Google's lobbyists go big on climate change denial, raise money for Inhofe & Competitive Enterprise Insitute

boing
#19

You asked: “Can somebody provide a narrative on how these weird fellows ended up in bed together?”

Literally indeed, I can help explain: I dated an intellectual property lawyer for seventeen years who also has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia and came to terms to Global Warming claims after reading Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” debunking of junk science in novel format. She is now Google NYC’s senior AdWords attorney. When Greenpeace and friends run whole campaigns to slander skepticism, you don’t hear from insiders directly since there is a hundred million dollar a year slander machine still at work, now actively promoted and financed by governments too.

#20

I work for one of the organizations mentioned in the post, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Over the years, we’ve worked to stop SOPA and PIPA, fight the NSA’s warrantless surveillance programs, keep politicians from hampering the development of self-driving cars, and challenge the TSA’s virtual strip-search machines.

Regarding climate change, I’m no expert on the issue – but what I’ve read indicates the climate is indeed changing due to human activity, and this change is likely to adversely impact many people. However, my colleagues argue that many of the policies proposed to combat climate change would hurt low-income families in the developed and developing worlds without generating commensurate benefits with respect to the mitigation of carbon emissions. China and India have huge populations who pine for a lifestyle based on affordable energy; the world will ultimately have to cope with, and adapt to, a warmer planet – no matter what the U.S. government does about the climate.

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#21

Where do I stop and go ‘at this point i will stop using their services’? Because this development angers me.

Instead of Google drive, etc. there’s bittorrent sync, etc. - There’s duckduckgo, etc. for search

I’ll admit it can be difficult to switch from Google’s search, it’s still more advanced with better results (in some cases) than duckduckgo, etc. - they also have a fairly good news aggregator except it’s infested with too many Fox “news” articles, etc.

But if you really want to thwart Google’s attacks on the American public, donate some money to organizations that are fighting to keep them in check:

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#22

You guys are now the stodgy but ego threatened establishment and us self-organized skeptics are the rebellious hippies. It’s not just NASA’s press office hitting your with the equivalent of crazy Drug War propaganda or a metabolically disastrous processed carbohydrate Food Pyramid, but also the SWAT team ready National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I hope you guys still have the spirit to appreciate my heartfelt rainbow quote by Tim Leary before you further steam at the collar instead of actually visit a few skeptic sites, namely the ones that just won most of the top science blog awards.

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#23

I work for one of the organizations mentioned in the post, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). … Regarding climate change, I’m no expert on the issue – but what I’ve read indicates the climate is indeed changing due to human activity, and this change is likely to adversely impact many people.

Your CEI libertarian, bullshit “think tank” is an industry-sponsored, anti-science, anthropogenic climate change and impact denier that promotes that we should all sit on our hands and do little or nothing about climate change.

Why should we listen to a word you have to say when you are blatantly rejecting 97% of the world’s climate scientists? We might as well contact Honey Boo Boo and see what she thinks about it.

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#24

“We might as well contact Honey Boo Boo and see what she thinks about it.”

What do the Ivy League quality scientists who actually visited the Moon think about your NASA link that references a survey that asked such a generic question about the classic greenhouse effect that 97% of skeptics also agree with it?

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#25

You guys are now the stodgy establishment and us skeptics are rebellious hippies.

Please don’t disparage rebellious hippies by comparing yourselves to them. Rebellious hippies don’t get money pumped up their asses by the fossil fuel industry to spew out half-truth “think tank” lies hidden under the guise of “studies”.

You’re not fooling anyone. You’re not a part of “the rebellion”, you’re wittingly (or unwittingly) delivering a message from corporations that benefit from us all sitting on our hands while they milk their current infrastructure for as long as they can.

actually visit a few skeptic sites, namely the ones that just won most of the top science blog awards.

How about you actually stop being pretentious? That’s not very peacey and lovey or you, dude. I’ve been to the bullshit skeptic websites, I’ve reviewed their bullshit “studies” that are inevitably sponsored directly or indirectly by industry. Been there, done that.

So, what’s this mysterious “top blog award” that validates your sources? Can’t wait to hear this one…

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#26

Classic climate change denier drivel. Typical denier cherry-picking that means nothing.

You’re using the key technique that denialists use in debates, dubbed by Eugenie Scott the “Gish gallop” (named after a master of the style, anti-evolutionist Duane Gish).

The Gish gallop raises a barrage of obscure and marginal facts and fabrications that appear at first glance to cast doubt on the entire edifice under attack, but which upon closer examination do no such thing.

Can you imagine how much more massive my pretty photo collage would be if I showed everyone in NASA who isn’t a climate change denier?

