A Falsified Oil-Qaeda Hypothesis Spreads

Fig. 1 When Oil-Qaeda was Humble

I. Background

This begins a new Dredd Blog series.

The picture to the left is a copy of the center-piece of a Life Magazine issue from 1962 in which Oil-Qaeda bragged about their product melting millions of tons of glaciers daily.

The subject matter of this series is about Oil-Qaeda's instigation and support of research concerning the myth that thermal expansion is "the" or "a" major source of global sea level change (SLC) or sea level rise (SLR).

In this sense "the" means the number one source while "a" means the second place source.

The researchers involved with distorting the thermal expansion myth do not use "SLC" to describe the subject matter of their work in their papers, instead they prefer to use "SLR."

Their papers that are promoting the falsified hypothesis, as far as I can tell at this point, are showing up more in The Cryosphere ("established in 2007 and is published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union" - Wikipedia).

That may be because the Oil-Qaeda inspired research empire is now primarily European.

II. The Ignored Size of the Oilosphere

A long time ago I pointed out that products made from oil are part and parcel of Oil-Qaeda, including the scientific research required to convert all or part of oil even into food products.

Here is a partial list of a few products made from oil:

Solvents, Diesel fuel, Motor Oil, Bearing Grease, Ink, Floor Wax, Ballpoint Pens, Football Cleats, Upholstery, Sweaters, Boats, Insecticides, Bicycle Tires, Sports Car Bodies, Nail Polish, Fishing lures, Dresses, Tires, Golf Bags, Perfumes, Cassettes, Dishwasher parts, Tool Boxes, Shoe Polish, Motorcycle Helmet, Caulking, Petroleum Jelly, Transparent Tape, CD Player, Faucet Washers, Antiseptics, Clothesline, Curtains, Food Preservatives, Basketballs, Soap, Vitamin Capsules, Antihistamines, Purses, Shoes, Dashboards, Cortisone, Deodorant, Footballs, Putty, Dyes, Panty Hose, Refrigerant, Percolators, Life Jackets, Rubbing Alcohol, Linings, Skis, TV Cabinets, Shag Rugs, Electrician's Tape, Tool Racks, Car Battery Cases, Epoxy, Paint, Mops, Slacks, Insect Repellent, Oil Filters, Umbrellas, Yarn, Fertilizers, Hair Coloring, Roofing, Toilet Seats, Fishing Rods, Lipstick, Denture Adhesive, Linoleum, Ice Cube Trays, Synthetic Rubber, Speakers, Plastic Wood, Electric Blankets, Glycerin, Tennis Rackets, Rubber Cement, Fishing Boots, Dice, Nylon Rope, Candles, Trash Bags, House Paint, Water Pipes, Hand Lotion, Roller Skates, Surf Boards, Shampoo, Wheels, Paint Rollers, Shower Curtains, Guitar Strings, Luggage, Aspirin, Safety Glasses, Antifreeze, Football Helmets, Awnings, Eyeglasses, Clothes, Toothbrushes, Ice Chests, Footballs, Combs, CD's & DVD's, Paint Brushes, Detergents, Vaporizers, Balloons, Sun Glasses, Tents, Heart Valves, Crayons, Parachutes, Telephones, Enamel, Pillows, Dishes, Cameras, Anesthetics, Artificial Turf, Artificial limbs, Bandages, Dentures, Model Cars, Folding Doors, Hair Curlers, Cold cream, Movie film, Soft Contact lenses, Drinking Cups, Fan Belts, Car Enamel, Shaving Cream, Ammonia, Refrigerators, Golf Balls, Toothpaste, Gasoline...

(A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 2, quoting oil industry sources). The companies that make these products are customers of Oil-Qaeda, and depend on Oil-Qaeda for their business existence.

What does that have to do with research?

III. The Source of the Research Problem

The source of the problem is the marriage of money to scientific research in a magnitude that seems to be breaking records for conflict of interest.

I ended up with that conclusion after reading a paper that contained the statement:

"... the main contributors to rising global mean sea level are the thermal expansion of the world's ocean, the mass losses emanating from the Greenland Ice Sheet, and the worldwide recession of mountain glaciers and ice caps ..."

(Brief communication: A submarine wall, emphasis added). To support their hypothesis they cite to another paper from the same research empire which declares:

"From a novel combination of Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment and radar altimetry data we find over the last 12 y ... a larger global steric sea-level rise [thermal expansion] as previously reported ... is significantly larger than steric trends derived from in situ temperature/salinity profiles ..."

