Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Agnotology: The Surge - 17

Fig. Zero Trufiness Galore
I. Shill Team Six

Today, I want to talk about Shill Team Six of the Agnotology Army, and their Project Nuuk 'em.

Shill Team Six is a hit team of the Heartland Institute.

The Heartland Institute is the illegitimate hybrid offspring of the Marshall Institute (see the video at the bottom of the post, and Section IV below).

They have a cultural history steeped in the deadly addictions to tobacco smoke and fossil fuels, leading to the deaths of millions of people around the world (compare Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science - 9, A History of Oil Addiction - 4).

Their old motto was "the first carton is free" which has morphed into "the first barrel is free."

II. Meet The Team

One blog has identified Inhofe's Warriors in Shill Team Six, as well as providing information about them:
Steven Goddard is one of several climate change skeptics cc'd on an email from S. Fred Singer in hopes of countering the documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” which exposes the network of climate change skeptics and deniers trying to delay legislative action on climate change.

The October, 2014 email was leaked to journalists before the documentary was released. “Can I sue for damages?” Singer asked in the email. “Can we get an injunction against the documentary?”

InsideClimate News reports in their article “Leaked Email Reveals Who's Who List of Climate Denialists,” how “Many of those copied on the email thread, such as Singer and communications specialist Steven Milloy, have financial ties to the tobacco, chemical, and oil and gas industries and have worked to defend them since the 1990s.” [13]

InsideClimate News also documented all those who were cc'd on the email, including the following skeptics and groups:
DeSmogBlog covered the emails here: “Merchants of Doubt Film Debuts, Textbook Denial Attack Campaign Led By Fred Singer Ensues” and DeSmogBlog also archived a full copy of the Singer email thread (PDF).
(DeSmogBlog). These activist denialists are ignorance generators, thus they are proper subjects for the Agnotology Discipline.

III. Captain Amurky

Once upon a time one of them evidently fancied himself as their captain.

The agnotology subject Steven Goddard née Tony Heller was dishonourably discharged
Fig. 1 Nuuk's Coldest Winter?
as it were (Heartland Institute Ices Tony Heller aka Steven Goddard).

So, I decided to check out some of the characteristics of their practices, beginning with him.

I went over to the blog called "Real Science" (one of their characteristics is to name things the opposite of what they really are).

Once I got there I read a post that was titled "Nuuk, Greenland Having Its Coldest Year On Record" which contained a photo of Nuuk purporting to show Nuuk's coldest year on record (What is up with the standing water that had not frozen in Fig. 1?).

Curious about his assertions, since water freezes in Nuuk even in mild winters, I made and posted the comment shown in Fig. 2 below.

Just in case you can't read the text in Fig. 2, which is a screen grab converted into a graphic image, the text of that comment is as follows:
Is that standing water in the photo of Nuuk?

Since this is the space age, consider the satellite measurements of ice volume:

“Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat mission have been used to map the height of the huge ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica and show how they are changing. New results reveal combined ice volume loss at an unprecedented rate of 500 cubic kilometres a year.

Fig. 2 (click to enlarge)
The resulting maps reveal that Greenland alone is reducing in volume by about 375 cubic kilometres a year.

The researchers say the ice sheets’ annual contribution to sea-level rise has doubled since 2009. [Table 1 type contribution – i.e. thermal sea level rise (additional) is not included in that doubling]

Glaciologist Angelika Humbert, another of the study’s authors, added, “Since 2009, the volume loss in Greenland has increased by a factor of about two and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by a factor of three.” (Will This Float Your Boat – 5, quoting ESA Cryosat website).
After posting that comment, I noticed that it contained the statement "Your comment is awaiting moderation" written on it by that blog.

It was posted several days ago, and is still awaiting "moderation," and has not been posted as of the time of today's Dredd Blog post.

He must think it is a radical (not moderate) comment, even though the final sentence in his post is:
"Look for climate experts to take pictures of glaciers calving into the ocean, and claim that it is an indication that Greenland is melting down. Because they are crooks, not scientists."
(Real Science). Oh yeah, that is "real science" for you (if an expert says glaciers calving in Greenland is evidence of global warming induced climate change, they are criminals, not real scientists).

But if I ask about Nuuk, Greenland's coldest winter ever with standing, unfrozen water, that is not "moderate?"

Where is nuke happy Shill Team Six going with this, "Nuuk Greenland?"

IV. Shill Team Six Is An Outlaw Group

The law of the United States is that global warming induced climate change is real.