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#27

Since no one here is going to be convinced by climate change deniers, is their goal to pollute the signal with noise?
In other words, is this spam? If so, will a moderator please delete them?
The climate denial astroturfing cabal is much better funded and organized than I thought.

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#28

The climate denial astroturfing cabal is much better funded and organized than I thought.

Think big.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/14/funding-climate-change-denial-thinktanks-network

Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

Anonymous billionaires donated $120m to more than 100 anti-climate groups working to discredit climate change science

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#29

“…will a moderator please delete them?”

Calls for censorship abound in Bubble World. All those NASA guys are paid so very well by Big Oil. I see. Now I finally understand how the world works. It’s all run by oil companies! But Arab oil money never corrupts, like the one that just gave half a billion to buy Al Gore’s cable TV channel. Your conspiracy theory books say so!

“A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports that myth.” – Edward de Bono

#30

Man Made Up Global Warming

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#31

Calls for censorship abound in Bubble World.

That’s rich.

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#32

Short version - Google’s lobbying shop is run by Susan Molinari, a former Republican representative.

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#33

That $120m is a tally of the total donations to right wing think tanks, of which perhaps 10% has been used for mass media ads to debunk climate alarm. That compares to about 10X that amount which is solely focused only on climate alarm promotion, Al Gore alone having announced a $300m media campaign and the Hewlett family giving single donations of half a billion for climate alarm campaigns. A billion 100% dedicated to climate alarm divided by a $12m sliver of right wing debunking amounts to not just a 10X difference but more like a 100X difference in official funding. Now throw in Arab oil money by countries that directly profit from Western restrictions on fossil fuel use! There is simply no comparison. I don’t make a damn cent doing this. It costs me time that cuts into my work day. That’s not AstroTurf. It’s grass roots activism. And you are the bad guy here, projecting your own situation onto me, atrociously. If you hipsters don’t wake up, we’ll just give up and boycott you instead of suffer being screamed at any longer. You are now doubling down on dumb, viciously. Climate alarm was an IQ test you failed, publicly. You hate half of the population of the US so badly that your infantile tirades disqualify you from debate, outreach and any and all hiring by a rapidly growing body of skeptics that now includes Google insiders for the simple reason that they read graphs objectively instead of spazz out and can see for themselves that the trend in real data remains boringly the same.

#34

If you trust a source that cuts data off for public presentation, then
you are not just a dupe but a proud one who labels as “misinformation”
the simple exposure of misinformation, thus allowing a myth to
propagate itself as your rudeness traps you in an intellectual bubble
since few critical thinkers will engage with an insult spewing
fanatic.

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.shtml

#35

Al Gore… you hipsters… You hate half of the population…

You guys really need to get more creative with your astroturf bullshit.

That $120m is a tally of the total donations to right wing think tanks, of which perhaps 10% has been used for mass media ads to debunk climate alarm. That compares to about 10X that amount which is solely focused only on climate alarm promotion, Al Gore alone having announced a $300m

Strangely, us “hipsters” that “hate half of the population” don’t have a problem with money spent on educating people on science, but for some bizarre reason we recoil when money is dumped by the fossil fuel industry, etc. into bullshit “think tanks” that propagate half-truths and lies.

Why could this be?

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#36

Ryan – There were good people working on non-global-warming-denial projects at the Heartland Institute too. But CEI’s work on climate change is profoundly deceitful and dangerous. People who don’t know what CEI’s anti-science propaganda looks like should check out their site, http://www.globalwarming.org/. “Consensus Shmensus.” “Climate Change: Be Not Afraid!” “The only card left in the alarmist deck is extreme weather.” “Is the rate of sea-level rise dangerously accelerating? No.” “Pat and Chip calculate that greenhouse gas concentrations account for less than half of the observed warming since 1950.” “Man’s industrial capacity is just another natural force, a product of a biological entity pursuing a survival strategy every bit as natural as a beehive or a beaver’s dam. To sum up: Polar ice will come and go, but liberal arrogance is forever.” And of course, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sGKvDNdJNA

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#37

Wait, someone decided that global warming was a liberal conspiracy because of a Michael Crichton novel? I guess that happens.

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#38

That’s a great NOAA site, Cowicide. Let’s have a look at very long running tide gauges found there, to get “back to reality” indeed.

First up New York City, which shows that despite a burst in CO₂ emissions, THE TREND REMAINS DEFIANTLY THE SAME:

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How about San Francisco, which shows THE TREND REMAINS THE SAME:

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Uh…Florida, which shows THE TREND REMAINS THE SAME:

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Hawaii also ignores headline alarm since THE TREND REMAINS THE SAME, debunking claims that there is yet any amplified greenhouse effect found in real data:

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