Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Shoe Drops on the Table

On Thursday, Eli went to an interesting debate at R Street about whether a carbon tax was the best way to organize the response to climate change.  R Street an offshoot of Heartland, formed when Heartland jumped the billboard shark.  Lead by Eli Lehrer R Street basically represents the interests of the insurance industry, in a lobbying sort of way.  Eli took notes, more on the debate later

James Taylor from Heartland represented the forces of darkness, e.g. the lumps of coal.  Eli had a chance to talk with him later after he did the Gish gallop on another guy (more on that later).  The Rabett provoked by asking what Taylors POV was about the BRICs, the C being played by China, the others being Brazil, Russia and India, and Taylor replied in so many words that China was moving to their side as evidenced by the translation of the NIPCC report and the seminar to be held Sat in Beijing.  Eli remarked in passing and no further, that Taylor would be wise to count his cards.

Heartland just pulled the ace of spades. Their friends in the Chinese Academy of Sciences just posted a demand letter

The Chinese translation of the “Climate Change Reconsidered—NIPCC report” was organized by the Information Center for Global Change Studies, published in May 2013 through Science Press, with an accompanying workshop on climate change issues in Beijing on June 15, 2013. However, the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation.
The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false. To clarify the fact, we formally issue the following statements:
(1) The translation and publication of the Chinese version of the NIPCC report, and the related workshop, are purely non-official academic activities the group of translators. They do not represent, nor they have ever claimed to represent, CAS or any of CAS institutes. They translated the report and organized the workshop just for the purpose of academic discussion of different views.
(2) The above fact was made very clear in the Translators’ Note in the book, and was known to the NIPCC report authors and the Heartland Institute before the translation started. The false claim by the Heartland Institute was made public without any knowledge of the translator group.
(3) Since there is absolutely no ground for the so called CAS endorsement of the report, and the actions by the Heartland Institute went way beyond acceptable academic integrity, we have requested by email to the president of the Heartland Institute that the false news on its website to be removed. We also requested that the Institute issue a public apology to CAS for the misleading statement on the CAS endorsement.
(4) If the Heartland Institute does not withdraw its false news or refuse to apologize, all the consequences and liabilities should be borne by the Heartland Institute. We reserve the right for further actions to protect the rights of CAS and the translators group.
Information Center for Global Change Studies,
Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, June 14, 2013.
Heatland's announcement has again vanished but the grovel has appeared (Tip of the ear to Big City Lib) from Jim Lakeley
The following statement was released today by Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast:
 "Earlier this week, the Information Center for Global Change Studies, an Information group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a Chinese edition of 'Climate Change Reconsidered,' translating and combining the contents of two volumes in a series with the same title previously published by The Heartland Institute.

"Some people interpreted our news release and a blog post describing this event as implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences endorses the views contained in the original books. This is not the case, and we apologize to those who may have been confused by these news reports.
"To be clear, the release of this new publication does not imply CAS and any of its affiliates involved with its production 'endorse' the skeptical views contained in the report. Rather, as stated in the translator's preface of the book, 'The work of these translators, organizations and funders has been in the translation and the promotion of scientific dialogue, does not reflect that they agree with the views of NIPCC.' "
Clearly they hope to have Fred Singer exfiltrated from Beijing with no further collateral damage however, some bunnies, not Eli to be sure, have been web citing like crazy

For those of you interested in how not to dance with the dragon, Stephan Lewandowsky has the instructions
 Anyone familiar with the activities of deniers will recognize that this affair follows a fairly standard three-step template: First, a spectacular announcement is made that is at the very least misleading if not outright mendacious. Then, true skeptics (usually scientists) discover and correct the misrepresentation. Finally, the responsible party retreats into its shadowy lair of irresponsible ideology with an "apology" that blames a "confusion" on parties unknown.

RL Miller has some more

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is pleasing to the ancestors to see the bearded barbarian kowtow before the mandate of Heaven

John Mashey said...

Heartland moves from triumph to triumph, such entertainment:

2012:
1)Publish "Roosters of the Apocalypse"
2) Do the billboard(s)

2013:
3)Buy many copies of Steve Gorham's "Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism", send to university environmental sciences professors, the people most likely to take one look and throw in trash abd say so on Amazon.

4) Mess with China, including trying to send Fred Singer, who was already either senile or a liar when he twice told IRS that Frederick Seitz was SEPP chairman after the latter was deceased. Fred did not name the spirit medium used for board meetings, perhaps the same one used by Art Robinson to stay in contact with the two members of the OISM "faculty" who are years deceased.

Anonymous said...

It may have been the same ouija board used to summon Seitz's signature to affix to the endorsement of the 800 page report Singer wrote for himself.

