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I never implied you had anything to do with Exxon. I'm not getting paid anything, by anybody, to talk about global warming. I have no conflicts of interest w.r.

by leot 15y ago

I never implied you had anything to do with Exxon. I'm not getting paid anything, by anybody, to talk about global warming. I have no conflicts of interest w.r.t. climate science. Are you suggesting that climate science is more remunerative than the fossil fuel industry? I'd wager that the top two or three oil execs make more than every climate scientist in the whole world, combined. > There's nothing significant against Exxon at that Web site, certainly nothing like your "organized disinformation campaign". Huh? So, what does qualify as an organized disinformation campaign? I mean, did you actually look at the website? http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php We know: a) Exxon, and many other companies besides, makes less money if cap-and-trade is instituted or a carbon tax levied. These are multi-billion dollar industries that can afford to throw employees and tons of money at their problems. b) Exxon has given lots of money to think-tanks that spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about climate science. See the URL above. c) FUD works. It's cheap and doesn't need to be true. Witness how effective creationists have been in getting the media and schools to present "both sides". It has delayed action on things like tobacco use, acid rain, and ozone depletion. e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt Scientists don't want catastrophic climate change -- lots study it because they're genuinely worried about the planet and their kids' future. Many feel that, if climate change is real, it's their ethical duty to make sure that people in power know this. And media organizations would rather cover celebrities and sex scandals. The fact that there is a media narrative about some story doesn't imply that the narrative is the cause of the story's coverage in the first place. If you're so sure of yourself, though, perhaps you should engage people that know far more than me? Go propose edits to the Global warming article on Wikipedia -- they have extensive archives of debate that form the basis for the article's content. I would be surprised if much of what you have said hasn't already been directly and more thoroughly addressed. All this said, though, perhaps the bigger question is: what would convince you that global warming is a big problem and that it's being caused by people?

