Because nothing says ‘scientific credibility’ like ‘paid for by the energy industry’

July 28, 2006

[tag]Patrick Michaels[/tag] is a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia — and noted [tag]global-warming[/tag] [tag]skeptic[/tag]. When reporters, desperate for unnecessary “balance” need a scientist willing to refute [tag]climate change[/tag], Michaels is the go-to guy.

As it turns out, however, Michaels may have a bit of a [tag]conflict-of-interest[/tag] problem.

Coal-burning [tag]utilities[/tag] are contributing [tag]money[/tag] to one of the few remaining climate scientists openly critical of the broad consensus that fossil fuel emissions are intensifying global warming. […]

Dr. Michaels told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists’ global warming research. So a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign for him last week and has raised at least $150,000 in donations and pledges.

The utility, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, based in Sedalia, Colo., has given Dr. Michaels $100,000 of its own, said Stanley R. Lewandowski Jr., its general manager. Mr. Lewandowski said that one company planned to give $50,000 and that a third planned to contribute to Dr. Michaels next year.

Here’s the kicker: Michaels says he sees “no problem” from the donations. He said the money simply helps him pay his staff. “Last I heard, anybody can ask a scientific question,” Michaels said.

He does not appear to be kidding.

Michaels isn’t just responding to “scientific questions.” If he seriously believes energy interests are rounding up cash for him because he’s available to give objective analysis on climate change, it’s not just naivete, it’s a deep sense of denial.

Indeed, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association’s Lewandowski, in his letter to other utilities trying to raise funds for Michaels, said, “We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists.” He also called on other electric cooperatives to undertake a counterattack against Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

This isn’t complicated: Michaels denounces global warming, Michaels takes money from industries that contribute to global warming, Michaels denounces global warming some more.

As Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said, “This is a classic case of industry buying science to back up its anti-environmental agenda.”

We’re left with a landscape in which the vast majority of experts who have no financial interest in the results have reached a consensus on climate change, and an atypical hold-out is getting checks from coal-burning utilities.

Unless you’re George W. Bush, who are you going to believe?

So where exactly is Patrick Michaels’ scientific study in a peer-reviewed scientific journal?

Doesn’t have one maybe? Why does that not surprise me? Likes to criticize others work without putting any of his own up for analysis.

  • Another useful idiot. I’m sure the wingnuts reference this turkey’s specious “research” whenever it’s time to talk about the “lack of consensus” regarding global climate change.

  • http://www.cato.org/people/michaels.html It appears Dr. Michaels is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. His credentials as a climatologist seem to be solid -UW Madison and The University of Chicago but that does not really mean much apart from the fact that he studied the climate.

    I seem to recall some recent cases where the most respoected of all professionals, M.D.’s have made some questionable statements and taken some questionable positions on political issues. There is Dr. Bill Frist who diagnosed Terri Schivo via video tape, Dr. Tom Colburn who is dubious every time he opens his mouth, and going a little further back I seem to recall many doctors stating that Smoking was not related to lung cancer.

    If I had the time or patience I woul dlike to read some of Dr. Michael’s papers and see what the Abstract states as the goal of the studies. I wonder how often the assumed results were global warming = myth were supported? I bet his average is pretty good.

    This is a clear cut case of a scientist creating “scientific” results to support a personal belief and forward a political agenda. The Cato Institute has among it’s stated goals – Smaller Government and Free Market Capitalism. Neither of these positions squalres very well with scientific results showing burning fossil fuels is causing catastrophic climate change.

    This guy needs to be stripped of his credibility.

  • “The core issue over the next ten years will not be “How much will the climate warm?” but, rather, “Why did it warm so little?”” – Patrick Michaels

    Because we’ve been busy melting ice you f**king idiot. Until the ice melts in your drink on a hot summer day, your drink stays cold (watery maybe, but cold). Once the ice is gone, the drink warms up very quickly. So will the Earth.

