If Ross Gelbspan was swayed by concerned letter-writing readers of his 1995 article to look into the work of skeptics, but those weren’t real writers, how does it follow that skeptic scientists were influencing the masses anyway? Continue reading
Category Archives: Narrative derailment
WashPo Letter Writers Briefly Turned Gelbspan into a Global Warming Skeptic… but the story has A Big Glitch.
Ross Gelbspan’s tale about circumstances which caused him to look deeper into the ‘industry funding’ of skeptic climate scientists seems praiseworthy, since it could plausibly happen to any objective reporter. But read one of the lesser-known versions of it, and you might react with “Uhhh, hold on there…….” Continue reading
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Any association of anything remotely connected with the fossil fuel industry automatically invalidates any criticism a skeptic scientist might offer to the idea of man-caused global warming. So does it not follow that the same invalidation happens to scientists who promote man-caused global warming when anything remotely associated with the fossil fuel industry is seen in their vicinity? Continue reading
Dr. Willie Soon Guest Comment: “Is What I Say Beyond the Boundaries of Reasonable Discussion?”
Although I am no more than an ordinary citizen, my email address book reads like a “Who’s Who” list of skeptic scientists and speakers. Among them, I’ve had the privilege to exchange emails with Dr Willie Soon of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Do just a basic internet search for nothing more than his name and you see why he is disgusted by those saying his work is tainted by industry funding. Here, rather than having a written-out guest post, Dr Soon suggested I could place two videos featuring him, followed by a specific comment question he wants to pose to his accusers, along with a statement from a fellow skeptic scientist, Dr Richard Lindzen. He felt this would collectively encapsulate the fatal weakness accusers show when they resort to charter assassination in order to avoid debate on the science of global warming. Continue reading
Why Imply “found” = “enlisted” When it Clearly Means “discovered” in a Coal Association’s Annual Report?
The situation is as elemental as it gets: Ross Gelbspan wants the public to believe the fossil fuel industry conceived and implemented a plan to save its own skin, and to carry this out, they found scientists who would spout any skeptic notion they were paid to say. To hammer this home in a way ensuring no one questions it, he says this plan is declared just that way in a Western Fuels Association annual report. End of story. But there’s a critical unspoken stipulation here, that no one should read the actual report or see the context in which the specific word “found” appears. Continue reading
Why Say Sinister Plans are in a Coal Association’s Annual Report… when they aren’t?
To recap: Ross Gelbspan accuses a prominent skeptic scientist of being involved in a global warming ‘misinformation campaign’, and he claims a key ‘leaked memo’ phrase he supposedly found is the smoking gun evidence for his overall accusation against skeptic scientists. But he swaps out the scientist’s name without explanation and the sinister top-down industry directive Gelbspan warns us about is not what it is portrayed to be. On top of all that, there is the small problem of Gelbspan’s “Pulitzer winner” designation.
So are these problems intensified if Gelbspan claims that the Western Fuels Association’s 1991 annual report declared it was going to “attack mainstream science” in regard to global warming, but no such words or anything remotely similar is actually in that report? Continue reading