NY_USA_Hacker 15y ago
Again, I saw nothing at your URL negative about Exxon. Your claim that three energy industry executives make more money than all the climate science research is likely false: A research grant in science to a research professor goes for about $500,000 a year. The university grabs about 60% for 'overhead' (help support the English department, etc.). The rest covers or helps cover the prof, travel, photocopying, lab equipment, grad students, etc. Add up 100 such profs and have $50 million a year. But nearly all the Fortune 500 CEOs are just hired managers and, surprisingly, are not so well paid if only because typically they don't last more then 5 years as CEO. So, maybe they make $10 million a year, for a few years; then they don't go start again in the mail room and, instead, just retire. After the taxes, considering how few years they were CEO and long they might continue to live, a guy who owns, say, 10 McDonald's can do better if only because he can keep his business for decades. So, for your three CEOs you are up to maybe $30 million which is less than the $50 million for the profs. Sure, a given CEO might some year cash in some stock options and make $50 million, but that's a one-time thing. Instead of such salaries, the big bucks are from owning something not worth much and then making it valuable. Why? Because only a tiny fraction of the people can evaluate the tree that might grow from a seed or help such a seed grow to a tree. E.g., relevant here on HN, there's hardly a single venture partner anywhere in the US who will even try to evaluate the chances of a particular project becoming another Google. Instead, for any investment amount enough to support a few people for a few years, say, over $1 million, they will invest in something simple such as 'traction' and do so on the basis if the track record of 'traction'. For 'another Google', they will be happy if it happened but will make no effort toward that goal. So, entrepreneurs such as discussed on HN some hedge fund managers, especially J. Simons, can make much more. On all of Wall Street, there is exactly one person who understands what Renaissance Technologies does and has good reason to know why it makes money: Simons. Period. But, that some oil company executives are making money says nothing about global warming or really that Exxon is funding FUD. A lot of the global warming hysteria is from stimulating the desire of people to have a religion. With the major organized religions in decline, Communism, global warming, etc. can find some fertile ground. There is also general paranoia such as made the morality plays popular going way back in the history of 'story telling'. "All this said, though, perhaps the bigger question is: what would convince you that global warming is a big problem and that it's being caused by people?" Right, that's the bigger question. The answer is simple and the same for global warming, climate change, dying of anthrax, having Yellowstone blow again and put a layer of ash 10 feet thick over much of the US, have the earth hit by an asteroid, etc. Same for all of them: Look for good data and good arguments, especially good science. E.g., for the asteroids, yes, the various belts of asteroids are unstable so at any time a bump can cause an asteroid to leave the belt and head for earth. Right. So, for a fairly good first cut, dangerous asteroids will arrive like a Poisson process. But we have a very good estimate of the arrival time: The rate is less than once per 65 million years. So, for the next few years, the probability is tiny. And that's why I don't worry about asteroids. For anthrax, we have good public health data and we understand anthrax. So, for my life in the burbs, no worries, mate. Etc. For global warming and climate change, the data is total BS, and the science is worse. So, flush it. No worries, mate. Easy enough. Done. For you, again, relax.
- leot 15y ago
  Prefacing everything with "good" makes it easy to dismiss whatever you want. Greater specificity is likely necessary here, assuming objectivity is the goal. Anyhow, I don't know why you would put a prof's compensation at $500k because you're including all the people s/he pays, and then not do the same for the executive. As for CEOs of the biggest oil firms: ExxonMobil: CEO:~$30 million http://people.forbes.com/profile/rex-w-tillerson/31576 http://people.forbes.com/profile/rex-w-tillerson/31576 Some other guy: $13.5 million http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=XOM&officerId=945160 http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=... Chevron: ~$16 million http://people.forbes.com/profile/john-s-watson/18163 http://people.forbes.com/profile/john-s-watson/18163 So, say $60 million -- and that's just three dudes. They're earning the equivalent of 500 climate scientists compensated at $120k/year. Say, what do you figure the probability is that you're wrong?
  - NY_USA_Hacker 15y ago
    Some qualification such as "good" is just crucial. Similarly for 'significant'. Otherwise, light a match and warm the planet. Warm it? Sure. Significantly? No. For global warming data, there's all sorts of crapola, fixed up with Finkel's Fudge Factor, smoothed, filtered, collected from unspecified places by unclear means, etc. E.g., there is tree ring data which is very crude and next to useless for discussing global warming. For the $500 K per year per prof in field and experimental science, that's not their "compensation". The $120 K a year you mentioned is closer. My $10 million was within the ballpark, within a factor of only 2 from the data you found. Next, the CEO salaries have nothing to do with global warming or climate change. An great example of bad data is Al Guru's movie. Again, he blew the Vostok ice core data and neglected to note that the CO2 increases were hundreds of years after the temperature increases. So, clearly CO2 did not cause the temperature increases. Al Guru's pictures of polar bears and glaciers are meaningless and not "good" data. Similarly for his observation of snows on Kilimanjaro. So, Guru wanted to bring in lots of anecdotal this and that instead of what is clearly the crucial measure for global warming -- temperature, just temperature. The bad data and analysis goes on and on. Guru is trying to make money (he has), be famous (he is), and push his favorite project, scaring people about global warming. It's likely a religious thing with him, considering his background. Whatever his motives are, his evidence and arguments are BS. For the IPCC, it's really no better. 