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:

• Ron Arnold
• Timothy Ball
• Joseph “Joe” Bast
• Joe Bastardi
• Michael Bastasch
• William Briggs
• Russell Cook
• Judith Curry
• Joe D'Aleo
• James Delingpole
• David Paul Driessen
• James Enstrom
• Steve Goddard
• Pierre Gosselin
• Greenie Watch
• William Happer
• Jim Lakely
• Patrick J. Michaels
• Steven J. Milloy
• Christopher Monckton
• Marc Morano
• Joanne Nova
• Roger Pielke Sr. (Or Roger Pielke Jr. - Unclear in Email)
• Thomas P. Sheahen
• S. Fred Singer
• Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon
• Roy Spencer
• James Taylor
• Anthony Watts

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.

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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.

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