(Revisiting the contemporary sea-level budget, emphasis added). This "novel combination" evidently "don't need no stinkin' in situ measurements" taken by oceanographers from the surface of the ocean on research vessels, or from ARGO floats, or anywhere else in the ocean depths where they have been acquired by scientists for two hundred years or so.

The authors go on to write "Understanding sea-level rise requires a well-established monitoring network, preferably covering long timespans" ... then they ignore hundreds of years of data taken on site, at depth, then recorded in the World Ocean Database (WOD).

They offer, in substitution of that vast body of measurements, only a tiny 12 years of space data ("Over the years 2002–2014") in order to make never before made pronouncements without any in situ data, using instead a "novel combination" of the view taken from 100 miles or so out in space (this is beyond Resplandy et al.).

The WOD datasets of in situ data are quite easy to download, but it takes real work to move them into SQL servers (WOD Update).

The authors say they are not inclined to bother with that part of it, preferring instead to space out, even though they acknowledge "Obviously, no steric changes [thermal expansion] can be observed by GRACE [FROM OUTER SPACE]" (in other words "they (the we)" are saying "we do not need to observe in situ events because we are making 'novel' assertions").

IV. Money Controlling Research = Corruption of Science

The Cryosphere journal and the authors come from a new empire, the Buckosphere, where money talks and the world according to measurements walks:

"Companies play an important role in German research. Industrial research is the most important pillar of German research outside the public sector. More than two-thirds of the annual funds invested in research come from industry ... Industry-based and -financed investments account for more than two thirds of all R&D funding in Germany. Companies are especially involved in applied research and work closely with universities, universities of applied sciences and non-university research institutes. Examples of successful technology transfer can be found in the areas of environmental research ..."

(Federal Ministry of Education and Research, emphasis added). Ok, so "is it just any corporation that can run the show, or is there any environmental bias involved?" you might wonder.

You decide if this research industry has any links to the oil and gasoline industry:

"The largest investments are made by the automotive sector: carmakers

Fig. 2 Big spenders on research

and their suppliers spend almost 22 billion euros on research and development. That is over one third of the total R&D investment by German industry. Accordingly, this is also where the largest number of people are employed: almost 114,000 employees work in R&D for the automotive engineering sector."

(Research in Germany, emphasis added). Do they argue that "Of course there is no conflict of interest with the oil industry (Oil-Qaeda), 'cause who needs oil and gas when you have a car dood?"

V.  Who Decides The Research Results?

Let's take a look at the stockholders of Volkswagen, Daimler, Robert Bosch, BMW, Siemens, Bayer, Boehringer Sohn, SAP, Continental, Merck (see Fig. 2).

A. Volkswagen

Volkswagen is an automobile industry company whose third largest voting shareholder is Qatar:

"The distribution of voting rights for the 295,089,818 ordinary shares was as follows at the reporting date: Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Stuttgart, held 52.2% of the voting rights. The second-largest shareholder was the State of Lower Saxony, which held 20.0% of the voting rights. Qatar Holding LLC was the third-largest shareholder, with 17.0%. The remaining 10.8% of ordinary shares were attributable to other shareholders" (VW Annual Report, emphasis added).

Qatar Holding LLC is state owned ("Qatar's economy is one of the richest economies in the world based on GDP per capita, ranking between fifth and seventh on world rankings for 2015 and 2016 data compiled by the World Bank, United Nations, and IMF").

Petroleum and natural gas are the cornerstones of Qatar's economy and account for more than 70% of total government revenue, more than 60% of gross domestic product, and roughly 85% of export earnings. Qatar has the world's third largest proven natural gas reserve and is the second-largest exporter of natural gas." - (Economy of Qatar)

B. Daimler

Daimler Shareholders: "More than one billion outstanding Daimler shares are held around the globe. Our biggest shareholders are Kuwait's Sovereign Savings Fund (since 1974), Renault-Nissan (cross-holdings since 2010) and Chinese investor Li Shufu. Li Shufu holds the largest equity stake in Daimler through Tenaciou Prospect Investment Limited (since 2018). In July 2019, the Chinese BAIC Group acquired 5 % of the voting rights in Daimler." (Daimler Stockholders)

Kuwait: "Kuwait controls approximately 6 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Oil and gas account for nearly 60 percent of GDP and about 92 percent of export revenues." (Kuwait Economy)

C. Robert Bosch

Robert Bosch developed devious software for Volkswagen that concerned covering up and/or hiding vehicle emissions so as to deceive the U.S. EPA, which was promoting pollution (Robert Bosch).

