DeSmog Was Created to Combat Climategate-Style Misinformation. We’re Still Going

DeSmog was launched in January 2006 to call out the public relations industry for working with fossil fuel industry clients to sow doubt and seed misinformation about climate science.

[OCS: It appears that DeSmog’s viewpoint was that climate science was settled enough to make informed public policies that would help mitigate any climate-related damage that was projected to occur in the future.

Our climate is constantly changing and is a product of a chaotic and complex series of energy-driven fluid dynamics between our atmosphere and ocean and no researchers can identify, isolate, and quantify man’s contribution to climate change in the noise of climate variability. Yet, somehow a group of individuals, mostly politicians and activist-scientists, believed that the models they were using were sufficient, in and of themselves, to adequately inform a course of political action.

And, instead of improving the science, including the flawed models and dodgy data, they appear to be more interested in killing competing viewpoints by silencing their perceived opposition. About as anti-science as you can possibly get.

It seems that free and open communications, or debate, is not to their liking because, to this day, there are numerous unanswered questions about both the science and the politics. Like the discrepancy between the satellite-derived data and the heavily-manipulated terrestrial datasets. Like the explanation of why models predict a non-existent tropospheric hot spot. Like why the models appear to overstate the climate sensitivity which does not appear as prevalent when one back-tests the models. Like the explanation of the warming hiatus and where the heat went in spite of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.

And, then there are political ramifications of public policies which seem to always result in bigger government, higher taxes, the necessity to curtail personal freedoms – and looks a lot like socialist or communist totalitarianism – with little or no room for the capitalism that has driven our country to exceptional heights.]

In those early years, we focused most of our attention on the merchants of doubt who were scuttling political action to address global warming in the United States.

[OCS: As we saw in the Climate-gate email scandal, activists manipulating data, suppressing the publication of legitimate scientific papers from credible scientists, and a general conspiracy to hide the “trick” used to produce the infamous – and now debunked – hockey stick graph that omitted the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Loudly shouting “denier” at anyone with a contrary opinion.]

Little did we know that climate science denial was spreading throughout the English-speaking world, and we would have to follow it to the UK and beyond.

[OCS: What was really happening was that progress in climate science where the orthodoxy was being challenged not only by scientists, but by a population that was skeptical of a solution that was manufactured out of thin air. Not one scientist could explain how they could reliably measure the results of trillions of dollars being spent and correlate the expenditures with mitigation of the imaginary planetary emergency.

Simply pointing out that the science was flawed and the Earth has been hotter, colder, with more and less atmospheric carbon dioxide and we aree still here seemed sufficient to strike up a debate between those who were being massively funded by government and politically-connected sources.]

By the time the Climategate email hack happened in November 2009, we had already begun building our Disinformation Database of individuals and organizations responsible for spreading climate denial around the globe. And honestly, when we learned the identities of those behind the effort to push the stolen emails into the mainstream press, we were amused at the relative amateur ranks of the key promoters — a small number of bloggers and commenters whose voices were typically confined to the dark corners of denier chat rooms and blogs. But somehow, they achieved a minor miracle in generating massive media coverage of these out-of-context and stolen personal emails of climate scientists.

[OCS: After years of legitimate requests for the data and programs behind much of the leading climate scientist’s work, some brave soul assembled a FoIA-like (Freedom of Information Act) response that dumped thousands of climate-related emails into the public domain. Because of the specificity of the documents, it is likely that it was a disgruntled insider and not an external hacker.

To downplay the discovery of a treasure trove of wrongdoing on a global scale was truly amazing. From the fabrication of the hockey stick graph (Mike’s Nature trick – referring to Michael Mann of hockey stick fame) which grafted contemporaneous temperature data onto proxy data because the proxy data did not produce the desired result – to instructions to destroy emails which might be uncovered in FoIA requests, to plans to suppress the publication of legitimate research, it was all exposed for the world to see.

Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate

A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data. <Source>

The scientific method is one of hypothesis, testing, publishing, and accepting additional information that validates, expands, or falsifies the published findings. It is not suppressing information, but encouraging an open debate with all parties welcome.]

Ten Years Later, DeSmog Still Plays a Critical Role

DeSmog’s coverage has expanded over the years, reporting on everything from the rush to build oil and gas pipelines across the globe to transport the products of fracking, to the Koch-, Exxon-, Mercer-funded attacks on clean energy and climate solutions, and the leveraging of climate science denial to push for deregulated trade-deals post-Brexit. Nevertheless, we remain committed to exposing the misinformation and disinformation blocking action to address the climate crisis.

Throughout the past 14 years, our tagline has remained “Clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science,” and it’s a mission we’re still on.

We’re grateful to the millions of readers over the years for their support. And you can make sure we’re still around for the next (inevitable) misinformation campaign by supporting us with a donation. 

[OCS: Over a decade, and they still do not acknowledge that the fundamental questions posed by credible scientists have not been answered – and, if anything, continue to point out the deficiencies in older models, dodgy assumptions, and spurious data.

Will they ever learn? Probably not! Because like moral and social philosopher Eric Hoffer noted:

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

It is amazing that they continue to point to the fossil fuel industry and claim that they spend hundreds of millions each year on climate-related science; while totally ignoring the trillion or so being spent by governments and politically-connected non-governmental organizations.  And, ignoring the simple fact that if “green energy” were indeed renewable, sustainable, reliable, and cost-effective, the energy industry would have invested heavily to jump ahead of the curve.

Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence can be found in the Soviet-led “peacenik” movement that demonized nuclear energy, one of the cleanest sources of “on-demand, cost-effective power on the planet.]

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