The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) recently published a flashy headline that reads,
’900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism Of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm’. The article links to a blog post on
Populartechnology.net listing more than 900 papers which, according to the GWPF, refute “concern relating to a negative environmental or socio-economic effect of AGW, usually exaggerated as catastrophic.”
The “900+ papers” list is supposed to somehow prove that a score of scientists reject the scientific consensus on climate change. One might be persuaded by the big numbers. We’re not.
Oh, where to begin? First, a note of caution about the
Global Warming Policy Foundation. It’s a UK group opposing climate change action.
Sourcewatch’s digging reveals links to right-wing libertarian climate change deniers. According to the
UK Charity Commission, GWPF’s mandate is to “advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken or proposed to be taken in response to it”. Actually, they’re a heck of a lot more interested in sowing seeds of doubt than in disseminating knowledge. The GWPF’s director is the
Heartland Institute’s*
Benny Peiser, climate change denier extraordinaire. Other notable members include Canada’s
Ross McKitrick of the
Fraser Institute.
Curiously, the GWPF was launched just as the
Climategate emails were released. An op-ed by Chairma
n Nigel Lawson announced the GWPF, predicted the (hopeful) failure of the Copenhagen climate talks, and
called for an inquiry into the content of the stolen emails.
Using a screen-scraping process to analyze the data on the “900+” list, the folks over at
Carbon Brief dug up some pretty incriminating information. Turns out nine of the ten most cited authors on the list (representing 186 of the 938 papers) have links to ExonMobil-funded organizations. The tenth has co-authored several papers with Exxon-funded contributors. Anyone familiar with these kinds of lists (“
More than 500 scientists dispute global warming” or “
more Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”) knows that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Many familiar climate skeptic names appear over and over again.
http://www.desmogblog.com/fossil-fools-fund-latest-petition