Busted: Climate change skeptic Ibbetson accused of misinformation

onJul 25, 2006 @ 11:15 PDT

Climate change skeptic and former Kansas police chief, Paul Ibbetson, has been outed for spreading misinformation, by the American Geophysical Union, whose research he used in a recent opinion piece he penned.

The article, Behind the Curtain: revisiting global warming and the war on terror, which appeared on several websites yesterday, stated that:

As early as 1992, Gore was touting that 98% of scientists agreed with him on the global warming issue. In reality, a survey of the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society taken in the same year found that only 17% of scientists endorsed the greenhouse gas climate theory.

The American Geophysical Union came out today with a letter to the editor decrying Ibbetson’s claim. To quote:

The incorrect and incomplete data from the 1991 survey that you repeat have been passed around and published in op-eds and, more recently, blogs by climate change skeptics for years, but repetition does not make misinformation correct.

Not too often do we see a police chief busted!

By Kevin Grandia

Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.