Only now it seems to be everyone telling porkies...

Remember there are short term peaks and troughs in global temperatures but a long term trend in Global Warming. So there will be downturns in the short run in temperature, but in the long run there is an increase in temperature. This is similar to the 'seas are cooling argument' you put forward earlier.

I'd agree with you - it was a story that he told well. And his audience loved it. Shame he didn't tell the truth . . .

I don't understand why people take him seriously. This is the guy who thinks he won the Falklands war on his own and that people with aids should be isolated from the rest of society.

He basically a political lobbyist, not a scientist.

In 1992 the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a report called Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking.

This concerned the world's biggest tobacco firm, Philip Morris who engaged a PR company called APCO to deal with the matter. Ellen Merlo, Philip Morris' chief executive officer and president stated her intentions as:

"Our over-riding objective is to discredit the EPA report . . . our objective to prevent state and cities, as well as businesses, from passive-smoking bans

APCO proposed the creation of "a national coalition that would educate the media, public officials and teh public about the dangers of 'junk science'. Coalition will address credibility of government's scientific studies, risk assessment techniques and misuse of tax dollars"

The upshot of this is they set up The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC). To ensure that this group wasn't seen by the public as an obvious pro-tobacco organisation, they proposed a number of things

• APCO would set up TASSC, with no direct links to tobacco companies, who would direct their funding via APCO
• To maintain the appearance of a grassroots movement they would hire a diverse range of commentators from around the country and not set themselves up in Washington DC as an obvious lobby group
• Expand their remit to include other areas of concern to other major companies so that TASSC didn't just commentate on the scientific studies on cigarette smoking

For the third point, they contacted Exxon, who were getting concerned about Global warming and the increase in attention climate change was getting.

TASCC or Exxon, directly fund such persons as Steve Milloy of www.junkscience.com and CSRwatch.com. Milloy also owns the Free Enterprise Education Insitute and the Free Enterprise Action Group. Another key recipient of money is the George C Marshall Institute.

all paraphrased from Heat

And he compares AIDS suffers with TB sufferers, saying things like 'TB sufferers get isolated so AIDS should to'

completely forgetting that TB is a serious air-born infection, so isolation works. AIDS is a syndrome that is suffered by people with HIV. HIV needs a fairly high level of bodily fluids have to be exchanged before infection can take place. Therefore prophylactics are required rather than isolation (are you listening Ratzinger?)


Remember the mosquito scare with HIV? And then it turns out that a mosquito cannot carry enough blood containing HIV to infect another person.

Yes, there are forces politically and financially motivated in both camps. But to my mind this simply does not discredit either as this is principally how our economies and political systems function.

I feel its all a little academic anyway. Global consensus on the issue cannot be reached. Unilateral meaningful CO2 reductions by countries such as Australia is financial and, rapidly becoming, political suicide.

And that's the point. He can argue well and has brought a lot of attention onto the subject. Job well done for him, even if you don't support his views.

No one knows...only the Earth Knows.

God help us.

Probably unlikely although divine intervention would be nice given the mess we're in.

Hi Iolande, I think we are at cross purposes here, probably my fault for not fully explaining my post.

I fully agree with your comment about short term peaks and troughs in global temperatures, and of course the current snowstorms are an example of this.

However, as I was trying to point out, the great unwashed public hears scientists telling them the world is warming, whilst once again they are warned to stay indoors because of snowstorms – this time the biggest on record for Washington DC.

My point related to public perceptions and loss of confidence in AGW based upon their own observations. It is not scientific, however the public vote the governments into power.

Sadly Iolande, I also remember the criminal misuse of statistics by governments in the early days of HIV/AIDS.

From that report:

Recoverable economic demonstrated resources (EDR) for 2008 was 37.2 Gigatonne (Gt)
The resource life of the accessible EDR of 32.2 Gt is about 490 years

You may well be right, there may have been some hype, or maybe my memory fails –I did say it was from memory.


Either way its a hell of a lot of energy sitting there, at a time when people keep saying non renewable energy will run out soon.....

Hi Iolande,

My “Economist” comment was in response to the Pavlov dog like response from AGW proponents who reply whenever anyone who disagrees with AGW is quoted:

“Ding” but s/he is not a climatologist is s/he?

That argument doesn’t hold water when the head of the IPCC isn’t a climatologist either.

I would also point out (as someone with a postgraduate diploma in economics) that economists tend to deal with abstract theories that never run to fruition, and cannot be tested. Even worse, many economic theories are diametrically opposed to each other.

There is also an unfortunate close relationship between politics and economics. I remember arguing vehemently in class about the pitfalls of open trade barriers. My argument was based upon common sense, whereas the lecturer was more interested in politics. (this was the same reason I dropped out of my PhD)

In my opinion economists couldn’t be trusted to measure the temperature of the Sunday roast in the oven.