Who's paying for McIntyre's attack on Hockey Stick?

Thu, 2009-10-08 16:35Richard Littlemore
Richard Littlemore's picture

Who's paying for McIntyre's attack on Hockey Stick?

In the Canadian tradition, it would be "unparliamentary" to accuse ClimateAudit's Steve McIntyre of purposefully misrepresenting climate science, but his latest attack on the so-called "hockey stick" suggests that McIntyre is a great deal more interested in scoring distorted debating points than in saying anything that is actually factually correct.


In response to the M&M attack, Mann published an amendment to his original work, giving deniers the world over the courage to say that the original graph had been "debunked." They then extrapolated to say that if there was an error in this single graph, that must mean that climate change wasn't happening or wasn't caused by humans - that the whole anthropogenic theory had collapsed in the math of a single published paper. Here is a recent and typically ridiculous example.




So, what was the point, exactly, of McIntyre's intervention? He doesn't seem to be particularly committed to advancing science, or you would think that he would be offering his work up for peer-review and publishing. He certainly isn't dedicated to advancing public understanding of climate change, or he would have admitted long before now that, with or without Briffa's Yamal data, there are a host of other hockey stick graphs, based on a huge variety of other source materials, all of which confirm the obvious - that global average temperatures have spiked in the last century and are currently breaking records that have stood for 1,000 years.


That being his goal, his right on his game. The title ClimateAudit, however, makes me wonder if there is another other motive in McIntyre's madness. What would we learn if we could get our hands on a McIntyreAudit? Who's paying for this strategic, if not always careful, number crunching?

C'mon Steve, fess up.





You blog lies!!

Try Wegman's report first


Followed by the what the experts actually said for newbies:





Take some pride in Canada for gosh sakes!

Clutch those pearls! McIntyre should be sued for libel.

A little light-hearted humour is exactly what DSB needs! Keep it up. You're hilarious!

But seriously, Ed (may I call you Ed?) if I were you I wouldn't go around calling other posters here "newbies" who haven't done their reading. You are on extremely thin ice there. Just about as thin as what we can expect this winter in the arctic, I'd say . . .

Femack, lets assume your allegations about funding are correct. What about all the funding your side gets? Oh it's all okay its all wonderful! Thin winter in the artic Femack? Femack apparently you haven't been watching the artic because it's gaining ice you idiot. Your side is losing so badly, prove me wrong please. Who is making agreements to cap emissions? Where are the wind powered cars?


You are pretty quick to call people idiots. Offhead I'd say you are two or three epithets from being blocked. But I digress. Here is the URL for the National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html

Run along now and inform yourself.

Oh, and BTW, it's arCtic, not "artic"

Now Fern, there you go getting all fussy about spelling again. This preoccupation with accuracy seems to invade every part of your life: accurate science; accurate spelling - next thing we know you'll be demanding that people give you correct change at the bank.

Accuracy of spelling is fine as long as she doesn't start whacking me with a ruler or something. That's my fear with Fern.

Yes, I wear my snow-white hair in a bun and my glasses on the end of my nose, ruler at the ready! All right, mea culpa -- call it a pet peeve. Precision in language is important. The more we generalize and euphamize, the less we understand each other. And that is dangerous.


No whacking with rulers, I promise. Keep an open mind, Rick. That's the best strategy.

and the dollars take care of themselves . . .

I also have a T-shirt that says: Is "anal retentive hyphenated?"

Uh, that analogy has to do with saving money, not disseminating a massive propaganda campaign on the public. (Which by the way, can't be done on less then a penny a person per year.)

Well, according to even yourself if Exxon is spending pennies per person per year and there is a significant percentage of skepticism about climate change amongst the public as the polls you cite say there is, then it's obviously working. You can't have it both ways.

But then that wouldn't be the first time your argument contradicted itself.

If I go outside and see a lot of umbrellas, it doesn't mean the umbrellas caused it to rain Peter. You misunderstand correlation and causation badly.



No, it means people believe it's raining. So what's your point? What do correlation and causation have to do with anything being said here. So skepticism does not arise out of reading or thinking about the issue? And people are impervious to the discourse that happens around them? Beliefs and attitudes simply appear out of nowhere?




skepticism isn't always right but it does naturally exist.

Smoking for example: you see people of all ages walking around smoking and they don't appear to be in worse shape than average, you hear about some smoker living to 106 and some other old smoker who has never been sick and you start thinking maybe it's not so bad.