Unlike Roger Revelle, Seitz was in no shape to sign anything when Singer called uninvited on the hospitalized ninety-six year old two days before his death in 2008.






Martin Vermeer said...

> two days before his death in 2008

Anonymous, linky?

Anonymous said...

That's what Singer told Heartland's first cimate conference , which was taped.

Rattus Norvegicus said...

Oh my, the posting of this link to the CAS statement seems to have ignited a minor shit-storm at Willard Tony's, please, read with glee:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/12/heartlands-nippc-report-to-be-accepted-by-chinese-academy-of-sciences-in-special-ceremony/#comment-1337630

And note that he still hasn't updated his OP.

John Mashey said...

Meanwhile, it seems Bob Carter is no longer affiliated with James Cook University, although that seems to have occurred earlier.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps a bunny with email contact with the CAS could drop them an email pointing out that the same man who wrote the Heartland Institute's grovelling apology is simultaneously posting on denialist blogs in support of conspiracy theories about left-wing press and communist authoritarianism.

They might be interested in just how sincere that apology is ...

bill said...

Truly the 'Hurrah! Heartland - and by Extension, Us - Now Endorsed by The Commies' thread at Willard's is a treasure to behold! Quite made my evening...

Anonymous said...

I somehow never heard of Roosters of the Apocalypse until John Mashey brought it to my attention. I especially liked this quote from the Amazon blurb:

"Dr. Isaac dissects the motivations and tactics of the leading roosters of the global warming campaign and finds they have much in common with members of the Xhosa tribe in what is now South Africa. In 1856, the tribe destroyed its cattle and ceased planting crops based on the apocalyptic prophecies of a 15-year-old girl."

Hmm. Who are you gonna believe: thousands of papers on climate change published in the primary literature over the past 50 years that tell us it is a serious threat to our civilisation... or a superstitious 15-year old?

--metzomagic

jrkrideau said...

I went to see Tony's page. I often use Readability to read blogs, etc and so clicked on the Readability icon and got "Readability was unable to parse the Content for This Article

Readability currently works best with pages that have a sizable amount of content to read. If you feel this was an error, and that Readability should have been able to display this page, please let us know.

I decided that Readability may be right.

John Mashey said...

metzomagic

"Roosters" was 2012's featured book.
I have one for my collection of such, which live on 2 shelves I don't let science books near.

Read Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks Exploring the Connection, recently published in ABS, freely available. "Roosters" was published after their cutoff date, but it would fit.

Anonymous said...

Heartland PLan B, bouncing over to the Czechs for endorsement after the Bejing balk, may not be in the cards either.

Bast's favorite keynote speaker, Vaclav Klaus, has lost the Czech Presidency after being charged with high treason for corruption and his nefarious boss Prime Minister Necas minions have just been caught with upwards of five million in unexplained cash and a pile of gold bars

Anonymous said...

I looked at the WUWT thread but the bit I saw - before I was bored by it - seemed to be mostly posts by dbstealey and comments removed by a mod. Isn't dbstealey a mod who likes to post under another handle and snip stuff out when he loses the argument?

Regards, Millicent

Hank Roberts said...

http://www.trbimg.com/img-517f6806/turbine/la-na-tt-koch-brothers-20130429-001/600

Hank Roberts said...

Martin, on Singer and Revelle:

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/revelle-gore-singer-lindzen
citing among much else
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Lancaster_affidavit.pdf

It's an old story of shameful behavior by Singer.

Martin Vermeer said...

Hank, thanks, yes an old story that I was familiar with. It's the Seitz story that I didn't know.

Anonymous said...

I like the fact that you invest so much time in trivial distractions. I guess the tasks are equal to the talent available


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EliRabett said...

Bunnies do enjoy the discomfort of clowns. Makes time pass quickly

Anonymous said...

Just means you are at the circus or a child's birthday party, but please carry on.



1

EliRabett said...

Circus tickets can be expensive, but with Richard Tol, Steve McIntyre and Joe Bast everyday is a party.

Enjoy

Anonymous said...

Congrats Eli you are playing on the same field as McIntyre, Tol, and Bast and as such your relevance in the debate is equal to theirs.


clap clap clap on your continued obsession.


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EliRabett said...

Eli is merely the camerabunny.

bill said...

#1 is mysteriously needled by these claimed irrelevancies. You'd almost think it was actually important to him.

The rest of us, base creatures that we are, are merely enjoying the show...

PS recaptcha says 'WILLIAM undrri'. How does it know?

Anonymous said...

Does #1 imply then that McIntyre, Tol and consort are irrelevant and useless ?

Mmmh, better write it down lest I forget.

bratisla

Anonymous said...

Bill,wrong

Bratisla, correct



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