    This guy is a climatologist? It scares me that I’m sending my daughter into the same educational system that supports this twit.

  • We have hard data on climate – in North America and north western Europe only – that goes all the way back to 1888. The rest is sketchy, non-standardized or deduced from measuring tree rings or observing ice-cores. Al Gore didn’t even invent Global Warming until thirty years ago.

    The point being that the Sushi eating Lib’rel Elite is claiming proof positive of the cause of what could well be multi-milleneal trends based on 118 years of observsation over maybe 15% of the land mass and new technology being operated by people who STARTED OUT to find a non-natural cause for a climate change that may not be happening at all.

    That being said, it is still outrageous to allow corporations and individuals to crap up everybody’s air, ocean and land for private profit and personal convenience. It comes under the general heading of “you don’t shit where you (or anybody else) eat”. Good manners, ya’ know . . .

  • Actually ARrt K serious scientists have benn drilling ice cores from the Antarcrtic which provide a record of many tens of thousands of years. They have benn able to measure CO2 levels in the ice at the time it froze and tract the natural cycles of CO2 over a very long time period. It shows that in recent decades the level of CO2 have spiked.

    They have also studied the impact of CO2 levels on temperature and fount that there is a positive corrolation between the two. Since you apparently have no understanding of scientific method a positive corrolation means that when one goes up the other goes up (as opposed to negative corrolation where when one goes up the other goes down.

    What exactly do you think the goal of the “Lib’rel Elite” is with this whole global warming “scare”. What end do you imagine in your little pea brain? Let’s pretend that you are correct and this is all made up (and then monkey’s fly out of my butt). The scaremongering scientists and Dems win control of government and force the US to find alternative fuels, lower consumption, and clean up the air. Is any of this bad?

    What if your doctor told you exercise improved your health so you exercised. Later on it turned out that there really was not a corrolation between exercise and better health. Would you rant and rave about all the time you wasted excercising and decide that you should have been watching TV and eating bacon cheeseburgers? That doctor cost you hours and hours of precious sitting on your ass time! Stupid liberal doctor!

    To sum up- You are wrong and even if you were right making the changes that are suggested to curb global warming would have a beneficial effect on America.

    Go troll elsewhere. I’m sure Michell Malkin would love to hear your opinion.

  • Sorry about the typo’s the heatwave is causing me to sweat more and the keys are slippery.

  • So this is why Michaels doesn’t do peer-reviewed journals:

    “Most scientists spend their lives working to shore up the reigning world view – the dominant paradigm – and those who disagree are always much fewer in number,” says climatologist Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, a leading proponent of this view. The drive to conformity is accentuated by peer review, which ensures that only papers in support of the paradigm appear in the literature, Michaels says, and by public funding that gives money to research into the prevailing “paradigm of doom”. Rebels who challenge prevailing orthodoxies are often proved right, he adds.”

    Ah! Now I understand. Your science is great, but all the other little scientists can’t be convinced by your rotten writting skills.

  • ***There’s a listing of selected publications on his webpage***
    Mike

    It seems rather odd that the anti-warming fanatic’s most recent works were published in 2001—five years ago. Resting on his laurels, perhaps? Doesn’t get out much, maybe? Pat Michaels is a shill, and a doofus. I gues that would make him a “shoofus.” Maybe a “dill.” He does seem somewhat “pickled….”

  • I like this book the best.

    Michaels, P.J., and R.C. Balling, Jr. 2000. The Satanic Gases. Cato Books, Washington DC. 234 pp.

    Satanic Gasses? Do a lot of serious scientists include religious verbiage in the titles of their books?

    What is next “Jesus would have driven a Hummer”?

