Rebuttal to "The 30,000 Global Warming Petition Is Easily-Debunked Propaganda"

Kevin Grandia, the operations manager of the alarmist smear site DeSmogBlog, an Al Gore disciple and holds a degree in Psychology. DeSmogBlog is funded by public relations man, James Hogan and John Lefebvre who was found guilty of money laundering in 2008. The following is a complete rebuttal to his "The 30,000 Global Warming Petition Is Easily-Debunked Propaganda" article challenging the petition of 31,487 scientists who reject global warming alarm.


1. Grandia lies that only .1% of signers have a background in Climatology. What apparently Grandia does not know is that very few scientists have an actual degree in climatology and the petition is simply counting the number of degrees each scientist has. Climate science is a field that includes scientists with varied credentials not explicitly "climatology". Some of the most prominent alarmist scientists do not have a degree in climatology,

Gavin Schmidt, Ph.D. Applied Mathematics (NASA GISS, RealClimate)
James Hansen, Ph.D. Physics (NASA GISS)
James Lovelock, Ph.D. Medicine
Joe Romm, Ph.D. Physics (Climate Progress)
John Holden, Ph.D. Theoretical Plasma Physics
Joshua B. Halpern, Ph.D. Physics (Rabett Run)
Kerry Emanuel, Ph.D. Meteorology
Kevin Trenberth, Sc.D. Meteorology
Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D. Geological Science
Michael Mann, Ph.D. Geology (RealClimate)
Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D. Chemical Physics
Naomi Oreskes, Ph.D. History of Science
Rajendra Pachauri, Ph.D. Industrial Engineering (IPCC Chairman, 2007-Present)
Richard Alley, Ph.D. Geology
Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D. Meteorology
Robert Watson, Ph.D. Chemistry (IPCC Chairman, 1997-2002)
Stefan Rahmstorf, Ph.D. Oceanography
Steven Schneider, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics (Died: July 19, 2010)
Susan Solomon, Ph.D. Chemistry
Tom Chalko, Ph.D. Laser Holography


2. Grandia complains about the inclusion of those in the medical science field on a petition about global warming alarm, failing to note that the global warming debate includes topics these scientists are experts in; such as disease, temperature related deaths and human well being.


3. Grandia uses the tired smear of cherry picking insignificant oil company donations to independent think tanks like the George C. Marshall institute while completely ignoring the funding sources for climate change research.


4. Grandia attempts to smear the credentials of Dr. Frederick Seitz. The truth is Dr. Seitz was always a reputable scientist and his credentials are impeccable,

Frederick Seitz, A.B. Mathematics, Stanford University (1932), Ph.D. Physics, Princeton University (1934), Proctor Fellow, Princeton University (1934–1935), Instructor in Physics, University of Rochester (1935–1936), Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Rochester (1936–1937), Research Physicist, General Electric Company (1937–1939), Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania (1939–1941), Associate Professor of Physics, University of Pennsylvania (1941-1942), Professor of Physics, Carnegie Institute of Technology (1942-1949), Research Professor of Physics, University of Illinois (1949-1965), Chairman, American Institute of Physics (1954-1960), President Emeritus, American Physical Society (1961), President Emeritus, National Academy of Sciences (1962-1969), Graduate College Dean, University of Illinois (1964-1965), President Emeritus, Rockefeller University (1968-1978), Franklin Medal (1965), American Institute of Physics Compton Medal (1970), National Medal of Science (1973), (Died: March 2, 2008)

His obvious credibility is likely why alarmists feel the need to desperately try and smear him. It is clear they cannot have someone with Dr. Seitz's impeccable credentials doubting their call for global warming alarm.


5. Grandia attempts to smear the late Dr. Seitz about his involvement with the tobacco industry. The truth is much different,

"To find out if the startling claim was true -- that Seitz "directed a 45M tobacco industry effort to hide health impacts of smoking" -- I called him at his apartment in Manhattan. Unless there is more to the story, the accusation appears to be a willful distortion, if not an outright lie.

"That's ridiculous, completely wrong," Seitz told me. "The money was all spent on basic science, medical science," he said.