'Radiative forcing' is total made up crack pot BS. Really the IPCC is about getting 'carbon credit' transfer payments from wealthy countries to poor ones. Yet the global warming people want us to go to electric power at the plant from about 2 cents per KWH to about 50 cents, convert to electric cars for which there are no feasible batteries for how the vast majority of cars are used, even to convert long haul trucks to batteries which is absurd, and on and on. It's the same as the Mayan priests killing people to pour their blood on rocks to keep the sun moving across the sky. Just what is it about total BS crapola you find so attractive? Dump it. Flush it. F'get about it.
glenra 15y ago
Let's pick just one of those links from your ExxonSecrets page - Cato Institute. Here's the page: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21 http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21 It lists a "key quote" and a "quote". Do you disagree with either? Here they are: "No known mechanism can stop global warming in the near term. International agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, would have no detectable effect on average temperature within any reasonable policy time frame of 50 years or so, even with full compliance." Source: Chapter 47 of the Cato Handbook for Congress, 107 Congress -and- In response to the World Watch Report in May 2003 that linked climate change and severe weather events: "It's false. There is absolutely no evidence that extreme weather events are on the increase. None. The argument that more and more dollar damages accrue is a reflection of the greater amount of wealth we've created." - Jerry Taylor Source: "Enviro Trends: Poor to Bear Brunt of Climate Change" If you think those quotes are FUD or "disinformation", please make your case. They seem pretty sensible to me. The first quote is inarguably true - people who favored Kyoto seemed not to care that it would make no difference in the warming trend, it had symbolic value. It was regarded even by its advocates as "a first step" that might possibly at some point in the future lead to further changes that did help. The second quote is roughly true as well though it would be easier to find people who disagree. If you cherry pick you can of course find specific areas where some variety of weather seems to be getting "more extreme" over various timeframes, but more inclusive studies don't find much of a trend. And in particular, the study he claims is bogus because it's based on dollar value of damage probably is indeed bogus for that reason.
- leot 15y ago
  For me, at least, it's a matter of volume-within-the-public-sphere. Oil and business lobby groups are undoubtedly better organized and better funded than most everyone else. I think the purpose of the quotes is not to demonstrate that the organizations are FUD-dispersers, but that they're all pushing the same message: be skeptical about what you hear about global warming. I'm sure PR people have tons of nice ways of framing what it is that Exxon is doing (I mean, why shouldn't ExxonMobil have the right to advocate for its own interests, right?) FUD is less effective if it's obvious, and it's in every anti-CO2-regulation think-tank's interest to appear as objective as possible, and make it look they're reasonable people who just might have come down on the other side, but, goshdarnit, they just came to a different conclusion because that was the best one any objective rational observer could come to. Also, the Cato institute seems to have more integrity among the libertarian-leaning groups, at least in my eyes, so it's not surprising that at least they would be more measured. But while were here, let's look at some other recipients, though: "Cooler heads coalition" deeds: Held a congressional and media briefing entitled "Impacts of Global Warming: Why the Alarmist View is Wrong". Speakers presented arguments against claims that global warming will cause increases in extreme weather events, sea level rise, vector-borne diseases, and species extinction. Source: Cooler Heads Coalition website 5/04 CEI: 'Published article named "Liberal 'Scientists' Lead Jihad Against Global-Warming Skeptics" No mention of 'jihad' anywhere within the article itself, and no explanation for the reference to a connection between the scientists and jihad in the title of the article. It seems to be a cheap attempt at sensationalism and hate mongering by trying to connect global warming scientists to terrorism.' Source: CEI website, 5/07" ... and 'Warning that the $125 million film fails to employ sound science to back up its depictions, the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute has sent reporters a listing of global-warming skeptics who can be counted on to dispute the film's premise. Source: "Disaster Flick Unleashes a Blizzard of Spin," Scripps Howard News, May 14 2004' Heritage Foundation: "[C]alls to drastically reduce emissions in sulfur dioxide (SOx), nitrogen oxide (NOx), mercury, and carbon dioxide would jeopardize U.S. energy and national security. ...The Bush administration and Congress need to steadfastly resist alarmist calls to drastically reduce carbon dioxide, a clear, odorless gas and a fundamental nutrient of the planetary food chain. Curbing carbon dioxide would cause a major change in the electricity-generation fuel mix and would adversely affect the nation's energy supply and economic strength." ... I'd say much of this counts as FUD, wouldn't you? And there looks to be about 150 of such organizations, with employees working all day, every day, to make sure that their organization continues to receive funding from businesses to whom a carbon tax is a major threat.

