Don't Be Fooled: Fossil Fools Fund Latest Climate Skeptic Petition

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The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) recently published a flashy headline that reads,ย โ€™900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism Of โ€œMan-Madeโ€ Global Warming (AGW) Alarmโ€™.ย The article links to a blog post onย Populartechnology.netย listing more than 900 papers which, according to the GWPF, refute โ€œconcern relating to a negative environmental or socio-economic effect of AGW, usually exaggerated asย catastrophic.โ€

The โ€œ900+ papersโ€ list is supposed to somehow prove that a score of scientists reject the scientific consensus on climate change. One might be persuaded by the big numbers. Weโ€™re not.

Oh, where to begin? First, a note of caution about theย Global Warming Policy Foundation. Itโ€™sย a UK group opposing climate change action. Sourcewatchโ€™s diggingย reveals links to right-wing libertarian climate change deniers. According to the UKย Charity Commission, GWPFโ€™s mandate is toย โ€œadvance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken or proposed to be taken in response to itโ€. Actually, theyโ€™re a heck of a lot more interested in sowing seeds of doubt than in disseminating knowledge. The GWPFโ€™s director is theย Heartland Instituteโ€™s* Benny Peiser, climate change denier extraordinaire. Other notable members include Canadaโ€™sย Ross McKitrickย of theย Fraser Institute.ย ย ย 

Curiously, the GWPF was launched just as the Climategate emails were released. Anย op-ed by Chairman Nigel Lawson announced the GWPF, predicted the (hopeful) failure of the Copenhagen climate talks, andย called for an inquiryย into the content of the stolenย emails.

Using aย screen-scraping process to analyze the data on the โ€œ900+โ€ list, the folks over atย Carbon Briefย dug up some pretty incriminating information. Turns outย nine of the ten most cited authors on the list (representing 186 of the 938 papers) have links to ExonMobil-funded organizations. The tenth has co-authored several papers with Exxon-funded contributors. Anyone familiar with these kinds of lists (โ€œMore than 500 scientistsย dispute global warmingโ€ or โ€œmore Than 1000ย International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claimsโ€) knows that if youโ€™ve seen one, youโ€™ve seen them all. ย Many familiar climate skeptic names appear over and overย again.

Dr. Sherwood B Idsoย is the most cited author on the list, having authored or co-authored 67 of the papers.ย Idso is president of theย Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a think tankย funded by ExxonMobilย and theย Sarah Scaife Foundation.ย 

The second most cited isย Dr. Patrick J. Michaels,ย a well-known climate sceptic who admits thatย around 40% of his fundingย comes from the oilย industry.

When you really crunch the numbers, all you really find is a small echochamber of the same individuals who pop up on every denier list and petition around.ย James W. Prall at the University of Toronto has put together a fantastic analysis of the names that appear on these lists, and shows how most of them share funding ties to the oilย industry.ย 

Now a note on the most cited journals on this list. Articles fromย tradeย journalย Energy and Environmentย are cited 137 times on the list.ย Energy and Environment is edited byย Sonja Boehmer-Christiansenย andย Benny Peiser. Numerous known climate skeptics sit on the editorial staff including Sallie Baliunas, Patrick Michaels, Ross McKitrick, and Richard Lindzen.ย ย The journal has become a go-to resource for policymakers and politicians who are skeptical of the scientific consensus of climateย change.ย 

Michael Ashley of the University of New South Wales has described it as โ€œthe climate scepticโ€™s journal of choiceโ€.ย The Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge is considered a key resource for establishing the credentials and influence of key academic journals. It does not list Energy and Environment.ย ย 

A further 24 papers come from the journal Climate Research which is perhaps best known for publishing a 2003 paper by Sallie Baliunas and Willy Soon that received funding from theย American Petroleum Institute.ย In response to the paperโ€™s publication, the editor in chief, Hans Von Storch, and five of ten members of the editorial board, resigned inย protest.

Letโ€™s contrast this โ€œ900+ listโ€ with the real facts.ย Expert Credibility in Climate Change,ย whichย appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examinesย over 2,400 climate scientists and authors who have signed public statements on climate change. Their research says thatย 97โ€“98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field believe that global warming is happening, and that we must respond toย it.

A note to deniers: if you keep publishing these lists, weโ€™llย keep debunking them. Long lists might look convincing, but theyโ€™re no substitute for research that is free of fossil fuel industry bias and is taken seriously by the scientificย community.ย 

*Updated: Peiser is listed as one of the global warming โ€˜expertsโ€™ by the Heartland Institute, but does not workย there.

Image Credit:ย Prospectย Magazine

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