According to Seitz, the CEO of RJ Reynolds -- the tobacco company -- was on the board of Rockefeller University while Seitz was a full-time employee there. "He was not a scientist," Seitz said of the executive, but he believed in supporting the University's dedication to basic research -- in a little over a century, Rockefeller University has had 23 Nobel Prize winners affiliated with it, in fields of medicine and chemistry. RJ Reynolds allocated $5 million a year to Seitz to direct basic research.

To figure out how to distribute the money, Seitz says he assembled some top folks in different fields of scientific research -- such as James Shannon, the director of the National Institutes of Health for 13 years, and Maclyn McCarty, the legendary geneticist -- to help direct the funds.

What kind of research did they support? Seitz mentioned the work of Stanley Prusiner, who won the Nobel prize for his research into prions (Prusiner even thanks Seitz and RJ Reynolds in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech which you can read here).

When I asked Seitz if he ever spent money to try to debunk a link between smoking and ill-health, he said no. When I asked him if he himself had ever denied a link between smoking and cancer, Seitz (who, remember, is almost 100 years old) again said no and told me "my father was a 19th century man, and even he told me from when I was young that there was a connection between smoking and cancer" and that "we often talked about the hazards of smoking." In other words, Seitz was aware of the ill-effects of smoking for a very long time, and has never tried to deny that."


6. Grandia lies that the original version of the petition's included scientific paper "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" was intended to look like it was from the NAS. This claim was refuted by Dr. Robinson,

"Robinson admits it is no coincidence that the article, which he designed on his computer, looks like one published by the academy. 'I used the Proceedings as a model.' he says, 'but only to put the information in a format that scientists like to read, not to fool people into thinking it is from a journal."

"The Malakoff Science article also includes a picture of the first page of our 8-page article. The photo clearly shows no journal name, no submission date, no submitting scientist (required by the Proceedings), and "January 1998'' printed in a format never used by a journal. The article is also twice as long as permitted in the Proceedings (in which I have published several papers) and has other textual and format differences that I introduced to make it easier to read. It actually never occurred to me that this format complaint would be made - probably because I actually expected more."

further refutation by Dr. Robinson,

"The review article sent with the petition could not possibly have been mistaken for a PNAS reprint. I have published many research papers in PNAS. I am very familiar with reprint formats.

The PNAS claim originated because Frederick Seitz - past president of the National Academy and past president of Rockefeller University signed a letter that was circulated with the petition. (Dr. Seitz, like everyone else who has actively opposed the "enviro warmers" has been smeared with many false claims.) Also, the first signers of the petition were several rather famous members of the National Academy."

The paper in question was later peer-reviewed and published,

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 13, Number 2, pp. 149–164, October 1999)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas, Arthur B. Robinson, Zachary W. Robinson


7. Grandia states that scientists were "duped" by a paper that explicitly said "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" and "The Marshall Institute" with no mention of any NAS journal? This does not speak highly to the competence of any scientist making this claim as they should not have been able to obtain their Ph.D. without knowing how to determine which journal a paper was published in. The fact that someone at the NAS felt it necessary to publish a news release with conspiratorial language such as "deliberate attempt", "mislead" and "undermine" only shows the politicization of science that is present there. A non-political statement would simply state that the petition was not from them.


8. Finally Grandia concludes with unverified allegations of petition name checking via Google searching. Apparently no attempt was made to contact the petition project to verify the names and since they are unable to find them, they conclude they must not exist! Based on this logic neither do I.


References:
Art Robinson Reponds to Petition Slander (Global Warming Debunking News and Views)
Blog Funder Guilty of Money-Laundering (The Heartland Institute, February 1, 2008)
Frederick Seitz 1911-2008 (University of Illinois, March 4, 2008)
Funding Flows for Climate Change Research and Related Activities (PDF) (The George C. Marshall Institute, February 2005)
Past NAS President Frederick Seitz Dies at 96 (National Academy of Sciences, March 7, 2008)
President Emeritus Frederick Seitz dies at 96 (Rockerfeller University, March 4, 2008)
Vanity Scare (TCS Daily, April 14, 2006)
Who is James Hoggan? (Financial Post, Canada, November 16, 2006)