[Vision2020] Dissenter on Warming Expands His Campaign

[Joe Campbell]

Donovan,

I'd say it matters a lot. It matters that people have irrational  
beliefs yet want to dictate policy. How can that not matter?

Joe Campbell

On Apr 15, 2009, at 7:59 AM, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com 
 > wrote:

> Ted,
>
> It doesn't matter what the science says, because people are going to  
> believe what they want to believe.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Donovan
>
> --- On Tue, 4/14/09, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Dissenter on Warming Expands His Campaign
> To: "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 11:37 AM
>
> I agree that the lifestyle of many who are environmentally focused  
> is hypocritical.
> However, the topic of my post is misrepresentation and distortion of  
> information in science related public propaganda campaigns on  
> climate change.  Any campaign that engages in these tactics should  
> be viewed with skepticism.
>
> I find it surprising that these tactics are employed when this can  
> damage the credibility of the campaign.  I suppose it is assumed  
> most in the public won't read the fine print, nor will they research  
> the science.
>
> Ted Moffett
>
> On 4/13/09, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This isn't any more ridiculous than people in the US claiming they  
> are "environmentalists" or they care about the environment.
>
> Anyone that lives in the Western Civilization is contributing to the  
> gross over consumption of resources and pollution of the  
> environment. Anyone that drives a car, or lives in a modern US house  
> of apartment, shops at the local grocery store, is doing far more to  
> destroy the Earth than the recycling of all the soda cans and  
> cardboard they use.
>
> It is laughable to see SUVs with "Earth Day" or "Don't Pave  
> Paradise" bumper stickers. It is laughable to see two story houses  
> with all the lights on inside the house, three automobiles in the  
> driveway, three or four children, and an owner that claims to care  
> about our planet.
>
> Unless you move away from civilization, live in a hut made out of  
> manure, and eat the bare minimum to sustain yourself, like 70% of  
> the world, you are a hypocrite in saying you care about the Earth  
> and your impact on it, and look more absurd than a guy claiming the  
> global warming isn't real and the automobiles don't pollute.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Donovan
>
> --- On Mon, 4/13/09, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Vision2020] Dissenter on Warming Expands His Campaign
> To: "vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Monday, April 13, 2009, 12:00 PM
>
>
> Why do those who organize coordinated well funded campaigns that  
> claim to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is  
> exaggerated as a threat, or an outright hoax, engage in  
> misrepresentation and what I would call "fraud?"  Wouldn't their  
> campaigns be more believable if they vetted their lists of  
> references to PhD. scientists who genuinely doubt the science behind  
> anthropogenic warming?  Of course, if they restricted their  
> references to PhD. climate scientists currently publishing in  
> legitimate peer reviewed scientific journals, their list would be  
> shorter.  But nonetheless, if you claim a long list of PhD.s doubts  
> global warming is human caused, many in the public will find this  
> credible, even if many of the scientists quoted are not specialists  
> in climate science currently publishing in this field.
>
> Just as with the campaign to shed doubt on the theory of evolution,  
> and promote creationism or intelligent design, with the lists of  
> 100s of scientists who sign their names to this effort, you can find  
> hundreds of PhD. scientists who will sign their names to lists that  
> suggest that the science behind anthropogenic warming is doubtful.
>
> But to create a list of over 700 "scientists" who supposedly doubt  
> human impacts on climate, as Marc Moreno has done and is discussed  
> in the article below, and misrepresent by claiming someone is a  
> meteorologist, when they are not, or including a scientist in the  
> report who does not dispute anthropogenic warming, who later demands  
> his inclusion in Moreno's effort be retracted, undermines the  
> credibility of these campaigns.
>
> Ted Moffett
> -----------------
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/us/politics/10morano.html?_r=1&hpw
>
> Dissenter on Warming Expands His Campaign
>
> By LESLIE KAUFMAN
> Published: April 9, 2009
> WASHINGTON — Marc Morano does not think global warming is anything t 
> o worry about, and he brags about his confrontations with those who  
> do.
> For example, Mr. Morano said he once spotted former Vice President  
> Al Gore on an airplane returning from a climate conference in Bali.  
> Mr. Gore was posing for photos with well-wishers, and Mr. Morano  
> said he had asked if he, too, could have his picture taken with Mr.  
> Gore.
> He refused, Mr. Morano said.
> “You attack me all the time,” Mr. Gore said, according to Mr.  
> Morano.
> “Yes, we do,” Mr. Morano said he had replied.
> Mr. Gore’s office said Mr. Gore had no memory of the encounter. Mr.  
> Morano does not care. He tells the story anyway.
> As a spokesman for Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking  
> Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Mr. Morano  
> was for years a ceaseless purveyor of the dissenting view on climate  
> change, sending out a blizzard of e-mail to journalists covering the  
> issue. Now, with Congress debating legislation to curb carbon  
> dioxide emissions, Mr. Morano is hoping to have an even greater  
> impact. He has left his job with Mr. Inhofe to start his own Web  
> site, ClimateDepot.com.
> The site, scheduled to debut this week, will be a “one-stop shop”  
> for anyone following climate change, Mr. Morano says. He will post r 
> esearch he thinks the public should see, as well as reported video s 
> egments and ratings of environmental journalists.
> Supporters see Mr. Morano as a crucial organizing force who has  
