Fred Seitz is not as pure as the driven snow....

Since people keep referring to Fred Seitz as the scientist he was rather than the propagandist he has been for the past twenty or more years, it is worthwhile to bring together several comments on this matter that E has made so that he can simply point to a URL in response.

In another universe, Dr. E was challenged to show that Fred Seitz was not as pure as the driven snow. Seitz, of course, was an eminent condensed matter physicist, President of the National Academy of Sciences and President of Rockefeller University. In the later role he developed, shall we say, a close relationship with the tobacco industry, that somehow, later morphed into a close relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Both were remunerative, both personally and for organizations Seitz was associated with.

There are good sources you can use to show the octopus like reach that Seitz has had on both issues, for example, the disinfopedia, the tobacco document archive, and the Exxon Secrets site and, for those who like their meat red, an ecosyn blog.

Seitz has a very long association with the tobacco companies and their attempts to deny the harm that tobacco does and, of course, this gem which brings the singing Freds, Seitz and Singer, together. Singer is tied back to back with Seitz in a whole bunch of tricky business including the OISM petition (17000 duped dentists deny global warming) and the Heidelberg appeal which was a neat straddle between climate, tobacco and asbestos denialism. I am working on some comments about those after dinner entertainments.

By going through the tobacco documents archive, I was able to piece together a rather damning sequence of documents which shows exactly what Seitz has been about.

Seitz signs on:

May 1979
Pg 1
There are abundant reasons for R-J-R to place a priority on research, particularly on smoking and health research. One is that our sense of integrity dictates that we respond directly to a fundamental attack on our business. Another is that if we can refute the criticisms against cigarettes, we may remove government's excuse for imposing heavy taxes on the product. …… A third reason is that there are a large number of crucial questions that need scientific answers in the area of smoking and health.

Pg 7
In evaluating and monitoring the special projects that we fund -- particularly the sole-sponsorship programs -- R.J. Reynolds Industries has secured the services of a permanent consultant -- Dr. Frederick Seitz, former president of Rockefeller

Seitz’ role

June 1980
Procedures for Managing and Progress Monitoring of R.J. Reynolds .Industries Support of Biomedical Research .Management -
The following procedures govern the commitment of funds to biomedical research and the role of various individuals and authorities in considering requests and granting approvals:

Requests for funding support will be referred to Dr. Frederick Seitz

Dr. Seitz and other members of his advisory panel will review fund requests and prepare recommendations based on these criteria: Project viability, Researcher' s qualifications,

Adequacy of facilities, Consistency with overall program objective

Prior to presentation to the Contributions Committee-for disposition, Dr. Seitz will informally discuss recommendations with Mr. H.C. Romer, general counsel. His comments will be appended to the written evaluations and recommendations presented to the Contributions Committee

How much did Seitz get:
July 1986

Dear Dr. Seitz: We should like to renew the letter agreement dated July 12, 1978 between you and RJR Nabisco, Inc. (formerly R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.) for six months commencing July I, 1986 at an annual fee of $65,000 which shall be paid in equal monthly installments on the last day of each month. In all other respects the agreement will remain in full force and effect.

And just a pointer to the most amusing document in the entire tobacco archive.

Deja Vu All Over Again

A number of folks have face palmed at Roger Jr.'s latest observation on the IPCC summary report, expressed in 140 characters or less

Amazing how many journos & activists think that THIS recycled IPCC report will motivate action. Have they learned nothing since 1989?
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) November 2, 2014

AndThenThere'sPhysics is chewing this one over, trying to figure out what Roger Really Meant. 

I engaged briefly in a discussion between Michael Tobis – who appears to be one of the more thoughtful people involved in the climate debate – and Roger Pielke Jr – who, in my view, is not. Michael was trying to get Roger to clarify his position. Needless to say it didn’t go well. Roger accused people of being childish and of Trolling. To be fair, I happen to agree with Roger that much of the online climate debate is indeed very childish. If, however, he thinks he’s some kind of mature influence, then I think he’s sorely mistaken (to be clear, though, I’m certainly not suggesting that I am either). 