by leot 15y ago

NY_USA_Hacker 15y ago

Again, I saw nothing at your URL negative about Exxon. Your claim that three energy industry executives make more money than all the climate science research is likely false: A research grant in science to a research professor goes for about $500,000 a year. The university grabs about 60% for 'overhead' (help support the English department, etc.). The rest covers or helps cover the prof, travel, photocopying, lab equipment, grad students, etc. Add up 100 such profs and have $50 million a year. But nearly all the Fortune 500 CEOs are just hired managers and, surprisingly, are not so well paid if only because typically they don't last more then 5 years as CEO. So, maybe they make $10 million a year, for a few years; then they don't go start again in the mail room and, instead, just retire. After the taxes, considering how few years they were CEO and long they might continue to live, a guy who owns, say, 10 McDonald's can do better if only because he can keep his business for decades. So, for your three CEOs you are up to maybe $30 million which is less than the $50 million for the profs. Sure, a given CEO might some year cash in some stock options and make $50 million, but that's a one-time thing. Instead of such salaries, the big bucks are from owning something not worth much and then making it valuable. Why? Because only a tiny fraction of the people can evaluate the tree that might grow from a seed or help such a seed grow to a tree. E.g., relevant here on HN, there's hardly a single venture partner anywhere in the US who will even try to evaluate the chances of a particular project becoming another Google. Instead, for any investment amount enough to support a few people for a few years, say, over $1 million, they will invest in something simple such as 'traction' and do so on the basis if the track record of 'traction'. For 'another Google', they will be happy if it happened but will make no effort toward that goal. So, entrepreneurs such as discussed on HN some hedge fund managers, especially J. Simons, can make much more. On all of Wall Street, there is exactly one person who understands what Renaissance Technologies does and has good reason to know why it makes money: Simons. Period. But, that some oil company executives are making money says nothing about global warming or really that Exxon is funding FUD. A lot of the global warming hysteria is from stimulating the desire of people to have a religion. With the major organized religions in decline, Communism, global warming, etc. can find some fertile ground. There is also general paranoia such as made the morality plays popular going way back in the history of 'story telling'. "All this said, though, perhaps the bigger question is: what would convince you that global warming is a big problem and that it's being caused by people?" Right, that's the bigger question. The answer is simple and the same for global warming, climate change, dying of anthrax, having Yellowstone blow again and put a layer of ash 10 feet thick over much of the US, have the earth hit by an asteroid, etc. Same for all of them: Look for good data and good arguments, especially good science. E.g., for the asteroids, yes, the various belts of asteroids are unstable so at any time a bump can cause an asteroid to leave the belt and head for earth. Right. So, for a fairly good first cut, dangerous asteroids will arrive like a Poisson process. But we have a very good estimate of the arrival time: The rate is less than once per 65 million years. So, for the next few years, the probability is tiny. And that's why I don't worry about asteroids. For anthrax, we have good public health data and we understand anthrax. So, for my life in the burbs, no worries, mate. Etc. For global warming and climate change, the data is total BS, and the science is worse. So, flush it. No worries, mate. Easy enough. Done. For you, again, relax.

leot 15y ago
Prefacing everything with "good" makes it easy to dismiss whatever you want. Greater specificity is likely necessary here, assuming objectivity is the goal. Anyhow, I don't know why you would put a prof's compensation at $500k because you're including all the people s/he pays, and then not do the same for the executive. As for CEOs of the biggest oil firms: ExxonMobil: CEO:~$30 million http://people.forbes.com/profile/rex-w-tillerson/31576 http://people.forbes.com/profile/rex-w-tillerson/31576 Some other guy: $13.5 million http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=XOM&officerId=945160 http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=... Chevron: ~$16 million http://people.forbes.com/profile/john-s-watson/18163 http://people.forbes.com/profile/john-s-watson/18163 So, say $60 million -- and that's just three dudes. They're earning the equivalent of 500 climate scientists compensated at $120k/year. Say, what do you figure the probability is that you're wrong?
- NY_USA_Hacker 15y ago
  Some qualification such as "good" is just crucial. Similarly for 'significant'. Otherwise, light a match and warm the planet. Warm it? Sure. Significantly? No. For global warming data, there's all sorts of crapola, fixed up with Finkel's Fudge Factor, smoothed, filtered, collected from unspecified places by unclear means, etc. E.g., there is tree ring data which is very crude and next to useless for discussing global warming. For the $500 K per year per prof in field and experimental science, that's not their "compensation". The $120 K a year you mentioned is closer. My $10 million was within the ballpark, within a factor of only 2 from the data you found. Next, the CEO salaries have nothing to do with global warming or climate change. An great example of bad data is Al Guru's movie. Again, he blew the Vostok ice core data and neglected to note that the CO2 increases were hundreds of years after the temperature increases. So, clearly CO2 did not cause the temperature increases. Al Guru's pictures of polar bears and glaciers are meaningless and not "good" data. Similarly for his observation of snows on Kilimanjaro. So, Guru wanted to bring in lots of anecdotal this and that instead of what is clearly the crucial measure for global warming -- temperature, just temperature. The bad data and analysis goes on and on. Guru is trying to make money (he has), be famous (he is), and push his favorite project, scaring people about global warming. It's likely a religious thing with him, considering his background. Whatever his motives are, his evidence and arguments are BS. For the IPCC, it's really no better. 'Radiative forcing' is total made up crack pot BS. Really the IPCC is about getting 'carbon credit' transfer payments from wealthy countries to poor ones. Yet the global warming people want us to go to electric power at the plant from about 2 cents per KWH to about 50 cents, convert to electric cars for which there are no feasible batteries for how the vast majority of cars are used, even to convert long haul trucks to batteries which is absurd, and on and on. It's the same as the Mayan priests killing people to pour their blood on rocks to keep the sun moving across the sky. Just what is it about total BS crapola you find so attractive? Dump it. Flush it. F'get about it.

