On the first-year anniversary of the BP oil spill catastrophe, students at Swarthmore College nonviolently protested at a lecture by energy industry-sponsored climate scientist Dr. Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute. After the lecture two students from Swarthmore Students for Scientific Industrial Progress (SSSIP) – a group that formed to address the troubling connections between fake climate science, corporate profits, and climate injustice – awarded him a certificate of excellence in corporate climatology, applauding his continued information laundering on behalf of dirty energy interests. As they report about their conversation with him, Michaels agreed that Americans will believe anything that a man in a suit says. At no point did he realize that he had been punked.
During the lecture preceding the humorous award, student protestors held up signs detailing Michaels’ vested financial ties to giant corporations like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. The sign-holders’ hands were stained an oily black as a reminder of the continuing effects of the BP oil spill. Audience members pressed him with difficult questions. When one asked “How can we even have an honest conversation when we don’t know how you’re being paid?,” Michaels responded “I don’t discuss personal matters in public.”
Dr. Patrick Michaels is one of the most quoted and recognizable climate change skeptics out there today, and a self-proclaimed ‘lukewarmer.’ As one of the few skeptics with any relevant scientific credentials, Michaels has received much attention from the US media for his criticisms of climate change. He is currently a fellow at the Cato Institute, which has ties to Koch Industries—an oil and chemicals company that last year spent more than $8 million in support of the oil and gas industry, and continues to be a major lobbying force for the fossil fuel industry. The Cato Institute was founded with a $500,000 donation from Koch Industries’ CEO Charles Koch. Fellow CEO David Koch sits on Cato’s Board of Directors. Cato also receives funding from the American Petroleum Institute, which represents over 400 oil companies. In 2006, Michaels himself received $100,000 from the coal-fired power production company Intermountain Rural Electric Association, to make the public case against climate change. Michaels’ industry-sponsored manipulation of pseudo-science has been revealed to be a conflict-of-interest sham that directly fuels corporate profit and climate injustice.
Uh oh. The evil CATO Institute. As opposed to the NASA, IPCC, et al groups who refuse to divulge data, have been caught lying, and who (like Professor Mann) aren’t even qualified as climatologists?
How much warming REALLY happened in the past decade? 0.7? 0.1? 0.3? Depends on who you ask and what “model” they used. Since they can’t even predict next week’s weather and have continually been completely wrong and off base with their models of catastrophic warming…
I highly doubt a couple of teenagers with a Kick Me sign are going to swing the debate.
lmao. Spot on Aaron. It’s no wonder the ‘climate hysterics’ are not taken seriously being intellectually dishonest and resorting to 3rd grade pranks.
Seeing how unsubstantiated claims are cause for a post to be removed, is the OP going to be removed?
There are lots more April 20th actions against fossil fuels (and mining) posted on here –
http://www.extractionaction.net/
Rising Tide circulated a call to action for that day. Here’s a March version of the call-out –
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2011/03/21/groups-to-mark-gulf-oil-spill-anniversary-with-direct-action-against-fossil-fuel-extraction/
This is so hypocritical.
1) no funding goes to those wanting to research the natural forcings behind warming. Governments only fund alarmists.
2) the IPCC has been caught for fraud and NASA faking temperature data
3) most skeptic scientists don’t receive oil money – all alarmists government money
4) the IPCC has not gone through proper peer review and does not allow skeptics into the organization
This article documents [some] of the bias:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/08/m-climate_science_and_corruption.html