Roger’s response was essentially to read his books. Apparently, if we did that we’d understand his views. Well, there are a lot of books in the world. I’d certainly like some kind of sense that I’m not going to be wasting my time. All indications, so far, are that I would be.

 Ethon could have told ATTP, that there is no there there, and the only fitting response to Roger is to ignore him, or make light japes about Roger's incredible ignorance of political science and public policy.  Indeed, as to drive the point home, Richard Tol showed up to play drums in Roger's duet, although, to be honest, Roger stayed away

Now how, young bunnies could Ethon know such things.  Well simple, the Pielkes have a limited but oft times effective playbook and Roger specializes in immature twaddle, as, of course, does Richard.  For example, consider that tweet, and then consider Young Roger's take on the effect if the tobacco companies fight against science which, had there been twitter at the time, would have been tweet

In the battle over smoking efforts to deny a link between smoking and health risks seems to have been completely a lost effort.

continuing

This begs the question -- why has anti-smoking advocacy been so successful over time? The throwaway answer that increasing scientific certainly is the key does not seem to jibe with this data.

As Eli said at the time the problem with this whole line of reasoning is that it is built upon a falsehood. The tobacco industry used advertising, public relations campaigns, Potemkin science, litigation, and any other method it could find to maintain revenues. Deaths were collateral damage. This is no secret to anyone who reads the newspapers let alone science journals. The mortality data and the data on tobacco use and its relationship to advertising both pro and con is readily available to anyone who makes the smallest effort to search. The Potemkin science allowed all of the other efforts to go forward, providing a screen against the imperative necessity of eliminating tobacco that were being uncovered by medical research. The tobacco companies were the successful ones, with all the facts against them, they delayed action for decades, but in the postmodern Pielke World, there are no facts. 

In the context of the IPCC reports, it is important to understand that the Surgeon General's Reports eroded the position of the tobacco companies and built up a mass of evidence that was used in private lawsuits and lawsuits by the Attorney Generals of many states that eventually collapsed the dis-information program of the tobacco companies and lead to the Tobacco Settlement.  That action opened up the Tobacco Archive whose contents showed the massive efforts to discredit science, some of which indeed was beyond belief. 

Eli awaits Roger complaining that his specific policy proposals have not been discussed. True enough, why waste valuable time discussing immature twaddle.  Tomorrow comes.

In the Free Market Everything Has a Price

Some are just cheaper than others.

Eli has shown before that tobacco is really the original sin, responsible for much seemingly unrelated evil in the world, created in an effort to distract others from the problems associated with smoking.

Jules' Klimaatblog has dredged another piece of reality out of the tobacco archive which he modestly calls (Ab)using Libertarians as Useful Idiots.  Eli holds there is useful debate about one of the last two words. The memo is from the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco aka FOREST, an astroturf group, still going today, set up in 1978 by the tobacco lobby to oppose tobacco regulation.  The memo is from 1996, when tobacco regulations started to bite.  They saw trouble on the horizon from the younger generation who were growing up knowing that smoking was dangerous, but

The world still abounds with reactionaries, and in many ways, the 'fogey' strand of public opinion is probably destined to become even more prominent in the next few years, as the baby boom becomes irretrievably middle aged and gives up trying to pretend oterhwise.  The spinsterish attck on smoking and the 'wicked uncle' defenders of it (and of sedentary self indulgence generall) are both likely to gain in prominence and to quarrel with one another ever more publically.  Already the health and fitness craze has abated considerably

But there was hope

However we do not believe that the industry should despair, that the struggle for the right to smoke is destined for eventual defeat.  There is one major opportunity that FOREST has neglected in recent years, and this is the intellectual (as opposed to fogey/reationary) defense of individual liberty that has been dragged into public prominence on the coat tails of the classicla liberal or libertarian critique of the welfare state.  However in the last few years the obvious commonality of interest between FOREST and the youth wing of the libertarian/classical liberal revival has not resulted in an great active cooperation in this area

