Global Warming conspiracy theories

Over at the Drum Stephan Lewandowsky notes the similarities between global warming skeptics and other conspiracy theorists:

This attribute of conspiracy theorising also applies in full force to the actions of some climate “sceptics”:
When leading climate scientists are repeatedly exonerated after the “climategate” pseudo-scandal, then to climate “sceptics” this simply means that the relevant enquiries were pre-programmed to find nothing wrong. Thus, the U.K. Parliament conspired to produce a whitewash of Professor Jones a few weeks ago, as did Lord Oxburgh when his panel, constituted with the advice of the Royal Society, found earlier this month that climate researchers “… did a public service of great value by carrying out much time-consuming meticulous work on temperature records.” The scurrilous thinking of conspiracy theorists is best exemplified by an Australian tabloid blogger, whose “evidence” for a whitewash derived from the fact that Lord Oxburgh … rides a bicycle! Yes, Lord Oxburgh rides a bicycle. And being a cyclist clearly implicates one in a grand conspiracy designed to deny others the pleasures of life that are seemingly only attainable by emitting vast quantities of CO2.

Comments

#1 Dave Andrews
May 6, 2010

Mike,

“”they lie cheat and deceive in their careers just for the money”"

I did not say that. Some may, of course, but as in most walks of life the vast majority will persevere in their chosen path because it pays the mortgage etc and suits them.

Not all scientists produce groundbreaking work you know!
#2 Dave Andrews
May 6, 2010

jakerman,

You obviously have a problem about corporate funding which is odd, since I’d wager that if you look at most universities these days they all receive a considerable amount of corporate funding and this includes departments undertaking climate research.
#3 Mike
May 6, 2010

No Dave, but there is a very clear implication of some sort of “money-driven bias” from climate scientists in much of what you said.

Furthermore, there is a gaping chasm between what the climate scientists are saying, and what many “sceptics” are saying, so that “money-driven bias”, if it were to exist, must be very severe.

Of course, that’s not to mention the plethora of direct accusations by the “sceptic” community of improprietry at all levels which have been squarely and publicly aimed at climate scientists recently. That certainly doesn’t seem like it will stop any time soon, now matter how many inquiries we have.
#4 jakerman
May 6, 2010

Dave Andrews writes:

>*You obviously have a problem about corporate funding which is odd, since I’d wager that if you look at most universities these days they all receive a considerable amount of corporate funding and this includes departments undertaking climate research.*

Another non-sequitur Dave (par for the course Andrews). Why is it odd that both ‘A’ and ‘B’ can occur concurrently, where ‘A’ is ‘I have a problem with the perverse dominance of the profit motive, and ‘B’ the perverse dominance of the profit motive is spreading deeper and deeper into universities and research organisations?

Please explain.
#5 jakerman
May 6, 2010

BTW Dave, would you expect the independace of science to improve or worsen as researchers have an increasing pressure to establish partnerships with commercial and profit seeking organisations?

Will you have more or less confidence in scientific processes and science’s ability to get close to independence, if science is made more dependent on partnership with the dominant sector industries (ie. those with most resoruces [profit] and most vested interest)?
#6 Dave Andrews
May 7, 2010

jakerman,

There is risk in everything but it seems to me you want things to be as you would like them to be not as they actually are. You cannot turn the clock back, you have to deal with the situation as it is.

BTW, how independent was science in the USSR?
#7 jakerman
May 8, 2010

>*it seems to me you want things to be as you would like them to be not as they actually are.*

[Pot here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/bad_news_sea_level_rise_may_be.php#comment-2434215), looking for a Kettle.
#8 Willie McDonald
January 1, 2012

Global warming is not due to greenhouse gases, its due to the earth’s orbit around the sun destabilizing, you have been lied too. Please read my blog at: orbital-decay1.blogspot.com.
#9 frank -- Decoding SwiftHack
January 1, 2012

Willie, which particular conspiracy theory do you subscribe to?

– frank
#10 Robert Murphy
January 1, 2012

Frank, that’s easy. He belongs to the camp that thinks the Earth’s orbit is destabilizing but the world’s scientists have conspired to keep this information from the public. This he claims is because, “The oil company’s crude oil extraction process is causing less crude oil to reach the core, causing the core to cool, which causes the earth gravitational, and magnetic fields to weaken, which is causing the earth orbit around the sun to destabilize.” Yeah. He’s probably on meds (or should be) so I’ll refrain from commenting more on someone who most likely is mentally ill. Needless to say, there’s no *there* there in his claims.