> taken diffuse pieces of scientific research and fused them into a  
> political battering ram.
> “Before Marc, efforts to debunk global warming were scattered and di 
> sorganized,” said John Coleman, a weather broadcaster who helped fou 
> nd the Weather Channel and who has called global warming “a scam.”
> And environmentalists and mainstream climate scientists, however  
> much they disagree with Mr. Morano’s views, still pay attention to w 
> hat he does.
> Kert Davies, the research director of Greenpeace, said he would like  
> to dismiss Mr. Morano as irrelevant, but could not.
> “He is relentless pushing out misinformation,” Mr. Davies said.  
> “In denying the urgency of the problem, he definitely slows things d 
> own on the regulatory front. Eventually, he will be held accountable 
> , but it may be too late.”
> In his work with Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Morano, whose thick build fills out  
> his suit like a bulldog in a restraining jacket, did not hesitate to  
> go after journalists he saw as biased. He promoted any study or  
> statement that could be construed as cutting against the prevailing  
> view that heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide contribute to  
> global warming. Peter Dykstra, a former executive producer for CNN’s 
>  science, environment and technology unit, recently called him the “ 
> drum major of the denial parade.”
> Mr. Morano may be best known for compiling a report listing hundreds  
> of scientists whose work he says undermines the consensus on global  
> warming.
> But environmental advocates and bloggers say that many of those  
> listed as scientists have no scientific credentials and that their  
> work persuaded no one not already ideologically committed.
> Mr. Morano’s new Web site is being financed by the Committee for a C 
> onstructive Tomorrow, a nonprofit in Washington that advocates for f 
> ree-market solutions to environmental issues.
> Craig Rucker, a co-founder of the organization, said the committee  
> got about a third of its money from other foundations. But Mr.  
> Rucker would not identify them or say how much his foundation would  
> pay Mr. Morano. (Mr. Morano says it will be more than the $134,000  
> he earned annually in the Senate.)
> Public tax filings for 2003-7 — the last five years for which docume 
> nts are available — show that the Committee for a Constructive Tomor 
> row received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the ExxonMobil Fo 
> undation and from foundations associated with the billionaire Richar 
> d Mellon Scaife, a longtime financer of conservative causes best kno 
> wn for its efforts to have President Bill Clinton impeached. Mr. Ruc 
> ker said Exxon had not contributed anything last year.
> Mr. Morano grew up in a conservative household in Northern Virginia  
> with an affinity for nature and animals — his basement was home to a 
>  menagerie of reptiles, including a boa constrictor.
> “I used to tell people I was Republican except on the  
> environment,” he said.
> After college, Mr. Morano worked as a reporter for Rush Limbaugh,  
> where he said he had learned the satisfactions of poking at the “lib 
> eral establishment.” He made a documentary on the Amazon rain forest 
> , he said, because it annoyed him that celebrities like Sting could  
> dictate what people think about the issue. They vastly exaggerated t 
> he problem of deforestation, he concluded.
> He then jumped to Cyber News Service, where he was the first to  
> publish accusations from Vietnam Swift-boat veterans that Senator  
> John Kerry of Massachusetts, then the Democratic presidential  
> nominee, had glorified his war record. Many of the accusations later  
> proved unfounded.
> Mr. Morano is proud of his work, which he says is not advocacy but  
> truth seeking.
> “Even in the Senate, I’d put up any of the stories we did against  
> any pablum Time or Newsweek has put out on global warming,” he said. 
>  “We’d link to the other side; we’d present their arguments.  
> They do one-sided screeds.”
> In 2007, he points out, the Republican Web site of Mr. Inhofe’s comm 
> ittee won an award from the independent Congressional Management Fou 
> ndation.
> But some scientists and environmental advocates who have made it  
> their business to monitor Mr. Morano see his reports — the most rece 
> nt was titled “More than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over M 
> an-Made Global Warming Claims” — as far from balanced.
> Kevin Grandia, who manages Desmogblog.com, which describes itself as  
> dedicated to combating misinformation on climate change, says the  
> report is filled with so-called experts who are really weather  
> broadcasters and others without advanced degrees.
> Chris Allen, for example, the weather director for WBKO-TV in  
> Kentucky, is listed as a meteorologist on the report, even though he  
> has no degree in meteorology. On his Web site, Mr. Allen has written  
> that his major objection to the idea of human-influenced climate  
> change is that “it completely takes God out of the picture.” Mr.  
> Allen did not respond to phone calls.
> Mr. Grandia also said Mr. Morano’s report misrepresented the work of 
>  legitimate scientists. Mr. Grandia pointed to Steve Rayner, a profe 
> ssor at Oxford, who was mentioned for articles criticizing the Kyoto 
>  Protocol, the 1997 international treaty on curbing carbon dioxide e 
> missions.
> Dr. Rayner, however, in no way disputes the existence of global  
> warming or that human activity contributes to it, as the report  
> implies. In e-mail messages, he said that he had asked to be removed  
> from the Morano report and that a staff member in Mr. Inhofe’s offic 
> e had promised that he would be. He called his inclusion on the list 
>  “quite outrageous.”
> Asked about Dr. Rayner, Mr. Morano was unmoved. He said that he had  
> no record of Dr. Rayner’s asking to be removed from the list and tha 
> t the doctor must be “not to be remembering this clearly.”
> Many scientists, Mr. Morano said, are afraid that appearing on the  
> list will have political fallout.
> And political fallout, for him, is the point.
>
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