A situation they sent out to change by coopting the young libertarian wing of the Conservative Party in the UK.  Why, because politics was their only way out

What other argument is there?  Although we can and do vigorously refute the passive smoking hysteria, the primary health argument has been lost.  There is no way any feasible public case can be argued in medical terms.  While there are clearly perceivable psychological benefits from smoking, the evidence of risk to personal health is difficult to challenge.  Further, since the general population recognize these dangers our argument that smokers do exercise and "informed choice" is much stronger.

and

Moreover the freedom case also proactively strengthens us if the worst should happen:  if it were conclusively, scientifically demonstrated that passive smoking constituted a major health threat in normal social circumstances.  The libertarian case already argues, to use the jargon of the economists, that "externalities" are best "internalized" by the voluntary means of property rights.  In other words it would be up to individual property owners to establish smoking rules on their own property, not for the state to set down an absolute law applicable to all places.

 Permayhap bunnies recognize the similarity to how libertarians have been coopted by fossil fuel interests.  Perhaps they might recognize the same on two recent discussion threads, one at ATTP, and the other at the Good Bishops.  Perhaps.

Eli Stole the Playbook

For those bunnies^{TM E Rabett} wondering about the noise machine revving up before tomorrow's release of the IPCC WG1 final draft, Eli will let you in on a secret.  The playbook is out there for your reading pleasure, actually in the tobacco archive. 

They talk about a speakers program where identified spokespeople in local markets a attract press attention. 

As you know we have 200 media trained activists in the field.  Prior to this project we were working on plans to fully activate all of these people

The goal was that

News media will recognize our spokespersons as source for accurate, timely, and credible information.

For outreach

Each spokesperson will be given a list of all media in area.  Where feasible spokesperson will schedule brief one on one meetings with reporters/editors to introduce themselves and leave information.  Key media not reached will be mailed a rolodex type card with brief information

Editorial board outreach was very important

Place senior executives and identified spokesmen with select editorial boards.

One of their key messages was

"Develop "class war" stressing the impact of FET on lower income people"

and, of course, get "scientists" to fabricate a case against the EPA.  

Eli gotta go, but read the tobacco industry plan and process what is happening in light of it.  Yes, that includes our friends in the press

O. . . .

Friday, Eli wrote about recent papers by Myanna Lahsen, and Naomi Oresekes, Erik Conway and Matthew Shindell about the Marshall Institute's founders, William Nierenberg, Robert Jastrow and Fredrick Seitz. Lahsen came to the conclusion that after retiring these three attacked climate science and scientists to make up for a loss of status. Oreskes and Conway thought not, in Eli's word's if for no other reason that Nierenberg was director of Scripps, and had built up climate science there and Jastrow hired Hansen and built up atmospheric sciences at GISS. O&C ask if they would kill their own babies.

Lahsen and Oreskes and Conway are missing something important. All three papers demonstrate that Nierenberg, Jastrow and Seitz were willing to use any funding source to support their ambitions without scruple. The tobacco archive establishes how as president of Rockefeller University Seitz brought in major big tobacco research money, and how in retirement he was a major player in directing their research resources. As quoted yesterday about Jastrow in David Randall's book General Circulation Model Development, Hansen writes

But at about that time, the director of GISS, Robert Jastrow, concluded that the days of generous NASA support for planetary studies were numbered, and he thus began to direct institutional resources towards Earth applications.

The Marshall trio pushed the line that climate scientists are in it for the $$. Nierenberg, Seitz and Jastrow were simply reflecting on what they had done.

Where is Horatio When Eli Needs Him

Eli has been searching for the right song for Soongate and he thinks he has found it

The lyrics just scream out for a rewrite by Horatio Algeranon, but Eli will not go there.  No indeed, the Bunny has been a lot harder in this mess on the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics than on the good Dr. Soon, who, as Eli has pointed out and Dr. Soon has said, has had a hard time keeping body and soul together since his mainline grant funding disappeared before the end of the last century.