  • OK One more then I have to stop. Iquickly read one of Dr. Coal’s papers on the website of teh journal that published it.

    http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/17/c017p045.pdf

    Here is the point – in the 20th century there have been three basic trends in average temperatures. 1900-1940 the temps increased. 1940-1970 the pemps decreased and 1970- 1998 temps increased again. They go throough great effort (it may even be scientific) to show that the last period of warming was due to higher low temperatires (it does not get as cold) as opposed to higher high temperatures. OK fine.

    They conclude that since the low temperatures are warmer and the highs are the same that the climate is actually becoming more moderate (less temperature fluxuation).

    Here is their last sentence “Prognostications of dire consequences built upon model projections of a climate change dominated by increasing high temperatures should be reassessed based upon a growing body of evidence to the contrary.”

    So their study shows a never before measured change in our climate (higher lows as opposed to higher highs) and their conclusion is stop telling us the sky is falling.

    I have never read a scientific paper that suggested everyone stop “prognosticating dire consequences”.

    Again, this is bull-$hit.

    I’ll stop now…

  • There’s lots of air pollution. There are different kinds of pollution. This creates a balancing act. Particulate pollution that gets carried into the upper atmosphere will help cool things down. I believe the SO4 pollutants do the same. Greenhouse gases help warm things up. Guess which one we’ve been more successful at reducing in the last few decades.

  • Hey – all the out of work ex-cigarette industry “scientists” need to earn a living to.

  • As a scientist and a self-described moderate in just about everything, I’m greatly disturbed by the rancor and vicious name-calling that is going on in this discussion. I appreciate that this Dr. Michaels is paid by the energy industry and that makes him suspect in the eyes of many (including me). He is both clearly right and wrong in his quote from Lance (#9). Rebels are the folks that get the Nobels or a place in the textbooks (Wegener and plate tectonics, Galileo and the heliocentric model). But “I am a rebel” is often the cry of the incompetent trying to get faulty science passed off as groundbreaking science (hydrinos, anyone?).

    As for the merits of his research, how many of us are Ph.D.s in climatology? I’m a Ph.D. in astrophysics. I understand many of the finer points of the climate debate, but I’m no expert on all the points of contention (air-ocean link, satellite measurement error analysis, heat island effect on temperature measurements, CO2 buffering by ocean and other sinks, etc). I see several trivial attacks on the title of his book and the age of his papers, but I don’t see anyone attacking his analyses on model uncertainties or other specific points in his papers. Why is that?

    Yes, the evidence for anthropic warming is clear now. The rest is details of intensity and who’s model is better. But do we need to sink to the right’s level of vitriol and childish name-calling? Why not pity or ignore the guy? It’s hardly his fault the media must have a “balanced” viewpoint. He, like everyone else, likes to see himself in the press and is trying to make a name for himself. Scientists have careers to make, too.

  • Aside from being bought and paid for, his list of publications seems rather lightweight and old. Holding him up against the unanimous opinion of the National Academy of Science seems generous to a fault.

  • I said I would quit but…I’m addicted

    Astrogeek –

    “I see several trivial attacks on the title of his book and the age of his papers, but I don’t see anyone attacking his analyses on model uncertainties or other specific points in his papers.”

    1) I am not a climatologist and I hold exactly zero Ph.Ds.
    2) 99% (exceptng Dr. Michaels) of Climatologist disagree with him
    3) He is the one publicly making claims that thisis not an issue
    4) I did question his conclusion and the tone of his article after reading it
    5) In my non Ph.D. experience, scientists rarely take political sides, they present facts
    6) Very few credible scientists use religious iconography in their publications
    7) He cannot be ignored because he is the source of the Republican argument that the scientific community is still engaged in debate about global warming. They will do nothing and use this guy as an excuse.
    8) He will not be pitied (by me at least) because he seems to have sold himself to the energy lobby and is happy to cooperate with political groups by providing science that supports their worldview.

    If you would like to wait I will apply to UW Madison and get my Ph.d. so I can come back with a detailed analysis of his papers.

