Tea Party Nation Does Global Warming Science and Fails

Alan Caruba ran a post on Tea Party Nation claiming that the media won't check websites that prove that global warming is a hoax.

The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant is absurd insofar as it is, next to oxygen, the second most vital gas for life on planet Earth. It is responsible for the growth of all vegetation, including crops vital to feeding humanity and the livestock on which they depend as a food source.

If you want to learn the truth about CO2, you can visit:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/

http://sppiblog.org/

http://www.co2science.org/

http://www.nipccreport.org/

What Caruba is either ignorant about or fails to mention is that these global warming denier groups are funded by Exxon. The first link goes to the Science and Public Policy Institute. SPPI does no research since it only has three employees. SourceWatch reports that SPPI was denied tax exempt status.

Although in March 2011 SPPI's webpages described it as "a nonprofit institute of research and education dedicated to sound public policy...", in early 2011 Ferguson said SPPI had not been granted nonprofit status from the IRS[5], 3+ years after it was formed.

(An entry in Virginia's Corporation Records [1] for "Science and Public Policy Institute, The" (#0673507-0) shows SPPI's directors as Robert E. Ferguson, and two attorneys. But this was reportedly a shell corporation, with no income and no expenditures.[6])

The second link goes to the Science and Public Policy Institute blog. Apparently, Caruba places a lot of faith into an organization that does no scientific research. SPPI president Robert Ferguson has no scientific background. Ferguson has an undergraduate degree in history, Brigham Young University, and a master's degree in legislative affairs from George Washington University. Ferguson receives his pay through the Idso family. The Idsos run the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The funding for the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change comes from Exxon Mobil. The group has also been involved with ALEC.

Blogger Bart Verheggen has a good breakdown on the bogus scientific reports provided by the Nipccreport (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change). SourceWatch reports that NIPCC releases scientific reports written by people who aren't scientists.

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change led to the production of the "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change." While the "NIPCC enlisted several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries to work over five years to produce its series of reports, the NIPCC document is the work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists," said Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post.[5] This report, edited by Fred Singer, alleged that "natural causes are very likely to be the dominant cause" of climate change and concluded that while anthropogenic sources of GHGs may produce some warming, "evidence shows they are not playing a significant role." [6] The validity of the NIPCC report has been highly questioned by RealClimate, whose scientists have labeled the report "disingenuous and misleading, if not outright dishonest." On their wiki site, they debunk the arguments, chapter by chapter, put forth by the NIPCC. [7]

2009's conference, with the theme "Global Warming Crisis: Cancelled," planned, as did the 2008 gathering, to call "attention to new research findings that contradict the conclusions of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report." [8]

In an interview conducted part way through the conference with NPR, New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin explained that "what I sense, they're realizing that they have such a varied array of scientific explanations for what is going on with the climate that they felt the need to ... square up their own story in some sense because otherwise they are in danger of losing credibility. What has caused this change? They're not gaining traction."[9] Revkin said that Russell Seitz, who had attended the 2008 conference[10], "felt stiffed and didn't really fit their script". 'He felt a strong sense that there is a political frame of the issue that supersedes the need for the science to be accurate. He was kind of frustrated," Revkin said.[9]

Mr. Caruba is right. Journalists will not be going to his recommended global warming denier sites. Not unless these journalists want a good laugh.