Now Eli is not going to link to the many, many comments, posts, and newspaper articles on this issue, nor is he going to discuss much who and why Rep. Raul Grijalva sent letters to various worthies' institutions.  That is been best left to others, but a few words on Rep Grijalva's motivation.

From many sources, it is well known that science obfustication has been well funded by industries who have found research conclusions uncomfortable.  As shown by the Tobacco Legacy Archive, this funding has been both direct and indirect.  Astroturf was invented by those guys well before the Astrodome opened.  For such issues as lead, tobacco, asbestos and of course tobacco, advertising agencies, public relations companies, think tanks and various other pass throughs have been used.  There is no doubt that the hiding of such connections has become more professional, the latest variation being Donor's Trust,

So one may ask, who has been paying the academics testifying before Congress, state legislatures, and local government organizations on these issues and what have they bought?  Further, what are the ethical issues about accepting the Exxon's shilling?  What about other writings designed to influence public opinion such as op-eds or reviews, should a conflict of interest be declared when the writer has been monetarily encouraged?

Based on past history, Rep Grijalva is right to ask these questions. Did he ask for too much?  He agrees

The communications back-and-forth is honestly secondary, and I would even on my own say that that was an overreach in that letter," Grijalva, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, told National Journal on Monday. "I want the disclosure [of funding sources]. Then people can draw their own conclusions.

Does the funding of testimony given by academics have value?  The funders think so.

In the Beginning. . it was deja vue all over again

Jacquelyn Gill touched off a twitter storm of memories about climate blogging in the old days (11 years is old for a Bunny).  The Weasel has something, and so does David Appell.  It was more or less agreed that David's Quark Soup lead the way, if not then Tim Lambert @ Deltoid.  So Eli went to the science blogs and tried to find when Tim started blogging.

Not so simple.  He has moved his archive to science blogs when he moved Deltoid there.  Tim started writing for the net on gun and gun control.  There are articles there back to 1991 but it looks like they were posts or email exchanges with no comments.  The first commented posts appear in Fall 2003, and the first post about climate. . . . a keeper from March 2004, emerging from the nexus of tobacco control and climate change denial.  Tim had written about how The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was an astroturfing operation of the tobacco industry (Steve Milloy, check) and Chris Mooney had an article in the Washington Post (told you nothing changes) on the sounds like science stuff.  Of course, the sounds like guys set one of them on Chris and somehow climate change got dragged in along with Richard Lindzen.  Tim, in his usual way just dug in.

I’ve been reluctant to write anything about the climate change debate because there is a daunting amount of material on the matter, and I don’t feel that I’ve read enough of it to make any kind of useful comment. However, the heart of Murray’s piece is the claim that Mooney misrepresented what the NAS report on climate change found. To see whether that claim is true you don’t have to read the entire literature, just the mercifully brief here. Lindzen (Richard Lindzen, check) writes: 

[I]t is quite wrong to say that our NAS study endorsed the credibility of the IPCC assessment report. We were asked to evaluate the IPCC “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM), the only part of the IPCC reports that is ever read or quoted by the media and politicians.

In fact, right in the very first paragraph of the report you find:

In particular, the written request (Appendix A) asked for the National Academies’ “assistance in identifying the areas in the science of climate change where there are the greatest certainties and uncertainties,” and “views on whether there are any substantive differences between the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Reports and the IPCC summaries.”

The panel was asked to look at the reports and the summary and give their views on whether their were differences. Section 7 of their report is devoted to this. Lindzen was one of the panel members. How could he possibly be unaware of what the panel was supposed to do?

Lindzen continues:

The SPM, which is seen as endorsing Kyoto, is commonly presented as the consensus of thousands of the world’s foremost climate scientists. In fact, it is no such thing. Largely for that reason, the NAS panel concluded that the SPM does not provide suitable guidance for the U.S. government . . .