    I call people names and attack them because I am sick and tired of their bullshit. Everyday they create reality and we swallow it. Progressives or liberals or even rational thinking people have sat by since the neo-cons took over and said “wait it out”, “be the bigger person”, “don’t sink to their level”. I have come to the conclusion that that plan sucks. When Dr. Michaels publishes a paper saying that his research concludes the Emperor has a new and different all-over tan and we should stop shouting that he has no clothers I will keep shouting that he has no clothes until the farse ends.

    I should have quit when I said I was going to.

  • I’m actually just about to receive my Ph.D. (in molecular biology) from UW-Madison. Please understand that there is no correlation between obtaining a Ph.D. at UW and becoming a global warming denier. Of course, that crap about HIV causing AIDS, well those damned, corrupt, mainstream, dogma-driven researchers are a disgrace!

  • “I call people names and attack them because I am sick and tired of their bullshit. Everyday they create reality and we swallow it. Progressives or liberals or even rational thinking people have sat by since the neo-cons took over and said “wait it out”, “be the bigger person”, “don’t sink to their level”. I have come to the conclusion that that plan sucks. ”

    Couldn’t have said it better myself, MNProgressive!!!

    And people wonder why I have become progressively more thin-skinned these past six years.

    “That plan” does indeed suck like a Hoover.

    Thanks!!

  • Astrogeek when a ‘scientist’ says he can’t submit to peer-review because all the other geeks laugh and call him a nerd I’m pretty sure he hasn’t really got a leg to stand on. Patrick Michaels is the nerd who work the jocks’ history homework for them and he hasn’t changed since.

  • Patrick Michaels is the nerd who did the frat boys’ science homework for them and he hasn’t changed since.

    I really should read my work closer.

  • Gotcha MNProgressive: You offer lotsa personal insults and no science beyond blind adherence to the party line. Very intelligent. Very progressive. How many ice cores have they taken in Pennsylvania, New York or Pittsburgh?

  • “How many ice cores have [they] taken in Pennsylvania, New York, or Pittsburgh?”

    Ice cores. In Pennsylvania, New York, or Pittsburgh. Very scientific.

    Someone really likes to talk out his ass.

  • So, MN, how much better do you feel that you have started calling people names? Has it done any good? Again, I am not apologizing for Dr. Michaels or anyone with delusions that the anthropic warming isn’t happening.

    First, I’m saddened to see on this forum the same type of infantile finger-pointing and name-calling that we’ve been decrying when it comes from Limbaugh, Malkin, Coulter, or any of the other wingnut windbags. (Has that been coined yet? I like alliteration.)

    Second, if Dr. Michaels is so full of sh*t, why not ignore his sorry ass. As Ed points out, he’s hardly a speck compared to the NAS. Why give him so much attention? As a grad student and then a professional heavily involved in public outreach, I’ve seen every flavor of weird or incoherent astronomy theory. They are a dime a dozen. Even in the professional realm there are too many blowhards. If their agenda isn’t rooted in politics, it’s rooted in their career-long adherence to their viewpoint on any given issue. Even big names in science have their heads up their asses about one thing or another. But they have a career built on that viewpoint, and dammit, they’re going to stick to their guns. If you think scientists aren’t human and don’t have the same failings, you are naive to a fault.

    Third, or second-and-a-half, if 99% of climate scientists have a stronger grip on the reality of climate research why isn’t the media out there interviewing them. Why aren’t we DEMANDING that the media interview them. If “we” are 50% of the U.S. voters, “we” should have some leverage on their coverage.

    It’s easy to rage against Dr. Michaels because he is a symptom. But this is really about (once again) the media doing a piss-poor job. That is harder to change. That requires that everyone right a letter to the editor of the AP, the manager at CNN, a reporter at the NY Times. That requires that scientists who are experts to speak up. That requires that people who are knowledgeable talk to friends and neighbors who aren’t. That requires that we elect people with science training to enact science policy. That requires work. A lot of it. So we should get started…

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