Joshua
“I would be against any sophisticated campaign aimed at misleading the public.”
Are you therefore opposed to the propaganda machine called The Centrr for American Progress?
Richard
Comment on RICO! by richardswarthout
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Comment on RICO! by Craig Loehle
A great example of the “investigating nothing” is the Wisconsin John Doe investigation, in which people’s homes were stormed, jobs lost, legal bills piled up, and nothing whatsoever found, and no one indicted. While I agree that there is nothing to investigate, the mere threat of such investigation can ruin people.
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Comment on RICO! by curryja
One of the signatories, Barry Klinger has posted on why he signed this
http://mason.gmu.edu/~bklinger/rico.html
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Comment on RICO! by Joseph
Do we think that climate change is settled science? Should climate contrarians have free speech?
First question: no. Second question: yes.
I think there are many open questions regarding global warming. See A Skeptics Guide to Global Warming for a discussion of “settled science.” In general, scientists, policy experts, and interested citizens should be free to say whatever they want, even if they disagree with me and even if they disagree with most scientists in their field.
A RICO suit like the one we propose would be very narrowly focussed on whether companies were engaged in fraud in order to continue selling a product which threatens to do harm. I’m not a legal expert, but I think that anyone not selling a product or service can not be punished for fraud, so the vast majority of people opining on climate are not even theoretically threatened by such a case. Even for an oil company, the standard for finding fraud is quite high. According to the RICO judgement against the tobacco companies:
I think this part clarifies a lot for me. If fossil fuel companies are knowingly funding misinformation to enhance their profits like tobacco companies did then they should be punished. I think it would be difficult to prove the knowing part, but I am not sure why someone could disagree with punishing them if it could be proven.
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Comment on RICO! by Richard Drake
Broad overview against premature despair, thanks Matthew.
I came back to this thread because of an respected developer friend on Twitter who I first got to know on Ward Cunningham’s original wiki in 1999. Jason I’ve noticed tends to retweet such stuff with approval, like many of his programmer peers (and younger ones, as harkin1 alludes to). This is the first time I’ve tried to have a go back with Jason.
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Comment on Heterodox Academy by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Tony, your statement that Obama lived under British colonial rule is not true. Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii, and his mother took him to the US almost immediately. His parents divorced in 1964, although his father returned to Kenya for a while from 1964, Obama never lived there. And it became independent in 1963, when Obama was 2-y-o.
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Comment on Heterodox Academy by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Tony, in his letter, Obama is referring to his father as having been “born under British Colonial Rule.”
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Comment on Week in review – science edition by Joseph
I think it would be odd if someone said the sun didn’t have an effect on the climate.
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Comment on RICO! by jim2
So has Barry Klinger stopped driving, using about half his electricity, and flying to meetings and conventions? Does he eschew any product made or transported with fossil fuels? I’m bettin’ we’re dealing with a first class hypocrite here.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by jim2
Here’s a jewel of a statement (and I thought bureaucrats knew how to plan for EVERY jot and tittle!!)
“You’ve got a set of unintended consequences that weren’t planned for,” said Richard F. Hohlt, a Republican donor and Washington lobbyist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/us/new-party-rules-fail-to-speed-up-republican-race.html
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Comment on RICO! by Brandon S? (@Corpus_no_Logos)
Barry Klinger's explanation seems to miss a serious problem with his idea. He says:
<blockquote>I sympathize with the fear that the legal system could be inappropriately applied to squelching the free speech of scientists. I would strongly oppose a widening of the scope to anyone unrelated to the efforts of a company selling a product (for which there is a lot of case law about commercial exceptions to free speech). </blockquote>
But the phrase "anyone unrelated to the efforts of a company selling a product" is necessarily incredibly vague. If you give an invited presentation to a group of people and have your travel expenses reimbursed by a company, are you "unrelated to the efforts of" that company? What about the fact the work Klinger relies upon to claim there's this vast conspiracy to deny global warming lists climate blogs like Climate Audit in that conspiracy? Should Steve McIntyre be investigated? He's even had travel expenses paid by companies before. I'm sure some of those companies are "selling doubt" or whatever other nonsense Klinger wants prosecuted. Ironically, he says:
<blockquote>However, I don't recall climate contrarians coming to the defense of Michael Mann when he was subject to <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/protecting-scientists-harassment/va-ag-timeline.html#.Vf2Hcpf7FuN" rel="nofollow">ideologically-based legal harrassment</a> from then-Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli as well as from Republicans in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/climategate-hoax-gop-open_n_369849.html" rel="nofollow">Congress</a>. Apparently there are some who believe it is the return of the Inquisition to investigate a giant corporation but a good deed to investigate an individual scientist. </blockquote>
I don't know about "climate contrarians" as a whole, but McIntyre actually opposed Cuccinelli's actions. And for any others, I suspect if there was a difference in behavior, it was due to the fact there is clear and indisputable Michael Mann has committed fraud, so it's hard to get worked up about him being "harassed."
