Apparently, the criticism that has discredited Mann’s “hockey stick” graph – a favorite reference of CAGW activists – is a concerted campaign by the fossil fuel industry and interests, not genuine scientific criticism of its serious scientific and statistical flaws. Who’s the conspiracy theorist now?
And apparently they also do IP address searches at RealClimate to sniff out undercover agents of the fossil fuel industry from among critical commenters on their blog.
Also, ad hominem attacks are prohibited by their comments policy; a standard, it appears, that doesn’t apply to the contributors and is selectively enforced on visitors.
Ironically, the very same post that the above paraphrased “hockey stick” comment follows amounts to a protestation of innocence against a charge that RealClimate is associated with one or more environmental organizations. The author of the post insists it is not so:
We wish to stress that although our domain is being hosted by Environmental Media Services, and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content. Neither Fenton nor EMS has ever paid any contributor to RealClimate.org any money for any purpose at any time. Neither do they pay us expenses, buy our lunch or contract us to do research.
Let’s say I take him at his word that the contributors have not been paid for any reason and haven’t even had a lunch bought for them. Fenton Communications is a left-liberal public relations firm that has been orchestrating Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war campaign (not that I’m pro-war, I’m just saying…). Environmental Media Services is a left-liberal environmental orgnanization. Did Fenton handle RealClimate’s press release free of charge or did the contributors of RealClimate pool their funds from their government paychecks to pay for the service? Does RealClimate pay EMS for hosting their blog? The author of the post doesn’t say, but I would be surprised if the contributors of RealClimate paid for any of these services. If they didn’t pay for these services out of their own pockets, then RealClimate has received and continues to receive the equivalent, in terms of subsidized services, of financial support from left-liberal and environmental organizations. And if they did pay for these services, why deal exclusively with left-liberal and environmental organizations?
Now, I of course would be the first to say that these connections with left-liberal and environmental organizations are not by themselves enough to refute their substantive claims on climate change. Ad hominems make for faulty arguments. However, the hypocrisy and half-truths I have highlighted here do speak to overall character and intellectual honesty in particular. They profess to be pure, objective scientists while accusing their critics of being, almost universally, ignorant laymen, partisan hacks or enemies of science; but their biases are quite plain. I am here merely pointing out the hypocrisy. Their substantive claims must still be dealt with elsewhere, albeit with blinders off.
For more on and from Mann, see here.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the