rich. Unchecked climate change will obliterate capitalism just as neocapitalism is obliterating Earth's climate.
CO2 is not a factor in global warming
Philip,
The IPCC as you say have gone from CO2 driving temperature to "exacerbate" the warming effect. The warming is false and the "exacerbate" effect is false too. The 420,000 year ice core records demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt CO2 does not drive temperature, it is a lag, an effect of global increase 400 to 1,400 years AFTER the Earth has warmed.
CO2 levels are an 'effect' not a 'cause'. Further the IPCC 'climb down' position is also demonstarbly false from the Vostok ice core record. It shows that after the Earth warming peaks and starts to cool, CO2 gets to its peak (caused by warm events temperature on the oceans) 400-1400yrs after and does not hold or keep up temperature. Namely CO2 does NOT stop the Earth from cooling despite reaching peaks of over 300ppm.
If CO2 had ever driven temperature the 5 previous warming events followed by 5 coolings (ice ages) would not have happened. Instead CO2 would have led to a calamatous warming of Earth increasing in temperature, CO2 levels rising leading to higher temperature then higher CO2 etc etc.
You ask what I mean by "modelling CO2 as a temperature driver which appears to be the only 'thing' the IPCC have on CO2" is simple to explain. The IPCC put in CO2 as a forcing, as a temperature driver. They predict going from 380ppm to 500ppm will drive temperature from 1.5C to 5C. This is false modelling on 2 grounds.
1. CO2 levels do not drive temperature
2. Temperature drives CO2 levels
CO2 is not a forcing. What drives Earths temperature is the sun, cosmic ray flux, solar cycles and Earths orbit and tilt around the sun - a combination.
Further higher CO2 levels are a result/effect of temperature change as defined by simple chemistry - the solubility of CO2 in fluid (the oceans to be precise) called 'the solubility pump'.
Yes I do also challange the IPCC predictions on rising CO2 levels. Because the above science obliterates all the IPCC computer models and all their predictions of higher temperatures based on a fatally flawed CO2 modelling. We have seen the past 10yrs temp. been flat. Even the IPCC this month has had to climb down and admit it.
It further undermines their attaching CO2 to temp. because CO2 is at its highest for about 15-20,000 years and should be driving temperature today as we speek. It isn't. It hasn't for 10yrs.
Further current high CO2 levels are NOT the result of man. They are the result of the Earth warming for the past 800yrs since the mini-ice age (remember that 400-1400yr lag). It takes CO2 approx 1,000yrs to be absorbed in the ocean up near the polar regions and circulate and be released in the tropic warmer oceans.
Todays CO2 levels are a result of warming 400+ years ago, not of mans tiny output.
Your predictions about Earths economy and welfare are rubbish I'm afraid because they're based on CO2. Man curbing CO2 will have no effect on climate because CO2 does not effect climate. The factors that drive temperature change cannot be altered by man and therefore CO2 levels are not required, and cannot, be altered by man.
CO 2 is good
Yeah smoking's good for you too!