Though it's quite remarkable Klinger thinks that last link shows harassment against Mann. It doesn't even show Mann was targeted for anything, as it refers to actions taken toward scientists in general. But even if we ignore the fact Klinger apparently didn't bother to read the link he cites, the actual case he refers to is a bad one. The only reason Mann was targeted by Congress is he had refused to share data and code for his work which was made the poster image of the global warming movement. If he had acted like a scientist and shown his work, or if he had simply not used his role as an IPCC Lead Author to help make that work internationally famous, he would never have wound up in front of Congress.
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Comment on RICO! by genesdoc
Indeed, this seems a slimy group. IGES? An organization to funnel money to Shukla’s family?
At least Barry Klinger has had some regrets:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~bklinger/rico.html
Of course he’s on the IGES payroll, too. Maybe not for long…
Learn to stay out of this kind of advocacy crap, Barry. You just destroyed your reputation over a nonsensical note based on hideously biased and inaccurate historical research (Oresekes).
No student should join Barry’s graduate program: They are guaranteed a biased education tainted by conflict of interest and nepotism.
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Comment on RICO! by stevenreincarnated
From Judith’s link:
“What do we want to do to climate contrarians?
No one is trying to throw anyone in jail. If I understand the case correctly, the final outcome of the judgement against tobacco companies was to order them to stop denying known harms of smoking and to publicize the falsity of their fraudulent statements. I expect that a case against fossil fuel companies, if it ever did prove fraud, would result in a similar judgement.”
What is he talking about? I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial where an oil company was claiming co2 didn’t cause global warming. I remember seeing a few that were kowtowing to the climate alarmists by talking about how company actions were helping to fight global warming. Is saying you are helping to combat something now subliminal messaging to the public in order to make them not believe it? Do I need a tin foil hat to understand the real message of those commercials or just a tin foil hat to see the right ones? Maybe what he is really talking about is he doesn’t like science funded that doesn’t agree with his biases. Isn’t that sad.
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Comment on RICO! by willard (@nevaudit)
> Profits on derivatives are taxed.
Profits only, Don Don, not the transaction itself, unlike other usual types of transaction like hiring Joe Plumber as a plumber or as an actor for a plumber role to sell populist crap.
This also means, among other things, that a realization must occur. Now, even you can imagine four ways to make sure this realization remains impossible before breakfast.
Ever heard of the Pay It Forward movement? No, that’s not the same. But you get the drift, right?
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Comment on Week in review – science edition by popesclimatetheory
All real scientists are skeptics.
No census people are real scientists.
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Comment on Week in review – science edition by popesclimatetheory
the natural hypothesis need to show how Anthro is ruled OUT
No! The natural cycle shows how the Anthro is not significant.
Anthro is likely there, but it is so tiny that it does not show up in the data enough to exceed the errors in natural cycles.
The alarmists must show how it can be ruled IN without cheating.
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Comment on RICO! by justinwonder
From the IGES website:
IGES Personnel:
President Shukla, Jagadish
Business Manager Shukla, Anastasia
Assistant Business Manager Shukla, Sonia
Director, COLA Kinter, James
Assistant to the President Shukla, Sonia
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Comment on RICO! by justinwonder
As my Irish ma would say, “it’s the kettle calling the pot black arse”.
The joint IGES/COLA “climate dynamics” program has both Shukla and Klinger on the staff. I guess we should always follow the money…
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Comment on Week in review – science edition by AUIP (@AUIPConservatve)
Exactly what Professor Ian Plimer says.
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Comment on Week in review – science edition by Perfect Sunday | The Lukewarmer's Way
[…] even better when I can start the day off with a new post from Steve McIntyre, Judith Curry’s Week In Review and some true nonsense from the Konsensus Krazies to keep the blood flowing. Evil Eli Rabett is busy […]
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