Climate scientists prepare to fight back against deniers!
This is very heartening news to read as we watch the anti-science, global warming- denying Republicans vie to be the next chair of the House Energy committee:
Climate scientists plan campaign against global warming skeptics
On Monday, the American Geophysical Union, the country's largest association of climate scientists, plans to announce that 700 climate scientists have agreed to speak out as experts on questions about global warming and the role of man-made air pollution.
This is a desperately-need antidote to the campaign of doubt and mis-information being spread by conservatives and fossil fuel lobbyists. The science community has been slow to respond to this threat, perhaps believing that the science will speak for itself. But they are beginning to recognize that an active campaign of misinformation requires a more forceful and persuasive response.
The American Geophysical Union joins others who have already begun to fight, including John Abraham's devastating takedown of anti-science crusader Christopher Monckton, and the efforts of climate blogger Deep Climate and others to expose the fraudulent Wegman Report. The Wegman Report was solicited by GOP Rep. Joe Barton (yes, he of "BP is owed an apology" fame). It purported to be a statistical analysis of Mann et. al.'s "Hockey Stick" paper, which was the first to show that the warming of the late 20th century is unprecedented. Deep Climate's analysis shows that the Wegman report is heavily plagiarized, ironically from one of the very scientists it seeks to criticize, and contains deliberately misleading alterations and shoddy analysis. Wegman is now being investigated by his university, George Mason, for plagiarism and academic mis-conduct. Barton, who is the top recipient of fossil fuel industry money in the House, is unashamed and continues to compete for the chairmanship of the Energy committee, where he would no doubt continue to promote the interests of his patrons. (diary on this very interesting subject forthcoming).
We cannot possibly deal with climate change if the public's understanding is hopelessly warped by lies, smears and ideologically-driven mis-information instead of reality. Meanwhile, the Republican party has adopted the belief that "global warming is a liberal scam" and now uses it as one of their many purity tests for candidates (see RL Miller's excellent series on climate zombies). Republicans plan to use their newly-acquired power to launch investigations of climate scientists, under the pretense that they are going after fraudulent uses of government grant money. They don't expect to find anything of substance; their true objective is to harass and intimidate scientists while creating doubt about the reality of climate change in the public's mind. It's time for climate scientists to take it to the streets, and time for the reality-based community to support them. This may be the most important fight of all.