Greenhouse gases must be regulated in order to protect the public from people like Shill Team Six and its support of Oil-Qaeda, according to the U.S. Supreme Court:
Based on respected scientific opinion that a well-documented rise in global temperatures and attendant climatological and environmental changes have resulted from a significant increase in the atmospheric concentration of “greenhouse gases,” a group of private organizations petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin regulating the emissions of four such gases, including carbon dioxide, under §202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, which requires that the EPA “shall by regulation prescribe . . . standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class . . . of new motor vehicles . . . which in [the EPA Administrator’s] judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution . . . reasonably . . . anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” 42 U. S. C. §7521(a)(1). The Act defines “air pollutant” to include “any air pollution agent . . . , including any physical, chemical . . . substance . . . emitted into . . . the ambient air.” §7602(g). EPA ultimately denied the petition, reasoning that (1) the Act does not authorize it to issue mandatory regulations to address global climate change, and (2) even if it had the authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards, it would have been unwise to do so at that time because a causal link between greenhouse gases and the increase in global surface air temperatures was not unequivocally established.
...
Massachusetts and other state and local governments, sought review in the D. C. Circuit [... which held...] that the EPA Administrator properly exercised his discretion in denying the rulemaking petition.
...
[Supreme Court Conclusion:] The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
(Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law). A new study done by skeptics confirms global warming, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The propaganda organization, The Heartland Institute, has taken up the job of global warming induced climate change denialism.

V. Conclusion

The study of agnotology takes us back over a century, as detailed in the video below.

The current surge of agnotology shows that denialism continues unabated, filling the land with ignorance (Tracking Public Knowledge & Perceptions About the Arctic).

Ignorance of AGW is the basic ingredient of many now living in a civilization that is in the throes of a suicide watch (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.


Key times in the video below:
(Note: GW = global warming; GG = greenhouse gas, CC = climate change)

00:40 - Schwarzenegger (hypocrite): no debate, GW is happening.
06:20 - Proper amount of GG is good, keeps us warm.
07:00 - Too much GG is a bad thing.
07:09 - Tyndall in mid 1800's began research into GG.
07:45 - Arrhenius did first degree calculations re: CO2 content.
08:25 - Callendar discovered GG increases in 1930's.
09:02 - Hulburt accord in 1930's.
09:43 - Depression / war stopped GG research.
10:00 - Gilbert N. Plass developed CO2 atmospheric calculations.
10:49 - Suess & Revelle do paper in 1957 warning of GW dangers.
12:30 - Dr. Revelle warned of polar ice cap melt in TIME interview.
13:25 - CO2 levels discovered to be high.
16:30 - Lyndon Johnson in 1965 says fossil fuels causing GW.
17:00 - GW, CC not political originally.
18:20 - White of NOAA, 1978, warns of GW dangers.
20:52 - Polar Areas to be impacted 4 times more than other areas. 
24:20 - IPCC formed in 1979 with consensus on GW.
26:00 - Bush I signed GW treaty.
26:45 - Denial of GW begins.
27:40 - Luntz injects GW denial propaganda into political debate.
28:25 - Oil baron Cheney propagates GW denial.
29:00 - Oil companies do massive scale denial propaganda.
29:30 - Marshall Institute
30:30 - Marshall Institute formed to support Reagan SDI (star wars)
32:50 - Marshall Institute "cigarettes not related to cancer".
36:50 - Marshall Institute does GW denial campaign.
42:54 - Marshall member Seitz worked for big tobacco.
47:20 - Singer of Marshall Institute politically attacks GW.
53:35 - Cigarette smoking is ok rhetoric applied to GW science.



9 comments:

  1. That "shill team six" crowd is a pathetic bunch.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, and they have a lot of money to throw around:

    Secretive donors gave U.S. climate denial groups $125 million over three years

    http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2015/06/secretive-donors-gave-us-climate-denial.html

    The secretive funders behind America’s conservative movement directed around $125m (£82m) over three years to groups spreading disinformation about climate science and committed to wrecking Barack Obama’s climate change plan, according to an analysis of tax records.

    The amount is close to half of the anonymous funding disbursed to rightwing groups, underlining the importance of the climate issue to US conservatives.

    The anonymous cash flow came from two secretive organisations – the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund – that have been called the “Dark Money ATM” of the conservative movement.

    [and]

    Louisiana governor signs bill to kill lawsuit against oil, gas companies – ‘I’m sure BP will use it for appeals’

    http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2015/06/louisiana-governor-signs-bill-to-kill.html

    Thanks for another great expose on "the enemy" Dredd.

    There's another article there you may be interested in:

    Iceberg influx into Atlantic during last ice age raised tropical methane emissions

    http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2015/06/iceberg-influx-into-atlantic-during.html

    [quote]

    “Essentially what happened was that the cold water influx altered the rainfall patterns at the middle of the globe,” said Rachael Rhodes, a research associate in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and lead author on the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation. “The band of tropical rainfall, which includes the monsoons, shifts to the north and south through the year.