This is pretty well the opposite of what the panel concluded. In section 7 they actually report:

After analysis, the committee finds that the conclusions presented in the SPM and the Technical Summary (TS) are consistent with the main body of the report.

Again, Lindzen is one of the authors of the report. How can he say that the report says the opposite of what it actually says?

Lindzen continues:

The full IPCC report, most of which is written by scientists about specific scientific topics in their areas of expertise, is an admirable description of research activities in climate science. It is not, however, directed at policy. The SPM is, of course, but it is also a very different document. It represents a consensus of government representatives, rather than of scientists. As a consequence, the SPM has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence.

Scary scenarios, where has Eli seen this recently

I suppose it is possible that this is true, but it is not what the NAS report says. The panel checked with the scientists and found “that no changes were made [to the SPM] without the consent of the convening lead authors”.

Lindzen continues:

Similarly, in the case of our NAS report, far too much attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary rather than to the body of the report. The summary claimed that greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Yet, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating long term trends, a crucial point that the summary neglected to mention.

What? There are only 20 years of data for surface air temperatures? That doesn’t sound right. Let’s see what the full text really says:

Although warming at Earth’s surface has been quite pronounced during the past few decades, satellite measurements beginning in 1979 indicate relatively little warming of air temperature in the troposphere. The committee concurs with the findings of a recent National Research Council report, which concluded that the observed difference between surface and tropospheric temperature trends during the past 20 years is probably real, as well as its cautionary statement to the effect that temperature trends based on such short periods of record, with arbitrary start and end points, are not necessarily indicative of the long-term behavior of the climate system.

Wow. Global warming skeptics have been pointing at the satellite data and arguing that it shows that there is no warming going on. The NAS panel points out that 20 years of satellite data is probably not enough to judge long term trends, so it should be treated with caution.

And right they were

Lindzen then pretends that the caution about the satellite data was meant to apply to the panel’s statement that greenhouse gases were causing global warming. It clearly was not meant to apply to that statement and it doesn’t even make sense if you try to apply it to that statement, since surface temperature data goes back at least one hundred years. Again, Lindzen is one of the authors of the report. I can’t think of any excuse for what he wrote here, can you?

Lindzen goes on to claim:

Our primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and agreement, the science is by no means settled.

Well, no. Their primary conclusion is expressed at the beginning of their summary:

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century.

Natural variability, hmm. . . .

It is possible that their conclusion is wrong, but they certainly didn’t throw up their hands and say that the science wasn’t settled as Lindzen claims.

I find Lindzen’s systematic misrepresentation of the report that he helped author completely inexcusable. As for Murray, after endorsing Lindzen’s remarks, he very commendably offered a link to the report so that his readers could check for themselves, so I don’t know what to make of what he has done. Didn’t he read the report himself? To compound the problem he has used the same Lindzen quote to attack a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Murray wittily calls a group containing twenty Nobel Prize winners the “Union of Crackpot Scientists”.

Nothing new under the rug.

A Really Thin, Really Well Paid Bench

One of the long time themes of Rabett Run has been how thin the rejectionist bench is, requiring the usual suspects, the Freds, Seitz and Singer, Willie Soon, etc. to cover all bases. Of course Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger have set up a small business in fronting. In this, the Tobacco Legacy Archive has been the gift that keeps on giving. POGO, well Paul Thacker landed another one in 2006, Steve Milloy it turns out took over $90K from Phillip Morris when he was working as a science churnalist for FoxNews. Fox News put on its best Casablance imitation when told of this

"Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."

It turns out that Pharma too is in to rent a scientist in a large way, and Paul has found some tracks. UCSF has established a Drug Industry Document Archive.

Eli eagerly awaits a spirited defense of churnalism from the John Flecks, Tom Yulsmans and Keith Kloors of the world