D. BMW

BMW is in the Automotive Industry.

E. Siemens

Siemens is "the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe" and "Siemens acquired U.S. oilfield equipment maker Dresser-Rand Group Inc."

Siemens makes "compressors for oil and gas pipelines" ... "Siemens businesses ... Power and Gas ... Power Generation Services ... Energy Management" ... "In 2011, Siemens invested a total of €3.925 billion in research and development ... As of 30 September 2011, Siemens had approximately 11,800 Germany-based employees engaged in research and development and approximately 16,000 in the rest of the world" (Siemens).

"Siemens has formed a strategic alliance with Technische Universität Darmstadt research university" (Technische Research University).

Check out Research Universities.

F. Bayer

This company makes things from oil derivatives (e.g. aspirin) ... (e.g. toluene is used to make polyurethanes: "Toluene occurs naturally at low levels in crude oil and is a byproduct in the production of gasoline by a catalytic reformer or ethylene cracker; It is also a byproduct of the production of coke from coal." - Toluene); "Otto Bayer and his coworkers at IG Farben in Leverkusen, Germany, first made polyurethanes in 1937" (Polyurethane); "Bayer ... one of the world's largest chemical and pharmaceutical corporations.

In 2006 the company acquired Schering, in 2014 it acquired Merck & Co.'s consumer business, with brands such as Claritin, Coppertone and Dr. Scholl's, and in 2018 it acquired Monsanto, a leading producer of genetically engineered crops, for $63 billion.

Bayer CropScience develops genetically modified crops and pesticides" (Bayer).

"The company’s trademark, the Bayer cross, is internationally recognized. Scores of pharmaceuticals, dyes, acetates, synthetic rubbers, plastics, fibres, insecticides, and other chemicals were first developed by Bayer."

"In addition to being the originator and first marketer of aspirin (1899), Bayer was the first company to mass-produce heroin for use in pain and cough medications (1898)."

"It introduced the first sulfa drug, Prontosil (1935), and developed polyurethane (1937), a base material for synthetic foams, paints, adhesives, fibres, and other goods" (Encyclopedia Britannica).

G. Boehringer Sohn

"C.H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Ko. KG is the parent company of the Boehringer Ingelheim group ... Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies ... Boehringer Ingelheim is involved in publicly funded collaborative research projects with other industrial and academic partners" (Boehringer Ingelheim).

H. SAP

"As of 2016, SAP is the world's third largest software and programming company." (SAP SE). They should be able to make an SQL database from in situ WOD data doncha think?

I. Continental

"Continental AG, commonly known as Continental, is a German automotive manufacturing company specializing in brake systems, interior electronics, automotive safety, powertrain and chassis components, tachographs, tires and other parts for the automotive and transportation industries."

"Continental is based in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany. Continental is the world's fourth-largest tire manufacturer ... Continental was founded ... as a rubber manufacturer" (Continental AG).

"A synthetic rubber is any artificial elastomer ... These are mainly polymers synthesized from petroleum byproducts" (synthetic rubber).

J. Merck

"Merck was founded in 1668 and is the world's oldest operating chemical and pharmaceutical company, as well as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world ... It has major research and development centres in Darmstadt, Boston, Tokyo and Beijing."

"Merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine in the 19th century and for a time held a virtual monopoly on cocaine ... Merck has formed a strategic alliance with the Technische Universität Darmstadt, which is located in the same town as Merck" (Merck Group).

VI. Closing Comments

Well, hopefully that is enough for this first post.

I hope you readers to get an idea about where this series is heading:

"In total, the US transportation sector—which includes cars, trucks, planes, trains, ships, and freight—produces nearly thirty percent of all US global warming emissions, more than almost any other sector."

(Car Emissions & Global Warming, emphasis added). So, it looks like the fox is watching the research hen-house (cf. Vehicles, Air Pollution, and Human Health).

We must identify in great detail the sources who influence scientific papers that do not offer a way to falsify their hypothesis (but we make do with reality, and falsify it for them).

We have furnished an abundant critique of the falsified "thermal expansion is the major or a major cause of sea level rise" (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,38, 39, 40, 41, 42;  The World According To Measurements, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,17, 18, 19, 20, 21; note especially: Patterns: Conservative Temperature & Potential Enthalpy - 5).

Take care.