    “Our data suggest that when the icebergs entered the North Atlantic causing exceptional cooling, the rainfall belt was condensed into the Southern Hemisphere, causing tropical wetland expansion and abrupt spikes in atmospheric methane,” she added.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom,

      Excellent link.

      This point that you quoted caught my eye:

      "The amount is close to half of the anonymous funding disbursed to rightwing groups, underlining the importance of the climate issue to US conservatives."

      Cultural agnotology at its most obvious.

      Thanks.

      Delete
    2. Tom,

      Yeah, good links.

      The one about icebergs floating south to perturb methane in more tropical areas was covered in Dredd Blog posts during the BP oil spill.

      If I remember correctly Dredd thinks that was what caused the Deepwater Horizon to explode:

      "Natural gas hydrate deposits are found in deep offshore environments. In some cases these deposits overlay conventional oil and gas reservoirs. There are concerns that the presence of hydrates can compromise the safety of exploration and production operations [Hovland and Gudmestad, 2001]. Serious problems related to the instability of wellbores drilled through hydrate formations have been documented by Collett and Dallimore, [2002]. A hydrate-related incident in the deep Gulf of Mexico could potentially damage the environment and have significant economic impacts."

      (link)

      Delete
    3. During the Deepwater Horizon debacle, I did a study of methane hydrates on the bottom, and under the bottom, of the Gulf of Mexico.

      The index alone, to the list of scientific papers on the subject, was 163 pages long.

      My final hypothesis of why the Deepwater Horizon blew was methane hydrates.

      Because, when it happened management suits were on board celebrating the successful well (indicating to me that they did not have a clue about the bomb they were sitting on):

      "Methane hydrates are volatile compounds — natural gas compressed into molecular cages of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up inside the drill column of a well. If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand to 164 times their volume."

      (Danger Lurks In The Deep Water, 2010). They tapped an oil reservoir that was under a methane hydrate layer (which they drilled through), and or the reservoir itself had methane hydrate in it.

      When they disturbed it and the methane was released from the cage, expanding explosively to 164 times its hydrate volume, that was all she wrote for that rig.

      The pipe and equipment can't hold that much pressure (x * 164), so it blew the place to bits.

      In that Dredd Blog series I also looked closely at methane hydrates (a.k.a. clathrates) in warm tropical areas and the potential for their release as the deep oceans warm.

      Delete
  3. That's awesome Dredd! Thanks for the 'heads up' link Randy!

    This is what you and Jonny Mnemonic have in common - only he thinks it's involved in many more daily occurrences these days and provides news stories of them: porches suddenly bursting into flame, parked vehicles, moving vehicles, and people dropping dead or acting "nuts" due to H2S exposure, garbage bursting into flame in garbage trucks, boats catching fire, exploding vacant buildings (many of which erupt multiple times, even after being extinguished and have not electrical or gas service), planes having trouble in the air and upon landing, and lots more. i know, you like to eliminate all other possibilities, and i hear that, but most of these stories confound the authorities.

    The methane/hydrogen sulfide problem is becoming more pronounced even though no one is measuring it, because it's bubbling out of the oceans, lakes, peat bogs, permafrost and the like - and it's what caused past mass extinctions.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom,

      I don't know anything about Jonny Mnemonic except what you have posted here.

      It is not that I disagree or agree on the merits, it is a procedural issue with me.

      it is just that when events can be, or could have been, caused by several different things, I try to make the case carefully as to specifically which one and why.

      The scope of the methane hydrate issue I studied is deep-water ocean only.

      I have no opinion one way or the other on "H2S" at this time.

      My plate is full, but that is not a sight of anything other than fatigue.

      Delete
  4. “It’s always been a mystery how climate became such a controversial question.” - William K. Reilly (George H.W. Bush EPA Head).

    (link).

    Also, GOP presidential candidate Sen. Lindsay Graham says as much in a recent interview

    "Lindsey Graham Calls Out Fellow Republican Candidates Over Climate Change Views"

    (link)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The answer to "how climate became such a controversial question" has not been a mystery to professor Naomi Oreskes as shown in the first video.

      Agnotology also covers wilful ignorance:

      "What do such academically suspect centers [e.g. Heartland Institute, Marshall Institute] have to offer by way of peer-reviewed, scientifically reputable evidence? Almost nothing. But that is not the point. The strategy of willful ignorance is not to fight theory with theory and statistic with statistic. It is instead to say, "I refuse to believe this," and then filibuster in the court of public opinion. It is not crackpot theories that are doing us in. It is the spread of the tactics of those who disrespect truth."

      (The Attack on Truth), "We have entered an age of willful ignorance." - ibid

      Delete