Still on average smokers get sick and die earlier.

Something like that could happen with climate: The weather is cold, the storms are the same as always and some of the trees are even turning faster than they used to in the fall - plus it's snowing somewhere and a lot of places had a cool summer or something.

so, yes skepticism arises without money. That doesn't necessarily make it right.

Except the skepticism that uses the same arguments and talking points doesn't arise without money. It comes from a source.


Skepticism exists because the cost of action is so draconian. And it is because so few AGW advocates practise what they preach and because so many of the public's questions have not been answered, that Copenhagen will not succeed.


post not ending up where I place it.


People can be skeptical on their own, there is no doubt. They can make up their own minds after researching the evidence. But when some people's opinions tend to mirror the rhetoric and talking points of the funded deniers, there is an obvious connection. It's not a coincidence. Just look at EdB's posts. Unquestionably the funded skepticism works on some people.


When have climate scientists ever been able to predict the earth's temperature a 100 years in advance? Do they have a track record for this kind of thing?



I see Climate Audit has a tip jar with a suggested 20.00 donation so I guess he's being funded by whoever clicks on it. Maybe someone from Exxon keeps the tip jar full. I wouldn't be surprised. Free enterprising, I suppose. Nice gig if you can get it. Plus he's got adsense, whatever that's worth.



Desmog is really all about quiet corporate funding of AGW critics, so it's always going to be about money and where it comes from. Maybe McIntyre has motivations that aren't all about money. I don't know. But I think it's only reasonable to wonder.

There is actually amost no corporate funding of AGW skeptics. Exxon's one penny per person per year is less then peanuts. Governments and green groups far outspend any corporation on green propaganda.



You always seem to pop up when this issue arises, ready to repeat (yet again) your pennies point. I suggest you read Climate Cover-up, where you will find (carefully cited & sourced) the record of money spent by the fossil fuel industry to buy lobbyists, support think tanks, target journalists etc etc. -- putting their money to use where they will get the biggest bang for their buck. Any company that advertises their product to the public spends only pennies per person. Your argument is silly. The operative word in the term Mass Media is "Mass". You get to cover a lot of ground with a tiny investment per capita.

Go back to sleep Paul. We'll wake you up when/if you become relevant.

Refer me to something in the peer-reviewed literature FEMACK, since warmies aren't supposed to believe anything unless it has been peer reviewed. Anyone can put citations into something. But if they're all from other paranoid warmies, they don't mean anything.


A "tiny investment" of less then one penny per person per year gets you exactly nothing. So instead of continuing to spread your urban green myth around, try a more factual argument.


Less than 1 cent, per person, per year in the US VJ. Exxon has managed a massive propaganda campaign on such a miserly amount? It can't be done. Sorry, failing grade for you. ;)

9/11 cost Al Qaida well below a million dollar. Several hundreds of billions of dollars later, and we still haven't been able to control Afghanistan. A miserly amount, when targeted well, can go much further than a lot of money targeted broadly.

Uh, no Marco. Spending less then a penny per person per year is insufficient for propaganda. Can't be done.

And yet it's being done, everyday, as reported on Desmog Blog.


Repeating "Exxon bad" over and over doesn't make it so. The whole Proganda with A Penny idea is one that only rabid greens believe. The Canadian public doesn't buy into that tale at all.


Here is the in-house story.



to join up the dots, Paul.


Nope, can't be done Richard. Especially when a single organization like Greepeace spends more on illegal activities in a week.

And your source for this lie?

Greenpeace's budget is in the open. The complete Greenpeace organisation, all over the world, has a net income of about 150 million euros. It spends about 130 million a year on campaigns in many different fields. That's far less than a penny per person!

Uh, I would check your math Marco.




LOL...that's right. Unfortunately all those hippy warm naked bodies could melt the glaciers.

Man, these reply window boxes are getting narrower and narrower.

Goverments spend enormous sums indoctrinating our kids and Canada's kids about AGW. But the parents still don't buy it. At least, not enough for the govt to impose draconian actions.

When will you?


Compare that not only to the 3 million (well, probably much much more) Exxon spends almost exclusively in the US, but also on the money various astroturf organisations receive from several other organisations. Oh yes, Exxon isn't the only one spending dollars on getting organisations to act on their behalf...


I KNOW the number (it's in the annual report), so I bet you 1000 dollar you are wrong.


We're waiting for your evidence.






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