Friday
Sep022011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill In the pay of Big Green
Sep 2, 2011 Climate: IPCC Russell Cook at the American Thinker carries the fascinating news that IPCC vice-chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele was working for Greenpeace while in position at the IPCC. This makes M. van Ypersele's constant refrain about sceptics being in the pay of Big Oil look, well, a tad rash.
Reader Comments (11)
That's 'different' in the way it always is when its an AGW proponent is doing something which AGW proponents attack others for.
Imagine if a prominent sceptic (like his Grace) were found to by gainfully employed by BP?
'Shock', 'Horror', 'Probe' - I can just picture the headlines in the Guardian.
And the BBC would probably commission a 1h long prime-time documentary.
Should such people be referred to as "Big Green Bogey Men"?
No, just Big Green Bogeys
Nice one, David Chappell, I will be chortling for the rest of the afternoon.
Hang on a minute , wouldnt the norm be that most or all IPCC contributors have other academic projects????
What the American Thinker article lacks is any evidence at all that M.van Ypersele's views aren't honestly held. It says in the IPCC bio "He is the author of numerous scientific articles
and popular works regarding climate change and sustainable development." So it's no secret, Russell Cook is spinning a non story here .
Hengist, so you have no problem with oil companies funding sceptical scientists, provided those scientists hold their views honestly and you will respect their honesty, and not simply dimiss their views out of hand?
Hengist - I thought you were a follower of Romm and Mashey - ie someone who will vilify a paper, regardless of what it says, if it comes from someone who can be held to have links with Big Oil. Is this case not the reverse of the coin?
@diogenes
I do like Mashey, Romm yes but a little less so. If one can draw a link between oil funding and the fact that a paper is not to one's taste, and nothing else, then it doesn't add up to much of a gripe. Michael Tobis (of whom I'm keen) pointed out recently that he had taken oil money, and if one didnt like it find another blog were the gist of his words.
Id be interested to see which blogposts by Romm and Mashey you are referring to. If they have little or no other content than 'this skeptic is in the pay of Big Oil' then Id say they were wrong/bad.
In short one needs more than an oil funding link to a particular person to trash a reputation. That's not to say there isnt an oil funding link to climate skepticism, there is.
Folks ... I think I've discovered the notes from the "eureka" ground zero moment
Even before the UN (and its prolific acronymic offsprings were a gleam in the eye of its "parents") came into existence - - not to mention the birth of Greenpeace, WWF etc. etc.- the green seeds had been very firmly planted. Herewith evidence of the "roots":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f4i9otpfMg
Sorry to say, but there it is. The seminal moment that those who are not "of a certain age"" might have missed: It all started with ducks (and their mothers) .Clearly "climate scientists" (and their lesser lights and acolytes) have been "ducking" the evidence of their "web" [footnoted] tracks ever since.
My apologies to all for indulging in my penchant for playing with words (especially golf charley!)
OK, OK ... I'll get my coat, now!
P.S. Bish ... for some time now, it seems that your server is "rationing" me to 2 posts before I get the dreaded red letter "you cannot post" [or words to that effect]. If I close all browser windows then re-open MSIE, the "gate" is lifted for another 2 comments..
Commenters "golf charley" and "diogenes" make my point for me, but I'll add the same for good measure. I'm not spinning anything, as noted in the 2nd-to-last paragraph of my piece. Mr van Ypersele could very well be unbiased by Greenpeace, but then it obviously follows that the person he criticizes, Dr S Fred Singer, could just as easily NOT be influenced by oil/coal industry executives who allegedly fund his work. The ball is now in van Ypersele's court to prove how he is not plagued with conflict of interest problems, but Dr Singer must be.
Van Ypersele apparently gets his accusation about Dr Singer from the US science historian Naomi Oreskes, as noted in this 2010 Guardian article, "IPCC vice-chair: Attacks on climate science echo tobacco industry tactics" (5th paragraph)
However, the oil/coal corruption accusation Oreskes repeats is one-and-the-same with one seen in an issue of New Scientist last month, and in two infamous books by a US anti-skeptic author in 2004 and 1997, and in Al Gore's 1992 "Earth in the Balance" book, as I described here: "The Great Global Warming Ponzi Scheme - how the mainstream media keeps it alive"
Ms Oreskes did an strange 'two-step' to cite the very same anti-skeptic author I mention above, see: "Circuitous attempts to smear AGW skeptic scientists"
A UK judge ruled several years ago on the 9 errors in Al Gore's movie. I say Gore's accusation that skeptic scientists are corrupted by big coal/oil industry funding is the 10th error because he cannot support it. The situation gets more problematic for Gore when he credits the anti-skeptic author for finding the so-called 'coal industry memo evidence' proving skeptics' guilt, yet he had those memos at his US Senate office years before the anti-skeptic author ever mentioned them.
All I am is an ordinary citizen (a mere contributor to American Thinker) who is asking, "What's up with these concentrated efforts to marginalize skeptic using unseen evidence, and why did nobody in the mainstream media ever check the veracity of the accusation???"