glenra 15y ago

Let's pick just one of those links from your ExxonSecrets page - Cato Institute. Here's the page: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21 http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21 It lists a "key quote" and a "quote". Do you disagree with either? Here they are: "No known mechanism can stop global warming in the near term. International agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, would have no detectable effect on average temperature within any reasonable policy time frame of 50 years or so, even with full compliance." Source: Chapter 47 of the Cato Handbook for Congress, 107 Congress -and- In response to the World Watch Report in May 2003 that linked climate change and severe weather events: "It's false. There is absolutely no evidence that extreme weather events are on the increase. None. The argument that more and more dollar damages accrue is a reflection of the greater amount of wealth we've created." - Jerry Taylor Source: "Enviro Trends: Poor to Bear Brunt of Climate Change" If you think those quotes are FUD or "disinformation", please make your case. They seem pretty sensible to me. The first quote is inarguably true - people who favored Kyoto seemed not to care that it would make no difference in the warming trend, it had symbolic value. It was regarded even by its advocates as "a first step" that might possibly at some point in the future lead to further changes that did help. The second quote is roughly true as well though it would be easier to find people who disagree. If you cherry pick you can of course find specific areas where some variety of weather seems to be getting "more extreme" over various timeframes, but more inclusive studies don't find much of a trend. And in particular, the study he claims is bogus because it's based on dollar value of damage probably is indeed bogus for that reason.

leot 15y ago
For me, at least, it's a matter of volume-within-the-public-sphere. Oil and business lobby groups are undoubtedly better organized and better funded than most everyone else. I think the purpose of the quotes is not to demonstrate that the organizations are FUD-dispersers, but that they're all pushing the same message: be skeptical about what you hear about global warming. I'm sure PR people have tons of nice ways of framing what it is that Exxon is doing (I mean, why shouldn't ExxonMobil have the right to advocate for its own interests, right?) FUD is less effective if it's obvious, and it's in every anti-CO2-regulation think-tank's interest to appear as objective as possible, and make it look they're reasonable people who just might have come down on the other side, but, goshdarnit, they just came to a different conclusion because that was the best one any objective rational observer could come to. Also, the Cato institute seems to have more integrity among the libertarian-leaning groups, at least in my eyes, so it's not surprising that at least they would be more measured. But while were here, let's look at some other recipients, though: "Cooler heads coalition" deeds: Held a congressional and media briefing entitled "Impacts of Global Warming: Why the Alarmist View is Wrong". Speakers presented arguments against claims that global warming will cause increases in extreme weather events, sea level rise, vector-borne diseases, and species extinction. Source: Cooler Heads Coalition website 5/04 CEI: 'Published article named "Liberal 'Scientists' Lead Jihad Against Global-Warming Skeptics" No mention of 'jihad' anywhere within the article itself, and no explanation for the reference to a connection between the scientists and jihad in the title of the article. It seems to be a cheap attempt at sensationalism and hate mongering by trying to connect global warming scientists to terrorism.' Source: CEI website, 5/07" ... and 'Warning that the $125 million film fails to employ sound science to back up its depictions, the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute has sent reporters a listing of global-warming skeptics who can be counted on to dispute the film's premise. Source: "Disaster Flick Unleashes a Blizzard of Spin," Scripps Howard News, May 14 2004' Heritage Foundation: "[C]alls to drastically reduce emissions in sulfur dioxide (SOx), nitrogen oxide (NOx), mercury, and carbon dioxide would jeopardize U.S. energy and national security. ...The Bush administration and Congress need to steadfastly resist alarmist calls to drastically reduce carbon dioxide, a clear, odorless gas and a fundamental nutrient of the planetary food chain. Curbing carbon dioxide would cause a major change in the electricity-generation fuel mix and would adversely affect the nation's energy supply and economic strength." ... I'd say much of this counts as FUD, wouldn't you? And there looks to be about 150 of such organizations, with employees working all day, every day, to make sure that their organization continues to receive funding from businesses to whom a carbon tax is a major threat.