Monday, February 09, 2015

"Watts Up With That?": sniping the snipers...

"The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change" claims NASA's climate data manipulation invalidates the global warming assertion; but perhaps "he who pays the piper calls the tune" on both sides.

I have submitted the following comment on their latest post - will they print it? If so, will they answer it? I've taken the precaution of PrintScreening the submission, in case a wormhole opens up under my query:



UPDATE:

I have had a reply, though not from the site as such, merely from one of its readers:

What “Institute”? Oh, the specific job Heartland paid Watts to prepare one report on the accuracy of the US thermometers?
 
Gee. Again the claim that Heartland “bought” skeptics. If $25,000.00 paid for a skeptics viewpoint – and it did not, that “story” you were fed from “a friend” is an exaggerated piece of propaganda now several years old! – let me ask you: “How many so-called “scientists” will 92 billion dollars buy?”
 
Big Government spent 92 billion dollars ( 3,680,000.00 to 1.00 budget ratio, since you apparently cannot multiply) buying the ideas and promotions and the research and the journals and the budgets and the computer programs and the staffs and even more for the universities and labs and bureaucrats needed by Big Science … just specifically FOR their Big Government “scientists” – who are not all biased, are they? – reach decision designed and intended to create carbon credits for Big Finance and Big Business and for 1,300,000,000,000.00 in new tax dollars each year.
 
How much Big Government can you buy for 1.3 trillion dollars and control of the world’s energy resources? How much are you paid by Big Government for your ideas and your time?
  • I am paid by neither side. And I can multiply – not that that remotely comes into it. Where on earth do you get your debating style from? The ad hominem approach may be effective for an orator, but it’s garbage as far as logical and factual debate is concerned.
     
  • The relevance of funding here – and it’s not just the $25k from the Koch brothers, who are a study in themselves one understands – is that you need to “come to the court with clean hands”. If, as the anti-AGW party claims, the science has been skewed by financial support tantamount to bribery, then the critics need to show that their own approach is untainted by such accusations.
  • Here on the Internet, it’s great that potentially we get to learn more about more things, but like cable TV we seem to be broken up into coteries of group-thinkers.
  • Any recommendations as to where to turn for an expert in this field who is genuinely independent?

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11 comments:

Sobers said...

And? More to the point, are the allegations true - has the data been systematically tampered with?

And to be frank, $25K? It would funny, if it wasn't pathetic. Try looking how many millions are funneled into the pro-AGW campaigns by people like George Soros and Tom Steyer, as well as billions by the poor benighted taxpayer of course.

Face it, the skeptics are nickel and dime merchants when it comes to selling their souls for cash. Its the guys on the other side of the argument who have the real conflicts of interest when it comes to money. How many scientists are going to ask any hard questions about 'climate change' if their salaries and grants rely on them providing evidence its all true?

Paddington said...

How many are funded by gas and oil? Pretty much all of the grass-roots (astroturf) organizations.

As for the scientists, the ones who could produce peer-reviewed science contradicting the current view would be lionized, and well-supported.

Sackerson said...

Sobers, as far as I am concerned all points of view are welcome to the debate. In this debate though, as with so many others these days, there is not much debate, merely a taking of sides. Who will be the impartial judge?

A K Haart said...

It isn’t warming as predicted so rightly or wrongly your comment will be seen by many as politicking from the CAGW bunker.

James Higham said...

The claws are out. Higham licks his lips with anticipation.

Sackerson said...

AKH, I blame my naivety. I see contrarians in this field as gentlemen players, I had not realised that both sides are professionals followed by fanatics.

When I have some time, I aimto get to the bottom of this, probably by first writing to GISS and asking them to confirm that they adjusted data, then explaining how and why and justifying themselves. After all, we adjust reading scores for children according to age at testing, so there may be some respectable rationale. Then I can go back to WUWT and co and get a genuine debate going.

Better still, an expert scientist like yourself could start the ball rolling?

Sobers said...

Do a little research into how much cash the big oil companies shovel to the climate change brigade, it dwarfs the odd dollar or two that 'might' teach a sceptic.

What you need to understand is a very important point - the sceptics are men and women of principle, not hacks for hire. They leave that to the 'scientists', 'researchers', PR men and paid shills that infest the climate change brigade. By and large sceptics are amateurs, ordinary men and women who can see a massive lie being foisted on the public, and wish to expose it.

Sackerson said...

That's what I'm looking for. A commenter on WUWT directed me to the FAQs where Watts gives a plausible explanation of the funding issue.

I'd like to get to the bottom of this warming hoo-ha.

Paddington said...

I believe that Sobers has it backwards. In fact, oil and gas heavily fund the skeptics. For one small example, the Koch brothers funded a UCLA Physics professor to find fault with the data and interpretation (I can never remember his name). He turned out to be an honest scientist. Once he did the study, he couldn't find errors, and announced it publically. This made a lot of the skeptics very unhappy, which is why they tend not to mention this incident.

Sackerson said...

Padders: it was Richard A. Muller -

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/07/30/have-the-koch-brothers-changed-their-mind-about-climate-change

Paddington said...

Thanks. I have trouble with names.